Negotiations operate within an environmental field that shapes participants’ strategic
position, as well as how they understand the issues under discussion. Negotiations also
have the capacity to solidify or disrupt established understandings and practices,
depending on whether they engage the systemic issues at play. However, these institutional
dynamics are often difficult to see and address at the level of the individual.
For these dynamics to be the focus of sustained attention, they first have to be made
explicit. This section briefly catalogues some of the institutionally rooted dynamics
predisposing the reproduction of inequality through negotiations.