The nomination of an impartial arbitrator reveals reciprocal coordination between conflicting parties

Evidence

There are, however, particular game situations that lend themselves to enforcible agreement. One is an agreement that depends on some kind of coordination or complementarity. If two people have disagreed on where to meet for dinner; if two criminal accomplices have disagreed on what joint alibi to give; or if members of a business firm or football team have disputed about what prices they will quote or what tactic they will follow, they nevertheless have an overriding interest in the ultimate consistency of their actions. Once agreement is formally reached, it constitutes the only possible focal point for the necessary subsequent tacit collaboration; no one has a unilateral preference now to do anything but what he is expected to do. In the absence of any other means of enforcement, then, parties might be well advised to try to find agreements that enjoy this property of interdependent expectations, even to the extent of importing into their agreement certain elements whose sole purpose is to create severe jeopardy for non-coordination. Tearing the treasure map in half or letting one partner carry the gun and the other the ammunition is a familiar example. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 312 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Recall the man who proposed the letter R in one of the bargaining games: as long as the partner heard—and it is obvious that he heard—the letter R is the only extant proposal, and, being unchallenged, it may coordinate in default of any counterproposal nearly as well as if it had been explicitly accepted. (Even denial of it by the other party might not manage to dislodge its claim to prominence but rather simply prove his awareness of it, as long as no rival claim was made that created ambiguousness.) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 201 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A non-partisan third either creates direct contact or arbitrates claims between colliding parties; Impartiality’s false symmetry neutralizes opposition and suppresses class content; Complementary agreements are self-enforcing through interdependence and focal points — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 312 (+2 more)

Related

• An unchallenged proposal coordinates action as well as an accepted one (similarity 0.83)
• Complementary agreements are self-enforcing through interdependence and focal points (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Impartiality’s false symmetry neutralizes opposition and suppresses class content #contradicts (0.82)
• Complementary agreements are self-enforcing through interdependence and focal points #complicates (0.75) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 312
• An unchallenged proposal coordinates action as well as an accepted one #corroborates (0.72) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 201