good cop–bad cop
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Senses: examples: text: Even above the racket of the wheels, he could hear them sniggering at his fantasies of stardom, playing good cop–bad cop with his head.
ref: 1988, Time:
text: “My parents played ‘good cop–bad cop’ for three months when we were planning our wedding. One week my father would be upset that I was marrying a Jew and the next week it would be my mother,” said a Methodist woman whose mother had been trying to orchestrate her wedding from a distance of two thousand miles.
ref: 1989, Susan Weidman Schneider, Intermarriage: The Challenge of Living with Differences Between Christians and Jews, Free Press, →ISBN:
text: The PCF and CGT seemed to play good cop–bad cop with with^([sic]) the government—if the PCF’s coalition partners balked at the Communists’ policies, mass action by the CGT remained a trump card.
ref: 1991, Robert L. Frost, Alternating Currents: Nationalized Power in France, 1946–1970, page 49:
text: They played good cop–bad cop on him and it worked like a charm, Acuna threatened to throw the book at Archie. Rothmiller said maybe they could go easy if he would help them.
ref: 1992, Mike Rothmiller, L.A. Secret Police: Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network, Pocket Books, →ISBN:
text: If Bill Clinton uses Jimmy Carter to play good cop–bad cop with assorted dictators and manages to minimize bloodshed by doing so, what’s the problem with that?
ref: 1994, Time:
text: In regard to the nuclear proliferation problem, South Korea and the United States should work together, playing ‘good cop–bad cop’ roles.
ref: 1995, Glenn P. Hastedt, American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, Future, Dushkin Publishing Group, →ISBN:
text: Lester found the entire process hysterical, although he was less amused by the antics of the Danzigers, who played good cop–bad cop with him whenever money was mentioned.
ref: 1995, Andrew Yule, Richard Lester and the Beatles, Plume Books:
text: “I was saving you two in case we had to play good cop–bad cop. But I guess that wouldn’t work with this young woman. To her mind, it seems all cops are bad.”
ref: 1996, Carolyn Keene, A Question of Guilt, Pocket Books, →ISBN:
text: The two would play good cop–bad cop, with Mulvoy doling out annual raises to writers, and Carry giving them the often critical annual reviews.
ref: 1997, Michael MacCambridge, The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine, Hyperion, →ISBN:
text: “[…] We can play good cop–bad cop, is that the idea?” Hart grinned and said “You don’t qualify, Kid. You’re too nice a guy to play the bad cop.”
ref: 1999, D. V. Randall, Fair Exchange (The Politics of Government and Vice Versa):
text: On nearly every episode, the detectives win confidence, play good cop–bad cop, tell lies, and use a high-risk technique called “maximization-minimization.”
ref: 2000, Jim Dwyer, Peter J. Neufeld, Barry Scheck, Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted, Doubleday Books, →ISBN:
text: One of the detectives thought the woman looked like Janice Wylie and he and his colleagues, who played good cop–bad cop, hammered away at the bewildered Whitmore, who had an IQ of somewhere between 60 and 90.
ref: 2004, Arthur Gelb, City Room, Penguin, →ISBN:
text: Then, over a good lunch and some good wine, the two of them do something — maybe play good cop–bad cop, who knows ? — and get their way with the visiting economic minister, or whoever the visiting dignitary is.
ref: 2004, Ann Ripley, Death at the Spring Plant Sale: A Gardening Mystery, Thorndike Press, →ISBN:
text: The important thing is to not let them know that you are too interested. In fact, it works better if there are two of you to play good cop–bad cop—or, in this case, good shop–bad shop. For instance, you examine the item and get an initial price from the vendor. The bad cop friend says, “No way, man. You don’t really want that, and it’s waaaay too expensive.” The vendor jumps in and lowers the price. It’s very important at this point that you express genuine interest, that the vendor knows you will buy when you can agree on a price.
ref: 2005, Suzy Gershman, Suzy Gershman’s Born to Shop Hong Kong, Shanghai & Beijing: The Ultimate Guide for Travelers Who Love to Shop, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 213:
text: Interrogations would last four or five hours a day, and sometimes two Vietnamese would play good cop–bad cop. The bad cop was Lump, who would threaten and berate the prisoner. The good cop was nicknamed “Stag,” an acronym for Sharper than the Average Gook.
ref: 2005, James S. Hirsch, Two Souls Indivisible, HMH, →ISBN:
text: See, it was that old game, the good cop–bad cop game, with both roles being played by the same person. First the questions would be gentle, to get you softened up to be dumb enough to tell on yourself. Then the questions would change.
ref: 2006, K.C. Carceral, Prison, Inc: A Convict Exposes Life Inside a Private Prison, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 99:
text: With the Russians in particular, the president and vice president played good cop–bad cop. Obama publicly declared that he wanted to establish a new era of good feeling with the Kremlin while Biden reminded the Russians that Washington was watching their territorial ambitions and human-rights record.
ref: 2009, Newsweek:
text: When it was necessary, Michael and I played good cop–bad cop, keeping our interlocutors off balance by alternating roles, rather than the attentive daughter–neglectful son scenario, which is surely what they were used to, so they never knew which of us was going to charm and which of us snarl.
ref: 2011, Jane Gross, A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents--and Ourselves, Knopf, →ISBN, pages 190–191:
text: “You must think I’m a moron,” David said, remembering Detective McNally’s gray crew cut and the way he switched moods, playing good cop–bad cop all by himself.
ref: 2011, Peter Blauner, Man of the Hour: A Mystery, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
text: Second, the representative can play good cop–bad cop in order to manipulate concessions from other negotiators.
ref: 2012, Susan S. Raines, Conflict Management for Managers: Resolving Workplace, Client, and Policy Disputes, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
text: Negotiators may play “good cop–bad cop”; that is, one negotiator may quietly tell his or her opponent that his or her partner is intransigent and needs to be appeased by one more concession.
ref: 2014, Richard M. Steers, Luciara Nardon, Managing in the Global Economy, Routledge, →ISBN, page 257:
text: He plays good cop–bad cop as bad-cop with the lower-ranking samurai who does most of the talking.
ref: 2015, S.A. Thornton, The Japanese Period Film: A Critical Analysis, McFarland, →ISBN, page 191:
text: The two played good cop–bad cop, with the Putin-type playing the latter role.
ref: 2016, Conor O'Clery, May You Live in Interesting Times, Poolbeg Press Ltd:
text: If their team are all for the deal except for one person, who needs more convincing – are they playing good cop–bad cop or is it genuine?
ref: 2016, Simon Horton, The Leader’s Guide to Negotiation: How to Use Soft Skills to Get Hard Results, Pearson UK, →ISBN:
text: Bush and Sununu played good cop–bad cop, with Sununu clearly enjoying his role as the bad cop.
ref: 2017, Craig Shirley, Citizen Newt: The Making of a Reagan Conservative, Harper Collins, →ISBN, page 230:
text: Now, with Parolin calling the Irish vote a “disaster for humanity,” the U.S. National Catholic Reporter asked, “Are Francis and Parolin playing good cop–bad cop on same-sex marriage?”
ref: 2017, David Willey, The Promise of Francis: The Man, the Pope, and the Challenge of Change, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, pages 273–274:
text: When it’s time to play good cop–bad cop, guess who plays bad cop?
ref: 2017 April 12, Kenneth L. Fisher, The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!), John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
text: “As it is,” Andre said, “we’re pushing it. We need to come up with something else—and quickly. Tomorrow, we’ll take a crack at Nelson. It’s an easy way to play good cop–bad cop.” “Who is good—and who is bad?” Cheyenne asked, carefully setting her gun and holster on the bedside table and stripping off her cotton shirt.
ref: 2019, Heather Graham, The Stalking, MIRA, →ISBN:
text: As we covered in the last chapter, breaches of confidentiality can stop a sale dead in its tracks. To avoid this, our firm plays good cop–bad cop with buyers about confidentiality. The good cop nicely explains that breaching confidentiality is bad, because it will ruin the business they're buying before they’ve even bought it. The bad cop puts the fear of God into them, telling them that if they breach confidentiality, the seller could file a lawsuit against them, […]
ref: 2021, Michelle Seiler Tucker, Sharon Lechter, Exit Rich: The 6 P Method to Sell Your Business for Huge Profit, Greenleaf Book Group, →ISBN:
glosses: Alternative form of good cop bad cop.