Partners No More: Relational Transformation and the Turn to Litigation in Two Conservationist Organizations

The rise in litigation against administrative bodies by environmental and other political interest groups worldwide has been explained predominantly through the liberalization of standing doctrines. Under this explanation, termed here the floodgate model, restrictive standing rules have dammed the flow of suits that groups were otherwise ready and eager to pursue. I examine this hypothesis by analyzing processes of institutional transformation in two conservationist organizations: the Sierra Club in the United States and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI). Rather than an eagerness to embrace newly available litigation opportunities, as the floodgate model would predict, the groups\u27 history reveals a gradual process of transformation marked by internal, largely intergenerational divisions between those who abhorred conflict with state institutions and those who saw such conflict as not only appropriate but necessary to the mission of the group. Furthermore, in contrast to the pluralist interactions that the floodgate model imagines, both groups\u27 relations with pertinent agencies in earlier eras better accorded with the partnership-based corporatist paradigm. Sociolegal research has long indicated the importance of relational distance to the transformation of interpersonal disputes. I argue that, at the group level as well, the presence or absence of a (national) partnership-centered relationship determines propensities to bring political issues to court. As such, well beyond change in groups\u27 legal capacity and resources, current increases in levels of political litigation suggest more fundamental transformations in the structure and meaning of relations between citizen groups and the state

Action Programs for Water Yield Improvement on Arizona's Watersheds: Political Constrains to Implementation

From the Proceedings of the 1978 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Assn. and the Hydrology Section - Arizona Academy of Science - April 14-15, 1978, Flagstaff, ArizonaAlthough the Arizona Watershed Program 's (AWP) research efforts have had considerable success over the past 22 years in its objective to further knowledge of the feasibility of vegetative manipulation and modification as a method of increasing surface water yields, its principal sponsor and supporter, the Arizona Water Resources (AWRC), has not, to date, met with similar success. Described are three of the AWRC 's unsuccessful attempts to implement on-going action programs of vegetative management for water yield improvement: The Barr Report, the Ffolliott-Thorud Report, and the Globe Chaparral controversy, to illustrate how overstated program goals, unrealistic assumptions about the political feasibility of treatment types, extent, and intensity; failure to recognize the emergence of significant new decision-making participants, and unsettled questions concerning program costs and beneficiaries have contributed to setbacks in these programs. It is suggested that political as well as scientific constraints have accounted for reported failures in the implementation of the AWP action program objectives.This article is part of the Hydrology and Water Resources in Arizona and the Southwest collections. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science and the University of Arizona Libraries. For more information about items in this collection, contact [email protected]

Guidelines for improved institutional analysis in water resources planning.

Analysts should pay attention to 1) the actors and their stakes in the decision-making process; 2) the political and decision- making resources available; and 3) the biases of the alternative decision-making structures.

Guidelines for improved institutional analysis in water resources planning.

Analysts should pay attention to 1) the actors and their stakes in the decision-making process; 2) the political and decision- making resources available; and 3) the biases of the alternative decision-making structures.