Deliberative Democracy and Dispute Resolution

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Revenue Sharing and the Lessons of the New Federalism

The shift from categorical grants to general revenue sharing and block grants as the form of intergovernmental transfer represents an important turning point in the evolution of the American federal system. What factors account for this shift? WNhat forces propel such changes in the balance of power? And how will our intergovernmental system work when and if the New Federalism displaces the federal domestic aid strategy that has evolved over the past forty years

Water and democracy: new roles for civil society in water governance

In most democratic countries, government officials make water-allocation decisions. Citizens depend on these officials and their technical advisors to take account of both technical and political considerations in determining which water uses get priority, what infrastructure investments to make and what water quality standards to apply. In many parts of the world, water users and stakeholders have additional opportunities to comment on such decisions before they are implemented. Under some circumstances, citizens can challenge water management decisions in court. This is not enough. More direct democracy, involving stakeholders before such decisions are made, can produce fairer and increasingly sustainable results. The steps in collaborative adaptive management – a form of stakeholder engagement particularly appropriate to managing complex water networks – are described in this article along with the reasons that traditional forms of representative democracy are inadequate when it comes to water policy

Introduction & Coda, Multi-Party Dispute Resolution, Democracy and Decision Making: Vol. II of Complex Dispute Resolution

The Complex Dispute Resolution series collects essays on the development of foundational dispute resolution theory and practice and its application to increasingly more complex settings of conflicts in the world, including multi-party and multi-issue decision making, negotiations in political policy formation and governance, and international conflict resolution. Each volume contains an original introduction by the editor, which explores the key issues in the field. All three volumes feature essays which span an interdisciplinary range of fields, law, political science, game theory, decision science, economics, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and anthropology and consider issues in the uses of informal and private processes, as well as more formal and public processes. The essays question whether the development of universal theoretical insights about conflict resolution is possible with variable numbers of parties and issues and in multi-cultural and multi-jural settings. Each volume also presents a coda, summarizing key issues in the field and suggesting further avenues for research. The second volume (and the introductory essay here) applies the theoretical foundations and practices of primary processes in dispute resolution–negotiation, mediation, arbitration and some hybrid processes in both public and private, informal and formal settings to more complex multi-party and multi issue settings, and asks whether foundational theories must be altered when there are more parties and issues. What difference do larger numbers make in theory and practice of dispute resolution and decision making? Other theoretical and empirical observations of the role of third party neutrals and facilitators in multi-party settings are explored, and applied disciplines such as game theory and decision sciences are applied to complex dispute resolution settings. Illustrations of uses of these processes in different substantive areas, e.g. legal disputes, public policy decision making, politics and governance, environmental matters, institutional relations, and high conflict settings are provided. The volume collects classic articles in multi-party, multi-issue theory and practice while interrogating the issues of how the numbers of parties and issues, different contexts and cultures challenges our efforts to create generalizable theory and practice of human conflict resolution. The review essay also discusses recent efforts to seek correspondences and learning from application of conflict resolution theory and practice to the work on deliberative democracy and political decision making. The coda suggests avenues for future research. Some attention is paid to issues of ethics and political theory, as well as evaluation of efficacy, in the use of third party facilitators in public policy and governance disputes

Changing Perspectives on the Facility Siting Process

Building regionally necessary but locally noxious facilities such as power plants, landfills, waste incinerators and prisons has become increasingly difficult. David Laws and Lawrence Susskind discuss some of the traditional steps involved, including needs assessment, choice of technology, site selection, assessing and mitigating impacts, and management. They provide an alternative approach to facility siting that includes, among other things, seeking consensus, working to develop trust, setting realistic timetables, getting agreement that the status quo is unacceptable, choosing a design that best addresses the problem, and fully compensating for negative aspects of the facility

Environmental Conflict Resolution: Strategies for Environmental Grantmakers

Outlines the strategies that are employed with the use of ECR to promote collaborative problem solving and manage disputes related to the use and development of natural resources. Includes a description of ten case studies where ECR was used effectively