Even when “warring parties” know that eventually they will have to talk to one another so that there can be peace, it is extremely difficult to get them to “fast‐forward” to that moment. The reasons for this vary. Sometimes the parties think that “time is on their side”—that continuing the battle will benefit them. Other times, leaders worry how they will appear in the eyes of their own followers if they seem to have lost heart or are ready to give in. A third reason that parties may not initiate talks is their concern that a willingness to do so may lead the other side to assume that they are ready to give up. This article examines a new way of helping parties move forward in such situations using what is called “breakthrough collaboration,” an idea invented by the Consensus Building Institute. Breakthrough collaboration allows parties to take advantage of a critical moment to initiate preliminary trust‐building activities, share information and send messages through a neutral party, and engage in internal efforts that can make it easier to move toward joint problem‐solving. Such efforts can be triggered by a convener (who is not a party) and assisted by a mediator (who may not meet with the parties simultaneously). The goal is to do more than merely encourage dialogue. The hope is that an extended sequence of facilitated activities or events can lead to a shift in thinking on all sides. The key is to know when a critical moment creates an opportunity for breakthrough collaboration.

As governments have digitized their operations, they have opened themselves to cyberattacks, resulting in harmful disruptions to government services. The scholarly world has been slow to pick up on this growing risk. Professional associations have conducted studies of their own, and produced recommendations, but few scholars have looked closely at cybersecurity practices at the municipal level. The interconnectedness of local infrastructure—across and among agencies and levels of government—makes it hard to figure out what is happening. In this paper, we urge scholars from multiple disciplines to examine the dangers created by the cross-linkages that characterize local cybersecurity. We examine the existing academic research, and demonstrate the significant growth in cybersecurity practice that has cropped up in spite of the relative sparsity of academic work. Theory and practice need to catch up with each other.

Technical tools dominate the cyber risk management market. Social cybersecurity tools are severely underutilised in helping organisations defend themselves against cyberattacks. We investigate a class of non-technical risk mitigation strategies and tools that might be particularly effective in managing and mitigating the effects of certain cyberattacks. We call these social-science-grounded methods Defensive Social Engineering (DSE) tools. Through interviews with urban critical infrastructure operators and cross-case analysis, we devise a pre, mid and post cyber negotiation framework that could help organisations manage their cyber risks and bolster organisational cyber resilience, especially in the case of ransomware attacks. The cyber negotiation framework is grounded in both negotiation theory and practice. We apply our ideas, ex post, to past ransomware attacks that have wreaked havoc on urban critical infrastructure. By evaluating how to use negotiation strategies effectively (even if no negotiations ever take place), we hope to show how non-technical DSE tools can give defenders some leverage as they engage with cyber adversaries who often have little to lose.

This book introduces the concept of Water Diplomacy as a principled and pragmatic approach to problem-driven interdisciplinary collaboration, which has been developed as a response to pressing contemporary water challenges arising from the coupling of natural and human systems.

The findings of the book are the result of a decade-long interdisciplinary experiment in conceiving, developing, and implementing an interdisciplinary graduate program on Water Diplomacy at Tufts University, USA. This has led to the development of the Water Diplomacy Framework, a shared framework for understanding, diagnosing, and communicating about complex water issues across disciplinary boundaries. This framework clarifies important distinctions between water systems - simple, complicated, or complex - and the attributes that these distinctions imply for how these problems can be addressed. In this book, the focus is on complex water issues and how they require a problem-driven rather than a theory-driven approach to interdisciplinary collaboration. Moreover, it is argued that conception of interdisciplinarity needs to go beyond collaboration among experts, because complex water problems demand inclusive stakeholder engagement, such as in fact-value deliberation, joint fact finding, collective decision making, and adaptive management. Water professionals working in such environments need to operate with both principles and pragmatism in order to achieve actionable, sustainable, and equitable outcomes. This book explores these ideas in more detail and demonstrates their efficacy through a diverse range of case studies. Reflections on the program are also included, from conceptualization through implementation and evaluation.

This book offers critical lessons and case studies for researchers and practitioners working on complex water issues as well as important lessons for those looking to initiate, implement, or evaluate interdisciplinary programs to address other complex problems in any setting.

'Transboundary Water Management as a Complex Problem'seeks to understand transboundary water governance as complex systems with contingent conditions and possibilities. To address those conditions and leverage the possibilities it introduces the concept of enabling conditions as a pragmatic way to identify and act on the emergent possibilities to resolve transboundary water issues.

Based on this theoretical frame, the book applies ideas and tools from complexity science, contingency and enabling conditions to account for events in the formulation of treaties/agreements between disputing riparian states in river basins across the world (Indus, Jordan, Nile, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Colorado, Danube, Senegal and Zayandehrud). It also includes a section on scholars' reflections on the relevance and weakness of the theoretical framework.

The book goes beyond the conventional use of the terms 'complexity', 'contingency' and 'enabling conditions' and anchors them in their theoretical foundations. The argument distinguishes itself from the conventional meaning and usage of the terms of necessary and sufficient conditions in causal explanations. The book's focus is to identify conditions that set the stage to move from the world of seemingly infinite possibilities to actionable reality. Three enabling conditions - active recognition of interdependence, mutual value creation through negotiation and adaptive governance through learning - are identified and explored for their meaning and function in specific transboundary water disputes.

The great majority of startups fail, and most entrepreneurs who have succeeded have had to bounce back from serious mistakes. Entrepreneurs fumble key interactions because they don’t know how to handle the negotiation challenges that almost always arise. They mistakenly believe that deals are about money when they are much more complicated than that.

This book presents entrepreneurship as a series of interactions between founders, partners, potential partners, investors and others at various stages of the entrepreneurial process - from seed to exit. There are plenty of authors offering ‘tips’ on how to succeed as an entrepreneur, but no one else scrutinizes the negotiation mistakes that successful entrepreneurs talk about with the authors.

As Dinnar and Susskind show, learning to handle emotions, manage uncertainty, cope with technical complexity and build long-term relationships are equally or even more important. This book spotlights eight big mistakes that entrepreneurs often make and shows how most can be prevented with some forethought. It includes interviews with high-profile entrepreneurs about their own mistakes. It also covers gender biases, cultural challenges, and when to employ agents to negotiate on your behalf.

Aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs should pay attention to the negotiation errors that even the most successful entrepreneurs commonly make.

Short videos for teaching about five key concepts in negotiation and dispute resolution: the  mutual gains approach to negotiation, negotiating in teams, winning at win-win negotiation, multiparty negotiation and managing the tensions between the internal and external elements of a negotiation. All five ideas feature 6 - 8 minute presentations by MIT Professor Larry Susskind, Vice-Chair and Co-founder of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and Founder and Chief Knowledge Officer of the Consensus Building Institute. 

Full copies of these videos are avalaible from the Consensus Building Institute.

The Davidoff Tapes Project is an initiative of the MS in Urban Planning and Community Development, which seeks to address a significant gap in the contemporary urban planning literature related to the life and work of Paul Davidoff as a planning scholar, professional educator, planning practitioner, and Civil Rights activist.

Entrepreneurs, whose job is to transform ideas into new products or services for which there is a market, pride themselves on creating disruption and driving innovation. But they often fumble key interactions because they don't know how to handle the negotiation challenges that almost always arise.

Entrepreneurship typically entails a series of interactions between founders, partners, potential partners, investors, and others at various stages of the entrepreneurial process – from the “seed” stage when the business is just an idea to the “exit” stage when the entrepreneur sells or departs. We have scrutinized the full range of entrepreneurial negotiations seeking to identify the most common negotiation mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and in this article we describe eight of them. We discuss how they can learn to prevent these mistakes – especially through proper preparation – and which strategies they can deploy to overcome the mistakes they do make.

Every day in communities across America hundreds of committees, boards, church groups, and social clubs hold meetings where they spend their time engaged in shouting matches and acrimonious debate. Whether they are aware of it or not, the procedures that most such groups rely on to reach decisions were first laid out as Robert's Rules more than 150 years ago by an officer in the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers. Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting.

Breaking Robert's Rules clearly spells out how any group can work together effectively. After briefly explaining the problems created by Robert's Rules, the guide outlines the five key steps toward consensus building, and addresses the specific problems that often get in the way of a group's progress. Appendices include a basic one page "Handy Guide" that can be distributed at meetings and a case study demonstrating how the ideas presented in the book can also be applied in a corporate context.

Written in a non-technical and engaging style, and containing clear ideas and instructions that anyone can understand and use, this one-of-a-kind guide will prove an essential tool for any group desperate to find ways of making their meetings more effective. In addition, neighborhood associations, ad hoc committees, social clubs, and other informal groups lacking a clear hierarchy will find solid advice on how to move forward without resorting to "majority rules" or bickering over who will take leadership positions. Bound to become a classic, Breaking Robert's Rules will change the way you hold meetings forever, paving the way for efficiency, efficacy, and peaceful decision making.

Italian Language Second Edition

Het kan wel! draws from the rich practical experiences of Frans Evers with negotiations on Dutch spatial development projects using the Mutual Gains Approach (MGA) that Professor Lawrence Susskind, as Vice-Chair of inter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, has co-developed. 

The Mutual Gains Approach (also called a win-win approach) provides space for creative policy and decision making that takes into account all social interests. Stakeholders will be given the opportunity to bring forward their interests, ideas and objections from the very beginning. This process is designed in such a way that solutions are developed where each party benefits. The developments can be done quickly and with great support and do not bother with outsiders who use their obstacle to slow down. 

The book is based on Lawrence Susskind's Breaking Robert's Rules. The decision-making on major area development is based on twelve exemplary projects, ranging from the Second Maasvlakte and the layout of the area between Almere and Schiphol / Amsterdam to spatial developments in the Bulb region and the combination of nature and industry in Woensdrecht. 

In the fourth panel of presenters for the Finance, Geography and Sustainability Workshops, Elke Weber, Professor in Energy and the Environment and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor or Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT discuss how individuals construction and measure risks, and how an understanding of these feelings of risk can be applied to climate change decisions.

Professor Lawrence Susskind's first video in the DUSP Faculty Videos. In this video Larry talks about his academic interests spanning his 45 years at MIT. In addition, he describes the benefits and network EPP and DUSP offer to students at MIT.

Professor Lawrence Susskind's presentation on creating consensus on local climate risk management, drawn from Managaing Climate Risks in Coastal Communities and the research conducted for the New England Climate Adaptation Project.

The days of rationalist scientific management and deference to official data are behind us. The credibility of experts and the information they provide are regularly challenged; officials are routinely provided with conflicting sets of ‘facts’ as they plan and make decisions; and decision-makers and stakeholders alike are largely sceptical that technical information will adequately account for the various interests and concerns and lead to the right outcomes. Uncertainly around issues like climate change only complicates matters further, as scientists and technicians must increasingly acknowledge the uncertainty and potential fallibility of their findings.

This book examines how groups looking to plan and make decisions in any number of areas wade through the imperfect and often contradictory information they have to make fair, efficient, wise and well-informed choices. An emerging and very promising approach called joint fact-finding (JFF) can help. Rather than each stakeholder group marshalling the set of facts that best advance their respective interests and perspectives while discrediting the contradictory facts others provide, groups are challenged to collaboratively generate a shared set of facts that all parties accept. This book will introduce readers to the theory of JFF, the value it can provide, and how they can adopt this approach in practice. It will bring together writings from leading practitioners and scholars from around the world that are at the forefront of JFF approach to science intensive policy making, urban planning, and environmental dispute resolution. It will comprise of two parts: First, a set of chapters that outline the concept and practice of JFF; and second, a set of case-based chapters that elucidate how JFF is being applied in practice.

This book delivers a new perspective to scholars in the field of public policy, urban planning, environmental studies, and science and technology studies, as well as public officials, technical experts, policy consultants, and professional facilitators.

In order to effectively adapt to climate change, public officials and other stakeholders need to rapidly enhance their understanding of local risks and their ability to collaboratively and adaptively respond to them. We argue that science-based role-play simulation exercises — a type of 'serious game' involving face-to-face mock decision-making — have considerable potential as education and engagement tools for enhancing readiness to adapt. Prior research suggests role-play simulations and other serious games can foster public learning and encourage collective action in public policy-making contexts. However, the effectiveness of such exercises in the context of climate change adaptation education and engagement has heretofore been underexplored. We share results from two research projects that demonstrate the effectiveness of role-play simulations in cultivating climate change adaptation literacy, enhancing collaborative capacity and facilitating social learning. Based on our findings, we suggest such exercises should be more widely embraced as part of adaptation professionals' education and engagement toolkits.

Lawrence Susskind and Saleem Ali examine the challenges of environmental diplomacy. Despite the best intentions expressed by states pursuing environmental accords and agreements there has always been difficulty getting international actors to live up to commitments. The authors take up these difficulties, assessing the possibilities for environmental diplomacy going forward.

An increased focus on ‘policy literacy’ for climate scientists, parallel to ‘science literacy’ for the public, is a critical need in closing the science–society gap in addressing climate mitigation. We define policy literacy as the knowledge and understanding of societal and decision-making contexts required for conducting and communicating scientific research in ways that contribute to societal wellbeing. We argue that current graduate education for climate scientists falls short in providing policy literacy. We identify resources and propose approaches to remedy this, arguing that policy literacy education needs to be mainstreamed into climate science curricula. Based on our experience training science students in global environmental policy, we propose that policy literacy modules be developed for application in climate science curricula, including simulations, case studies, or hands-on policy experiences. The most effective policy literacy modules on climate change will be hands-on, comprehensive, and embedded into scientific education.

A seven-party role-play simulation involving a diverse set of stakeholders who must consider the short-term and long-term public health impacts of climate change while assessing the pros and cons of specific (and conflicting) risk management strategies.

Drawing on research from the New England Climate Adaptation Project, “Managing Climate Risks for Coastal Communities” introduces a framework for building local capacity to respond to climate change. The authors maintain that local climate adaptation efforts require collective commitments to risk management, but that many communities are not ready to take on the challenge and urgently need enhanced capacity to support climate adaptation planning. To this end, the book offers statistical assessments of one readiness enhancement strategy, using tailored role-play simulations as part of a broader engagement approach. It also introduces methods for forecasting local climate change risks, as well as for evaluating the social and political context in which collective action must take place. With extensive illustration and example engagement materials, this volume is tailored for use by researchers, policy makers and practitioners.

When it comes to conflicts over the allocation of freshwater supply, who bears the burden, at what cost, and at what scale are important questions. While science can contribute to resolution of certain water allocation disputes, more scientific certainty will not resolve most water allocation controversies. Water stress in Africa and in the Middle East—particularly in the Nile Basin—is likely to lead to a range of conflicts, not because there is not enough scientific information to go around, but for other reasons. Water stress is likely to emerge as an increasingly important concern because population growth, current allocation practices, unchecked demand, and underinvestment in infrastructure are not being appropriately addressed. An effective way to resolve water crisis is to reframe conflicting needs and uses of water as opportunities for joint decision-making about this shared resource. The authors use the Nile Basin to illustrate how such informal problem-solving and decision-making can be initiated.

The Arctic Fisheries Devising Seminar brought together 23 people from a wide variety of stakeholder groups to wrestle with these questions. Participants included high-level government policy-makers from various states, regions, and territories, namely Canada, the European Union (EU), the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States; experienced government scientists; key representatives from non-governmental organizations, scientific organizations, and industry; distinguished representatives from Arctic indigenous peoples; and highly regarded scholars and Arctic experts. Participants came with an extremely impressive set of credentials and affiliations. They were asked to engage on equal footing as individuals rather than in their official capacity, and to help generate ideas that would be acceptable to their own constituencies while concurrently addressing the concerns of other stakeholder groups. That is, they were invited to participate in an informal, off-the-record problem-solving exercise. To this end, no comments are attributed to individual participants, nor is anyone identified by name. Instead, this summary reports on the topics introduced, the good ideas that emerged, and points of convergence and divergence among the group.

The Program On Negotiation at Harvard Law School invited three members of its highly experienced negotiation faculty to share stories about how they have adapted their teaching strategies in various cross-cultural contexts.

International environmental agreements have increased exponentially within the last five decades. However, decisions on policies to address key issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, ozone depletion, hazardous waste transport and numerous other planetary challenges require individual countries to adhere to international norms. What have been the successes and failures in the environmental treaty-making arena? How has the role of civil society and scientific consensus contributed to this maturing process? Why have some treaties been more enforceable than others and which theories of international relations can further inform efforts in this regard? Addressing these questions with renewed emphasis on close case analysis makes this volume a timely and thorough postscript to the Rio-Plus 20 summit's celebrated invocation document, The Future We Want, towards sustainable development.

Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements provides an accessible narrative on understanding the geopolitics of negotiating international environmental agreements and clear guidance on improving the current system. In this book, authors Lawrence Susskind and Saleem Ali expertly observe international environmental negotiations to effectively inform the reader on the geopolitics of protecting our planet. This second edition offers an additional perspective from the Global South as well as providing a broader analysis of the role of science in environmental treaty-making. It provides a unique contribution as a panoramic analysis of the process of environmental treaty-making.

Two, separate, two-person, non-scorable negotiations: one between Technical Co-chairs from the Center for Disease Control and USAID; the other between a CDC Technical Co-Chair and the Minister of Health in the imaginary host country of Sabada.

In some Canadian provinces, they take what is called Judicial Dispute Resolution (JDR) very seriously. During designated periods each year, litigants can choose to have a judge help them settle their lawsuits in a confidential pre-trial conference.

The Program On Negotiation's Vice-Chair of Education, Professor Lawrence Susskind shares some valuable insights on his groundbreaking book, Breaking Robert's Rules.

The Program On Negotiation's Vice-Chair of Education, Professor Lawrence Susskind shares some valuable insights on facilitative leadership in Negotiation.

The Program On Negotiation's Vice-Chair of Education, Professor Lawrence Susskind shares some valuable insights on the process of Joint Fact Finding.

Seven-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among local government, community, business, and environmental representatives trying to reach agreement on a strategy for managing climate change risks in a medium-sized coastal community

Seven-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among local government, community, business, and environmental representatives trying to reach agreement on a strategy for managing climate change risks in a mid-size coastal city.

A New Focus on Adaptation following Hurricane Sandy There are quite a few people in New York and New Jersey who want the government to do something. They want to make sure that the horrendous effects of Hurricane Sandy are not repeated in the years ahead. In the Northeast, the unusual “superstorm” resulted in extensive property loss and more than 100 deaths. Current estimates are that the storm caused more than $60 billion in damage in New York and New Jersey alone. What are the things that local, state, and federal agencies can do to reduce the risks associated with destructive storms?

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.

Download a full copy here.

Sustainable development cannot be prescribed - rather, it results from conscious personal choices in government, business and NGOs. This thought-provoking book explores both the origins and future of the global sustainable development movement, and provides an original overview of the driving forces of sustainable development, including market forces and past and future trends.

Seven-party, seven-person, multi-issue negotiation game involving a dispute over inter-provincial water allocations. It explores issues of prediction and monitoring, water sharing, and the environmental adequacy of water flows.

In 1996, we published the book Dealing with an Angry Public. In it we raised concerns about the distrustful attitudes that citizens have toward government and corporations, and the inability of these institutions to respond to public concerns in a robust, inclusive, and effective way. We put forward six principles that might help win back the public’s trust. We expected that leaders and organizations that adopted these principles would be better off.

This article reviews conventional approaches to environmental policy evaluation, outlines their presumed relevance to policy making and implementation, and points out the main reasons why they have been subject to challenge. It contrasts the conventional approach to environmental policy evaluation—which presumes the identity of the policy analyst is unimportant—with the “collaborative approach,” which emphasizes the need to engage relevant stakeholders (i.e., the users of policy analyses and those affected by them) in the process of environmental policy evaluation. The article also describes the emergence of “adaptive” approaches to resource management and sustainable development, and explains why they represent an important shift away from emphasizing “success” and “failure” in environmental policy making and toward ongoing public learning for purposes of improvement.

Water is the resource that will determine the wealth, welfare, and stability of many countries in the twenty-first century. This book offers a new approach to managing water that will overcome the conflicts that emerge when the interactions among natural, societal, and political forces are overlooked. At the heart of these conflicts are complex water networks.

In managing them, science alone is insufficient and so is policy-making that doesn't take science into account. Solutions will only emerge if a negotiated or diplomatic approach that blends science, policy, and politics is used to manage water networks. The authors show how open and constantly changing water networks can be managed successfully using collaborative adaptive techniques to build informed agreements among disciplinary experts, water users with conflicting interests, and governmental bodies with countervailing claims.

Shafiqul Islam is an engineer with over twenty-five years of practical experience in addressing water issues. Lawrence Susskind is founder of MIT's Environmental Policy and Planning Program and a leader of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Together they have developed a text that is relevant for students and experienced professionals working in a variety of engineering, science, and applied social science fields. They show how new thinking about water conflict can replace the zero-sum battles that pit experts, politicians, and stakeholders against each other in counter-productive ways. Their volume not only presents the key elements of a theory of water diplomacy; it includes excerpts and commentary from more than two dozen seminal readings as well as practice exercises that challenge readers to apply what they have learned.

Every day in communities across America hundreds of committees, boards, church groups, and social clubs hold meetings where they spend their time engaged in shouting matches and acrimonious debate. Whether they are aware of it or not, the procedures that most such groups rely on to reach decisions were first laid out as Robert's Rules more than 150 years ago by an officer in the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers. Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting.

Breaking Robert's Rules clearly spells out how any group can work together effectively. After briefly explaining the problems created by Robert's Rules, the guide outlines the five key steps toward consensus building, and addresses the specific problems that often get in the way of a group's progress. Appendices include a basic one page "Handy Guide" that can be distributed at meetings and a case study demonstrating how the ideas presented in the book can also be applied in a corporate context.

Written in a non-technical and engaging style, and containing clear ideas and instructions that anyone can understand and use, this one-of-a-kind guide will prove an essential tool for any group desperate to find ways of making their meetings more effective. In addition, neighborhood associations, ad hoc committees, social clubs, and other informal groups lacking a clear hierarchy will find solid advice on how to move forward without resorting to "majority rules" or bickering over who will take leadership positions. Bound to become a classic, Breaking Robert's Rules will change the way you hold meetings forever, paving the way for efficiency, efficacy, and peaceful decision making.

Spanish Language Edition

Two, separate, two-person, non-scorable negotiations: one between Technical Co-chairs from the Center for Disease Control and USAID; the other between a CDC Technical Co-Chair and the Minister of Health in the imaginary host country of Sabada.

In the practice stories and commentaries that follow, good practice leads and inspires good theory. We will read about transportation planning and environmental management, about community involvement and multi-stakeholder negotiations, and throughout about deftly bringing technical expertise into play to inform creative proposals while working within specified budget constraints. We will read about early and even virtual negotiations among building users to inform architects' design choices and their more or less productive professional roles too. And there's much more

This is a segment taken from the Program on Negotiation's "Negotiation Pedagogy Video Series, Part Two." In this video, MIT Professor Lawrence Susskind uses the case "Teflex Products" to teach an Executive Education Seminar about how to deal with an angry public.

This is a seven-party, integrative negotiation between stakeholders in a city over how to implement housing retrofits to enhance resilience to extreme heat in the aftermath of deadly heat waves attributed to climate change.

The Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (AMP) has been identified as a model for natural resource management. We challenge that assertion, citing the lack of progress toward a long-term management plan for the dam, sustained extra-programmatic conflict, and a downriver ecology that is still in jeopardy, despite over ten years of meetings and an expensive research program. We have examined the primary and secondary sources available on the AMP’s design and operation in light of best practices identified in the literature on adaptive management and collaborative decision-making. We have identified six shortcomings: (1) an inadequate approach to identifying stakeholders; (2) a failure to provide clear goals and involve stakeholders in establishing the operating procedures that guide the collaborative process; (3) inappropriate use of professional neutrals and a failure to cultivate consensus; (4) a failure to establish and follow clear joint fact-finding procedures; (5) a failure to produce functional written agreements; and (6) a failure to manage the AMP adaptively and cultivate long-term problem-solving capacity.

In a recent book entitled Planning with Complexity, Judith Innes and David Booher (2010) make the case for a new way of knowing and deciding that they call collaborative rationality, an approach to problem solving that puts a premium on face-to-face dialogue and multiparty negotiation. Collaborative rationality involves interactions among a great many people with different perspectives, drawing on multiple sources of information, who manage to reach agreement. To explain how such broad-based collaboration is possible, Innes and Booher draw on insights from the field of complexity science.

Interview of Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the MIT, Keynote speaker during the Conference : "Organizations Change in response to Environmental Demands" held at ESSEC Business School on March 23, 2010

Negotiation analysts have increasingly focused on the internal decision-making dynamics in the minds of the parties. They ought to give more attention to the ways in which meaning is jointly constituted through sequences of verbal and nonverbal exchanges. The tools of conversation analysis (CA) and discourse analysis (DA) can be helpful in this regard.

Cities, particularly those in coastal areas around the world, need to pay close attention to the risks posed by global warming and climate change. These risks are substantial, and the costs of not taking them into account are likely to be enormous. Planners should take the lead in preparing climate mitigation and adaptation plans, although these need to be approached somewhat differently from other planning assignments. Adaptation planning, in particular, should be viewed as a collective risk management task. As such, new tools for collaboration such as scenario planning, joint fact-finding and the use of role-play simulations to build public support in the face of high levels of uncertainty and complexity might be helpful.

Imagine the following: a small city of about 30,000 must decide whether to allow construction of a controversial industrial facility. The plant will generate sorely needed jobs and tax revenue, but it might also pose serious environmental and public-health risks. Under normal circumstances, the city council would require the developer to undertake a set of technical studies that city departments would review before a permit could be granted. Then, the city government (including several elected and/or appointed boards) might hold a hearing, and ultimately vote on whether to approve the project. Along the way, there might be a lot of letters to the editor of the local newspaper and even a referendum. 

Every day in communities across America hundreds of committees, boards, church groups, and social clubs hold meetings where they spend their time engaged in shouting matches and acrimonious debate. Whether they are aware of it or not, the procedures that most such groups rely on to reach decisions were first laid out as Robert's Rules more than 150 years ago by an officer in the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers. Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting.

Breaking Robert's Rules clearly spells out how any group can work together effectively. After briefly explaining the problems created by Robert's Rules, the guide outlines the five key steps toward consensus building, and addresses the specific problems that often get in the way of a group's progress. Appendices include a basic one page "Handy Guide" that can be distributed at meetings and a case study demonstrating how the ideas presented in the book can also be applied in a corporate context.

Written in a non-technical and engaging style, and containing clear ideas and instructions that anyone can understand and use, this one-of-a-kind guide will prove an essential tool for any group desperate to find ways of making their meetings more effective. In addition, neighborhood associations, ad hoc committees, social clubs, and other informal groups lacking a clear hierarchy will find solid advice on how to move forward without resorting to "majority rules" or bickering over who will take leadership positions. Bound to become a classic, Breaking Robert's Rules will change the way you hold meetings forever, paving the way for efficiency, efficacy, and peaceful decision making.

Russian Language Edition

An unscripted video showing an experienced negotiation professor teaching an executive education session through the running and debriefing of the Teflex Products role simulation, interspersed with instructor commentary

Over the past twenty-five years, public dispute resolution has emerged as an important area of practice — linked, in part, to ongoing efforts to promote deliberative democracy. As the field has evolved, however, the market for public dispute mediators has shifted. It is already possible to glimpse the further shifts and the new intellectual challenges likely to face the public dispute resolution field over the next twenty-five years.

Every day in communities across America hundreds of committees, boards, church groups, and social clubs hold meetings where they spend their time engaged in shouting matches and acrimonious debate. Whether they are aware of it or not, the procedures that most such groups rely on to reach decisions were first laid out as Robert's Rules more than 150 years ago by an officer in the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers. Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting.

Breaking Robert's Rules clearly spells out how any group can work together effectively. After briefly explaining the problems created by Robert's Rules, the guide outlines the five key steps toward consensus building, and addresses the specific problems that often get in the way of a group's progress. Appendices include a basic one page "Handy Guide" that can be distributed at meetings and a case study demonstrating how the ideas presented in the book can also be applied in a corporate context.

Written in a non-technical and engaging style, and containing clear ideas and instructions that anyone can understand and use, this one-of-a-kind guide will prove an essential tool for any group desperate to find ways of making their meetings more effective. In addition, neighborhood associations, ad hoc committees, social clubs, and other informal groups lacking a clear hierarchy will find solid advice on how to move forward without resorting to "majority rules" or bickering over who will take leadership positions. Bound to become a classic, Breaking Robert's Rules will change the way you hold meetings forever, paving the way for efficiency, efficacy, and peaceful decision making.

Chinese Language Edition

Every day in communities across America hundreds of committees, boards, church groups, and social clubs hold meetings where they spend their time engaged in shouting matches and acrimonious debate. Whether they are aware of it or not, the procedures that most such groups rely on to reach decisions were first laid out as Robert's Rules more than 150 years ago by an officer in the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers. Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting.

Breaking Robert's Rules clearly spells out how any group can work together effectively. After briefly explaining the problems created by Robert's Rules, the guide outlines the five key steps toward consensus building, and addresses the specific problems that often get in the way of a group's progress. Appendices include a basic one page "Handy Guide" that can be distributed at meetings and a case study demonstrating how the ideas presented in the book can also be applied in a corporate context.

Written in a non-technical and engaging style, and containing clear ideas and instructions that anyone can understand and use, this one-of-a-kind guide will prove an essential tool for any group desperate to find ways of making their meetings more effective. In addition, neighborhood associations, ad hoc committees, social clubs, and other informal groups lacking a clear hierarchy will find solid advice on how to move forward without resorting to "majority rules" or bickering over who will take leadership positions. Bound to become a classic, Breaking Robert's Rules will change the way you hold meetings forever, paving the way for efficiency, efficacy, and peaceful decision making.

Japanese Language Edition

Despite the huge media attention environmental treaties receive, the system of making and implementing them is barely functioning.

Transboundary Environmental Negotiation is an important collection of articles generated by faculty and graduate students at MIT, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. The contributors emphasize the ways in which global environmental treaty-making can be improved. They highlight new environmental problems that pose difficult global negotiation challenges and suggest new strategies for involving a range of nongovernmental actors in ways that can overcome the obstacles to transboundary environmentalism.

The Committee to Assess Environmental Activities at MIT was chartered to recommend a way forward in coordinating and expanding the scope of environmental activities at the Institute. Currently, there is an impressive array of outstanding research and educational endeavors that span all schools, but lack of coordination results in low visibility and the perception of sub-critical mass, and at an institutional level MIT is not viewed as being among the leaders in this field. MIT’s commitment to the environment, and the related area of sustainability, must emphasize the integration of its research, practice, and teaching strengths across the Institute. The Committee recommends a shared vision to unite environmental studies: Creating a Sustainable Earth: An MIT Research, Teaching, and Public Service Initiative for Understanding, Restoring and Managing the Environment. This initiative will involve the breadth of MIT in understanding the environment and using this increased knowledge to design a sustainable future. Positioning this initiative for success will require a new organizational structure that must be at once “top down”, ensuring buy-in from the senior Administration, and “bottom up”, enabling faculty members to claim ownership. Environmental activities should be integrated to the extent possible with the Energy Initiative, to maximize intellectual synergies. By organizing optimally and expanding appropriately, MIT will greatly enhance its ability to provide a breadth of balanced scientific, technical, economic and policy analyses on issues relating the environment and sustainability and their relationship to energy

The aim of this volume is to provide a coherent set of chapters that address major issues in resource and environmental management. The book has a North American focus with significant, but not exclusive Canadian Content. 'Integration' is the organizing theme of the volume. Integration as a concept (meaning variously integration across disciplines, across agencies, and across sectors) has been a key theme in the policy and management rhetoric of virtually every agency in North America and abroad for more than 30 years. As one of the dominant themes of the discipline, integration has been addressed both as a component and as the main focus of a variety of texts for this course. However, there is nothing on the market at the moment that is both up-to-date and North American in approach.

These remarks were prepared for and delivered at the Second Annual Fordham University School of Law Dispute Resolution Society Symposium on October 12, 2007. The Address discusses how democracy, public dispute resolution, and social justice fit together. The speaker opens with an example of a small city making a decision about a large industrial development project from the perspective of a traditional model and a consensus-oriented model. He then addresses three major problems with the first: (i) the majority rule problem; (ii) the representation problem; and (iii) the adversarial format problem. The speaker goes on to advocate for the consensusbuilding model, followed by a Question and Answer session.

Every day in communities across America hundreds of committees, boards, church groups, and social clubs hold meetings where they spend their time engaged in shouting matches and acrimonious debate. Whether they are aware of it or not, the procedures that most such groups rely on to reach decisions were first laid out as Robert's Rules more than 150 years ago by an officer in the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers. Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting.

Breaking Robert's Rules clearly spells out how any group can work together effectively. After briefly explaining the problems created by Robert's Rules, the guide outlines the five key steps toward consensus building, and addresses the specific problems that often get in the way of a group's progress. Appendices include a basic one page "Handy Guide" that can be distributed at meetings and a case study demonstrating how the ideas presented in the book can also be applied in a corporate context.

Written in a non-technical and engaging style, and containing clear ideas and instructions that anyone can understand and use, this one-of-a-kind guide will prove an essential tool for any group desperate to find ways of making their meetings more effective. In addition, neighborhood associations, ad hoc committees, social clubs, and other informal groups lacking a clear hierarchy will find solid advice on how to move forward without resorting to "majority rules" or bickering over who will take leadership positions. Bound to become a classic, Breaking Robert's Rules will change the way you hold meetings forever, paving the way for efficiency, efficacy, and peaceful decision making.

Public policy dispute resolution (PPDR) practitioners are a special lot. Unlike dispute resolution specialists who get involved in disputes between private parties, PPDR practitioners work on the most politically charged issues of the day... Many political philosophers... advocate something called deliberative democracy that gives new meaning to PPDR practitioners, for it suggests that what they are doing is nothing less than deepening and broadening our commitment to the fundamental tenets of democracy itself.

Two-team, six-party, four-issue negotiation between representatives of two corporations setting up a simultaneous high-tech joint venture and purchasing agreement.

Improvisation can be an important element of mediation practice,and there are several ways in which mediation practice correlates to improvisational performance.In this article,two mediation experts and two skilled jazz musicians explore the improvisational aspects of mediation.Two central themes emerge:(1) mediators often use impro-visational techniques,and (2) by being improvisational,mediators can create environments that would encourage the parties themselves

An individual's perception of risk develops from his or her values, beliefs, and experiences. Social scientists have identified factors that affect perceptions of risk, such as whether the risk is knowable (uncertainty), voluntary (can the individual control exposure?), and equitable (how fairly is the risk distributed?). There are measurable differences in how technical experts and citizen stakeholders define and assess risk. Citizen knowledge and technical expertise are both relevant to assessing risk; thus, the 2002 National Research Council panel on biosolids recommended stakeholder involvement in biosolids risk assessments. A survey in 2002 identified some of the factors that influence an individual's perception of the risks involved in a neighbor's use of biosolids. Risk communication was developed to address the gap between experts and the public in knowledge of technical topics. Biosolids management and research may benefit from applications of current risk communication theory that emphasizes (i) two-way communications (dialogue); (ii) that the public has useful knowledge and concerns that need to be acknowledged; and (iii) that what may matter most is the credibility of the purveyor of information and the levels of trustworthiness, fairness, and respect that he or she (or the organization) demonstrates, which can require cultural change. Initial experiences in applying the dialogue and cultural change stages of risk communication theory--as well as consensus-building and joint fact-finding--to biosolids research suggest that future research outcomes can be made more useful to decision-makers and more credible to the broader public. Sharing control of the research process with diverse stakeholders can make research more focused, relevant, and widely understood.

Twenty-one senior researchers were interviewed about their conception of sustainability and implementation in projects linked to the Alliance of Global Sustainability, a joint project of MIT (Boston), ETH (Zurich and Lausanne), UT (Tokyo), and Chalmers (Gothenburg). We identified five complementary views on sustainability: i) science is sustainable per se, ii) sustainability is an ethical relationship with the past and future, iii) sustainability is the maintenance of a system within functional limits, iv) eco-efficiency, and v) sustainability is a form of ongoing inquiry. In total, the concept of ethical relationship was the most dominant, whereas science per se and eco-efficiency were less used. Natural, engineering and social scientists referred differently to these concepts in their research projects. Most of the researchers regarded implementation as the process of interacting with stakeholder groups. The relationship between knowledge and action is considered central to views on implementation. Three different concepts and habits could be identified with respect to the relationship between knowledge and action: a) action, I act to change the world; b) interaction, I exchange information with my environment through my actions; and c) transaction or mutual learning, I change as a result of my effort to bring about change in the world.

This report is one in a series of policy focus reports published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to address timely public policy issues relating to land use, property taxation and the value of land. Each report is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice by combining research, case studies and personal experiences from scholars in a variety of academic disciplines and from professional practitioners, local officials and citizens in different types of communities.

A facilitated multi-party negotiation among government officials regarding the design of a foreign direct investment strategy that balances economic, societal, and environmental concerns

Two-team, four-issue negotiation between three members of a Native Canadian band and three representatives of Calgary Central Gas over a planned pipeline through the band's reservation; includes internal team negotiations as well as external negotiation.

Seven-person, non-scoreable, facilitated negotiation among planners, regulators and activists regarding the cleanup and redevelopment of environmentally contaminated property

Negotiating onBehalf of Others explores current negotiation theory, providing a framework for understanding the complexity of negotiating for others.

Negotiation agents are broadly defined to include legislators, diplomats, salepersons, lawyers, committe chairs -- in fact anyone who represents others in negotiation.

Leading figures in the field examine the following areas in depth: labour-management relations; international diplomacy; sports agents; legislative process; and agency law

The book concludes with suggestions for future research and specific advice for practitioners.

Five-party multi-issue negotiation among foundation, community, and medical board members of a new health foundation to set community health funding priorities and strategies for community engagement

Thirteen-person, multi-issue, two-round, partially scoreable negotiation among government, industry, environmental, and farming stakeholders to develop a land-use plan (Part I) and among additional government stakeholders over plan approval (Part II)

Six-person integrative negotiation among representatives of manufacturing company, occupational safety agency, union, local fire department, and local technical expert to settle claims of safety violations that allegedly caused two employee deaths.

Twelve-person, two-round negotiation between six foundation board members and six school board and community leaders over efforts to address racial disparities in academic performance; internal negotiations precede external

Ten-party, multi-issue negotiation among government, development, industry, labor, and preservation interests over port improvements, real-estate development, and environmental protection in a Caribbean island harbor expansion

Bargaining in the international arena is intrinsically positional. Negotiators are often instructed by their governments not to improvise or explore new options when they meet with their counterparts—even though the invention of additional tradeoffs or packages might well produce “better” results for all sides. This article describes an approach that we call “parallel informal negotiation” which encourages a collaborative effort between contending groups that were officially not even allowed to interact: international trade and environment policy makers.

Congressional leaders could resolve the most divisive national issues by taking a lesson about consensus from the business world they so admire. To remain competitive most businesses find they cannot afford internal strife. Neither can Congress. Public opinion of the institution is as low as it was before the 1994 election. If Congress doesn’t deal with pressing issues it now faces legislators of both parties will hurt their reelection prospects

Thirteen-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among eight country representatives, four NGO representatives, and a working group chairperson must draft a treaty aimed at reducing harmful organochlorines; also known as "Chlorine Game"

Six-person, four-issue negotiation between three representatives of an industrial manufacturer and three representatives of its primary client over restructuring of an existing purchase agreement

Six-person, five-issue negotiation between three industrial factory representatives and three environmental agency representatives over environmental and economic concerns in the wake of damaging negative publicity for both parties

This case study is one segment in the secondphase of a project,initiated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1986, to document how Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) can be used by Corps District offices to minimize the enormouscosts associated with disputes that arise between Corps District offices and privatecorporations. By publishing and distributing pamphlets about different types of ADR processes as well as about past cases in whichADR has been used successfully, the Corps' Office of Chief Counsel has been encouraging its use since 1984.

Three-party, two-round internal negotiation among agency officials over whether to litigate or pursue non-binding arbitration to settle a contract claim against a private contractor

Six-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among industry, environmental, consumer/community, labor, and government representatives to develop single-text regulation of toxic industrial by-product

Five-party, multi-issue negotiation among representatives of a pharmaceutical company, a medical drug manufacturer, and three consumer organizations over the delayed release of a new drug

This report presents two case studies and a handbook on the process of overcoming political obstacles to build a consensus for affordable housing. In spite of greater public awareness about the need for affordable housing, local officials, citizens, and developers can learn about the difficulties of implementing new housing in their communities and the benefits of various mediation techniques to meet those challenges.

Drawing on his experience in the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, a leading mediator and his co-author provide the first jargon-free guide to consensual strategies for resolving public disputes—indispensable to citizen activists and to business and government leaders.

The following two studies describe and analyze the same case: The Phoenix-GoodyearAirport (PGA.) Superfund Site.A mini-trial was used to resolve the relative responsibility of PotentiallyResponsible Parties (PRP's): theDepartment of Defense (DOD) andGoodyear Ti-e and RubberCompany. The case could prove to be an important illustration of how ADR generally and the mini-trial specifically could apply to Superfund clean-ups.

Two-team, multi-issue collective bargaining contract negotiation between three union representatives and three management representatives for a telephone company; includes an internal team meeting before external negotiations

Five-person, multi-issue, facilitated negotiation among four managers and a Human Resources facilitator over the design of the company's new account system

Seven-person, four-issue mediation among three Israeli water authority and regional representatives and three Palestinian water authority and political representatives over plans to drill a new well on the West Bank.

Eight-party, five-issue negotiation among community, environmental, business, and government interests over the formulation of a statewide hazardous waste siting policy

A set of three simulations developed for and used in training court probation officers in negotiation techniques.

Negotiation in real estate development situations involves a diverse set of actors, from city officials and bankers to community groups and contractors. While many negotiations reach a successful conclusion, it is not unusual for difficulties to arise which can impose costly delays.

The Center for Real Estate Development at MIT asked members of the Public Disputes Program (PDP) at Harvard Law School to prepare a briefing for members of the real estate community reviewing common negotiation problems, particularly those related to mediation, faced by developers and to suggest strategies for dealing with these problems. Part of this briefing paper suggested some general rules about when and how to use mediated negotiation. In addition, it outlines the pitfalls associated with the mediation approach.

Mediation is not a panacea. Some development disputes are, for all practical purposes, impossible to resolve through face-to-face negotiation, even with a mediator. Such disputes are likely to end up in court. However, we do think that litigation can be avoided much more often than it is now. Moreover, we believe that mediation can produce agreements that all the parties involved will consider to be fairer, more efficient, wiser, and more durable.

Three-person, integrative, facilitated negotiation with two department heads and a Human Resources observer/facilitator regarding the possible transfer of an employee from one department to the other

Nine-party, multi-issue contract negotiation among three coalitions involved in the building trades; includes internal coalition meetings before the external negotiations

Two-party intra-organization negotiation between a company's financial and human resources officers regarding the amount of a budget increase.

Six-person negotiation among hospital administration and employee representatives to reach consensus on budget cuts in three departments.

Six-party, multi-issue, facilitated negotiation of a dispute over environmental issues, native rights, and commercial development interests in Hawaii

Two-party negotiation or mediation between church and neighborhood representatives over the possible use of church facilities for services for the mentally challenged.

Judges often appoint special masters to help with complex cases. In many of the desegregation cases of the 1970s, for example, special masters were assigned to oversee the development and implementation of court-ordered busing plans. In bankruptcy proceedings, special masters serve as court-appointed executors to preside over the liquidation of holdings. Judges have also appointed special masters to serve as "receivers" of public agencies and to oversee implementation of consent decrees involving reforms at prisons and mental institutions.

Five-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among industry, environmental, labor, and government representatives to develop single-text regulation of toxic industrial by-product.

The legislative process is too primitive to take account of the scientific and technical intricacies of various public policy choices, too easily manipulated by party members, and not especially well suited to reconciling (as opposed to papering over) conflicting values. The administrative processes of government are susceptible to manipulation by those in power, often without any attention to the merits of competing claims.

Mediated negotiation has recently been used to supplement traditional methods of resolving complex public resource allocation disputes in the United States. Although many of these efforts have apparently been successful, procedural concerns have been raised by a number of analysts. In this paper, we focus on five of these concerns: (1) problems of representation, (2) the difficulties of setting an appropriate agenda, (3) obstacles to joint fact finding, (4) difficulties of binding parties to their commitments, and (5) obstacles to monitoring and enforcing negotiated agreements. Our discussion builds on three cases: a negotiated investment strategy undertaken by the state of Connecticut; a dispute over the siting of a low-income housing project in Forest Hills, New York; and an environmental dispute involving energy production facilities along the Hudson River. These experiences indicate that the difficulties associated with mediation can be overcome with the application of innovative techniques, and the assistance of a skillful and astute mediator.

Eight-person, multi-issue mediation among regional government, environmental, development, and business interests regarding environmental and economic tradeoffs and ethical issues in the development of a manufacturing plant

Six-party, three-issue negotiation among a landowner and representatives of an engineering firm, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, town council, and environmental interests over cost and timing of removal of an unauthorized extension of property into a river

In duplicate contract bridge, several teams of players at different tables receive identical hands of cards, bid, and then play. Possible outcomes of each game vary considerably since, even though the teams are playing the same hands, they may devise bidcling strategies that are more or less effective than those developed by their counterparts at other tables.

Traditional approaches to the siting of potentially hazardous but regionally necessary facilities are often ineffective and lead to drawn-out legal disputes ultimately satisfactory to none of the parties. Research at MIT over the last decade has indicated five factors that may solve the siting puzzle. Application of these principles do not guarantee that a decision will not be disputed but may enhance the possibility of a wise and durable agreement.

Six-party, multi-issue, scoreable negotiation among representatives of a port developer, labor union, environmental coalition, other regional ports, governor's office, and department of coastal resources over a proposal to build a new deep-water port

Six-party, multi-issue negotiation among state and local government, enviromental, and industry representatives to select one of three sites for low-level radioactive waste disposal.

Dealing with the topic of negotiation, this issue discusses experimental social psychological studies on negotiating behavior, the ways that power is used in negotiation, consequences and considerations involved in choosing a negotiating strategy, mediation, the cognitive constraints to negotiation, and similarities and differences between negotiation in public and private sectors. 

Findings from a multi-year interdisciplinary effort to track the impacts of Massachusetts’ tax limitation law.

Environmental mediation is being practiced in many parts of the United States. Although still sparse, mediation experience is accumulating rapidly. Strong professional and interpersonal networks are aiding the rapid development of the field.3 Consensus building" and conflict management techniques dominate the environmental dispute resolution field, but formal mediation is employed in a growing number of instances.

In 1977, when the accumulation of well-intentioned regulations made it difficult to site a liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in California, the legislature, with the full support of Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., passed a law, Senate Bill 1081 (Chapter 855, Statutes of 1977), that said, in effect, "not withstanding any previously enacted legislation or regulatory requirements, California will designate an LNG terminal site within a year." The state's attempt to preempt local regulatory authority, to say nothing of the legislature's willingness to circumvent its own facility siting, coastal protection, and environmental impact assessment laws, seems to leave failed. This case study describes the circumstances leading up to the enactment of S.B. 1081 and analyzes tile dangers associated with preemptive legislation. Had California confronted the real weaknesses in its energy facility siting process, the state could have identified positive steps that" would have accelerated site ~selection without triggering the staunch opposition that now threatens indefinite delay.

This report documents the consequences of rapid and unplanned growth and is intended to help design more effective recommendations for shaping new development, and to involve as many people as possible in the formulation of an overall growth strategy for the town of Rockport, Massachusetts; focuses on housing, land use, tourism, town finances, environmental management issues, etc.; includes aerial views; this item was in the BRA collection

Influential members of the urban planning profession have developed certain ideas about new town design, including notions such as self-containment, social balance, and the neighborhood unit. These parallel, to some extent, concepts that have emerged from the field of community sociology. Efforts to put these ideas into practice have fallen far short of the mark. Without more sophisticated implementation mechanisms, better theories of social interaction at the neighborhood level, and new approaches to citizen participation, efforts to build new towns are likely to remain severely crippled. The aim of this paper is to summarize past efforts to translate implicit theories of social organization into actual new town designs. The possibilities of closing the gap between theory and practice through the use of more explicit forms of social experimentation are discussed in the context of the fledgling new towns program in the United States.