Publications

Environmental policy studies commissioned by government agencies or other stakeholders can play a vital role in environmental decisionmaking; they provide much-needed insight into policy options and specific recommendations for action. But the results of even the most rigorous studies are frequently misappropriated or misunderstood and are as likely to confuse an issue as they are to clarify it.

Better Environmental Policy Studies explores this problem, as it considers the shortcomings of current approaches to policy studies and presents a pragmatic new approach to the subject. Reviewing five cases that are widely regarded as the most effective policy studies to have been conducted in the United States in the last few decades, the authors present a comprehensive guide to the concepts and methods required for conducting effective policy studies. The book:

• describes and explains the conventional approach to policy studies and its shortcoming
• presents the history, impacts, and common elements of five successful policy studies
• offers an in-depth look at the different tools and techniques of policy analysis
• extends the concepts and principles of successful policy studies to their potential uses in the international arena

Better Environmental Policy Studies presents a practical, battle-tested approach to overcoming the obstacles to formulating effective environmental policy. It is an invaluable resource for students and faculty in departments of environmental studies, public policy and administration, and planning, as well as for professional policy analysts and others involved with making decisions and mediating disputes over environmental issues.

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

When business leaders, government officials, and other stakeholders come to the table in an environmental, health, or safety dispute, acrimony often results, leading to expensive and time-consuming litigation. Not only does this waste precious resources, but rarely does the process produce the best outcome for any of the parties involved.

For the past five years, the authors of this volume have conducted semi-annual seminars at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology and at Harvard to provide business leaders and regulators with the knowledge and skills they need to more effectively handle environmental, health, and safety negotiations. Their strategy, known as the "mutual gains approach," is a proven method of producing fairer, more efficient, more stable, and wiser results. Negotiating Environmental Agreements provides the first comprehensive introduction to this widely practiced and highly effective approach to environmental regulation.

The book begins with an overview of the mutual gains approach, introducing important concepts and ideas from negotiation theory as well as the theory and practice of mediation. The authors then offer five model negotiations from their MIT-Harvard Public Disputes seminar, followed by a series of real-world negotiated environmental agreements that illustrate the kinds of outcomes possible when the mutual gains approach is employed. A collection of writings by leading experts provide valuable insights into the process, and appendixes offer both instructions for conducting model negotiation sessions and analysis of actual game results from earlier seminars.

This is the only prescriptive text available for the many regulatees and regulators involved in environmental regulatory negotiations each year. Anyone involved with environmental negotiation — including corporate and public sector managers, students of environmental policy, environmental management, and business management — will find the book an essential resource.

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.

This handbook on group decision-making for those wanting to operate in a consensus fashion stresses the advantages of informal, common sense approaches to working together. It describes how any group can put these approaches into practice, and relates numerous examples of situations in which such approaches have been applied.

Dealing With an Angry Public: The Mutual Gains Approach to Resolving Disputes Some portion of the American public will react negatively to almost any new corporate initiative, as Disney discovered when it announced its plans to build an historical theme park in Virginia. Similarly, government efforts to change policy or shift budget priorities are invariably met with stiff resistance. In this enormously practical book, Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field analyze scores of both private and public-sector cases, as well as crisis scenarios such as the Alaskan oil spill, the silicone breat implant controversy, and nuclear plant malfunction at Three Mile Island. They show how resistance to both public and private initiatives can be overcome by a mutual gains approach involving face-to-face negotiation, a strategy applied successfully by over fifteen hundred executives and officials who have attended Professor Susskind's MIT-Harvard "Angry Public" seminars. Susskind and Field outline the six key elements of this approach in order to help business and government leaders negotiate, rather than fight, with their critics. In the process, they show how to identify who the public is, whose concerns to address first, which people and organizations must be convinced of the legitimacy of action taken, and how to assess and respond to different types of anger effectively. Acknowledging the crucial role played by the media in shaping public perception and understanding, Susskind and Field suggest a way to develop media interaction which is consistent with the six mutual gains principles, and also discuss the type of leadership that corporate and government managers must provide in order to combine these ideas into a useful whole. We all need to be concerned about a society in which the public's concerns, fears and anger are not adequately addressed. When corporate and government agencies must spend crucial time and resources on rehashing and defending each decision they make, a frustrated and angry public contributes to the erosion of confidence in our basic institutions and undermines our competitiveness in the international marketplace. In this valuable book, Susskind and Field have produced a strong, clear framework which will help reduce these hidden costs for hundreds of executives, managers, elected and appointed officials, entrepreneurs, and the public relations, legal and other professionals who advise them.