Publications

Traditional approaches to resolving coastal resource management disputes in the United States often produce less-than-optimal outcomes. Nonadjudicatory approaches such as policy dialogues and mediation can be more effective. This article presents four case studies of such approaches that have proven successful in resolving coastal resource management disputes in Massachusetts, California, and Oregon. These approaches emphasize consensus-building, are based on face to face discussions between contending stakeholders, and include important roles for planners as negotiators and mediators. The article describes four barriers to more widespread use of less adversarial forms of dispute resolution and suggests ways of overcoming those barriers.

Half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, and the trend toward greater urbanization shows no signs of abating. Among the many diffi- culties facing planners seeking to accommodate continued development, finding adequate water supplies will be among the most critical. As Jerry Anthony points out in his paper in this issue, one in five people in the developing world does not have access to safe drinking water, and efforts at planning for water over the last three decades have not improved that desperate condition. There are reliable estimates that more than a billion people get water for drinking, washing, and cooking from sources polluted by human and animal feces. We are unable to provide adequate water for drinking, sanitation, or agriculture for four to five billion people, yet within a few decades the world’s population will double or triple. Global climate change will likely have its most serious impacts on precipitation patterns, reducing water in many parts of the world. 

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.

I am a member of a traditional religious community. Like most communities of faith, mine has secular bylaws that govern its operation. And just like any not-for-profit organization, the thirty-year-old bylaws of the congregation to which I belong call for the election of officers, an annual members' meeting, and the appointment of numerous committees. In many respects, the approach to decision making mandated by our bylaws follows the model of a New England town meeting. That is, there is a chair (our elected president), a parliamentarian (selected by the chair), and a requirement that we adhere to Robert's Rules of Order in deciding who speaks, what the speaker is allowed to say, and how members can vote.

Whether or not it will be possible to relocate settlers from the “territories” depends not just on the willingness of the relevant Israeli officials to authorize evacuation of some or all of the West Bank and Gaza given the violence it may cause, but especially on the thinking and the changing attitudes of the settlers themselves. Only by understanding the views of the current settlers — their motivations, their beliefs, and the differences among them — will it be possible to formulate a sensible relocation strategy. That was the focus of the conference's first panel.

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.

How can metropolitan areas address the complexities of development that transcend the capabilities of individual local governments, especially when building consensus on initiatives that cross political boundaries is so difficult? The history of efforts to address metropolitan growth in terms of ensuring housing affordability, open-space preservation and timely investment in infrastructure shows that no single entity or level of government can adequately address such issues on its own. In addition, even when regional and metropolitan governments, created specifically for this purpose, try to impose "regional solutions" they are likely to meet fierce municipal resistance. Instead, what is required are collaborative efforts to generate tailored solutions that involve all relevant decision-makers and stakeholders.

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.