City Planner, Mediator, and MIT Professor

  • Lawrence Susskind
    Shafiqul Islam
    Enamul Choudhury
    Greg Koch
    Kevin M. Smith

    Perspectives on Water Diplomacy: Key Findings, Remaining Challenges, and Future Directions

    Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Water Diplomacy: A Principled and Pragmatic Approach

    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.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Shafiqul Islam
    Enamul Choudhury

    Complexity of Transboundary Water Disputes: Enabling Conditions for Negotiating Contingent Resolutions

    '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.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Yasmin Zaerpoor
    Jessica Gordon
    Andre Bachtiger
    John Dryzek
    Jane Mansbridge
    Mark Warren

    Deliberative Democracy and Public Dispute Resolution

    The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy

    Deliberative democracy and public dispute resolution (PDR) have the same goal—to inform and determine the public interest—but they involve different skills and practices. This article considers the ways in which deliberative democratic approaches to policyrelated decision-making can be supplemented with tools used in public dispute resolution —specifically, the use of an independent mediator, the well-developed technique of stakeholder assessment, and a new strategy called joint fact-finding, where stakeholders with different interests work together with outside experts to identify common assumptions, gather information together, and formulate and clarify opinions. All are designed to achieve fairer, wiser, more stable and more efficient outcomes.

    Click here to read the full chapter


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Dayna Cunningham
    Isadora Araujo Cruxên
    Joseph Calder
    Jacob Foletta

    (Participatory) Action Research: Principles, Approaches and Applications

    In this book, authors present current research on the implementation of reform mathematics in order to identify, explore, and evaluate five specific goals. Students were presented with problem solving activities that correlated with real-world situations. During this process, students tracked their confidence and growth as mathematicians. Next, the ways in which students learn to effectively engage in natural discussions related to the literature they are reading are examined. Barriers to the implementation of literature circles in the classroom are discussed, and ideas for successful execution are highlighted. Action research (AR) leaders’ roles are explored through two studies, with the frame constituting of K-20 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and how participant engagement leads to AR project insight. The authors provide suggestions for future AR leaders. This compilation goes on to discuss how teaching Participatory Action Research (PAR) in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning has led to focus on the responsibilities of action researchers and their obligations to the communities and places in which they work; and the importance of building the capacity of community members so that they can take control of the research being done about, with, and for them. The authors explore the way in which Curriculum Studies have addressed relevance and by proposing a framework for the study of curriculum relevance in general, which was adapted from literature on Science Education. The proposal considers three dimensions of relevance: societal, vocational, and individual. A chapter is included which fully addresses the analysis of one of the cases developed in the authors’ previous work, in which students have to reconstruct their memories about the experiences they had during compulsory education in order to compare them with the experiences they have during the practicum. The authors share their concerns about the process of accompaniment, the process of student participation in the design and assessment of the subjects, and the search for situated and transformative learning in a university context. The use of action research in higher education is proposed, especially in programs that use practical approaches such as residency programs in healthcare. The text discusses similar themes such as andragogy, meaningful learning, active learning, and systemic thinking. Additionally, a teacher-driven approach for changes in teaching chemical bonding was chosen, inspired by the PAR model suggested by Eilks and Ralle. The authors determine that remote networking of a teacher action researcher with a PAR-driven community of practitioners and academic educational researchers helped strengthen the process of research and development and contributed to strengthen the teacher’s continuous professional development. Subsequently, an application of participatory action research (PAR) conducted in Italy is illustrated. In describing the structure of action research, it can first be asserted that it is not a linear methodology of research but instead a cyclical process that proceeds through greater levels of complexity. In conclusion, the book aims to determine the relationship between the principles, approaches and applications of participatory action research (PAR) by using a case study of wood-carving workers. The authors maintain that although this project was successful in increasing health awareness of the workers and the community, long-term impact and sustainability of networking and activities need to be examined.

    Download a free copy of the chapter.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Jean Cahan

    The Political and Cultural Dimensions of Water Diplomacy in the Middle East

    Water Security in the Middle East Essays in Scientific and Social Cooperation

    Water Security in the Middle East explores the extent and nature of water security problems in transboundary water systems in the Middle East. This collection of essays discusses the political and scientific contexts and the limitations of cooperation in water security. The contributors argue that while conflicts over transboundary water systems in the Middle East do occur, they tend not to be violent nor have they ever been the primary cause of a war in this region.

    The authors place water disputes in larger political, historical and scientific contexts and discuss how the humanities and social sciences could contribute more towards this understanding. They also contend that international sharing of scientific and technological advances can significantly increase access to water and improve water quality. While scientific advances can and should increase adaptability to changing environmental conditions, especially climate change, national institutional reform and the strengthening of joint commissions are vital. The contributors indicate ways in which transboundary cooperation may move from simple and intermittent coordination to sophisticated, adaptive and equitable modes of water management.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Patrick Field
    Todd Schenk
    Griffin Smith
    Masahiro Matsuura

    Joint Fact-finding: Process and Practice

    Joint Fact-Finding in Urban Planning and Environmental Disputes (The Earthscan Science in Society Series)

    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.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Todd Schenk
    Arwin van Buuren
    Jasper Eshuis
    Mathijs van Vliet

    Using role-play simulations to encourage adaptation

    Action Research for Climate Change Adaptation: Developing and Applying Knowledge for Governance

    Governments all over the world are struggling with the question of how to adapt to climate change. They need information not only about the issue and its possible consequences, but also about feasible governance strategies and instruments to combat it. At the same time, scientists from different social disciplines are trying to understand the dynamics and peculiarities of the governance of climate change adaptation.

    This book demonstrates how action-oriented research methods can be used to satisfy the need for both policy-relevant information and scientific knowledge. Bringing together eight case studies that show inspiring practices of action research from around the world, including Australia, Denmark, Vietnam and the Netherlands, the book covers a rich variety of action-research applications, running from participatory observation to serious games and role-playing exercises. It explores many adaptation challenges, from flood-risk safety to heat stress and freshwater availability, and draws out valuable lessons about the conditions that make action research successful, demonstrating how scientific and academic knowledge can be used in a practical context to reach useful and applicable insights.

    The book will be of interest to scholars and students of climate change, environmental policy, politics and governance.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Louis Carter
    David Ulrich
    Marshall Goldsmith

    What Do We Know About Training World-Class Negotiators?

    The Change Champion’s Field Guide: Strategies and Tools for Leading Change in Your Organization

    The Change Champion's Fieldguide, endorsed as a book that will, "become one of the most quoted, referenced, and used business books in the first decade of the 2000's," by Vijay Govindarajan, Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business, Director, Center for Global Leadership, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, contains successful tools, instruments, case studies, and models from the best in the industry that you can immediately apply for initiating and leading change within your social or organizational system. Think of yourself as an artist and this book as your palate. Most of the elements within this book may be modified to fit your stakeholders' unique needs. The Fieldguide provides you with all of the necessary elements to champion change. The authors of this book are widely recognized as among the best in organization change and leadership development.Some of these contributors include Dave Ulrich, Marshall Goldsmith, David Cooperrider, Kathleen Dannemiller, Louis Carter, and Lawrence Susskind. They provide invaluable lessons in succeeding during crisis or growth modes and economies. As change champions, they share many similar attributes including openness to learning and collaboration, humility, innovation and creativity, integrity, a high regard for people's needs and perspectives, and a passion for change.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Alexis Schulman
    Michael Kraft
    Sheldon Kamieniecki

    Environmental Policy Evaluation And The Prospects For Public Learning

    Oxford Handbook of Environmental Policy

    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.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Jeffrey Cruikshank
    Carrie Menkel-Meadow

    What is Consensus?

    Multi-Party Dispute Resolution, Democracy and Decision-Making Volume II

    The articles selected for this volume draw on game theory, political science, psychology, sociology and anthropology to consider how the process of dispute resolution is altered, challenged and made more complex by the presence of multiple parties and/or multiple issues. The volume explores issues of coalition formation, defection, collaboration, commitments, voting practices, and joint decision making in settings of increasing human complexity. Also included are examples of concrete uses of deliberative democracy processes taken from new applications of complex dispute resolution theory and practice. The selected essays represent the latest theoretical advances and challenges in the field and demonstrate attempts to use dispute resolution theory in a wide variety of settings such as political decision making and policy formation; regulatory matters; environmental disputes; healthcare; community disputes; constitutional formation; and in many other controversial issues in the polity.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Tijs van Maasakkers
    Kees Zoeteman

    Building Consensus for Sustainable Development

    Sustainable Development Drivers: The Role of Leadership in Government, Business and NGO Performance

    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.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Nancy Bradish Myers
    Anne Petruska McNickle

    Learning the Art and Science of Negotiation: Tools for All User Fee Stakeholders

    PDUFA and the Expansion of FDA User Fees: Lessons from Negotiators

    Since passage of the first Prescription Drug User Fee Act almost 20 years ago, user fee negotiations and the legislative vehicles that authorize them have significantly changed the scope of FDA’s responsibilities. After PDUFA paved the way to the acceptance of user fees, programs were created for other FDA-regulated industries, such as medical devices, animal drugs, generic animal drugs and tobacco. Several additional user fee programs are on the horizon, such as those for generic human drugs and biosimilars. Are you and your organization ready to engage in a smart, educated manner?

    There are many issues that reach across user fee programs. This book addresses: What approaches have been taken by FDA and the regulated industries to the various user fee programs? What can the history of prescription drug and medical device user fee negotiations tell us about future negotiations? What strategies worked in the past? What are the lessons learned that can be applied across all stakeholders?

    Chapters explore the history leading to the first user fee program (PDUFA), the biopharmaceutical industry perspective on negotiating user fees, a first-of-its-kind view of negotiations from the FDA lens, a clear explanation of Congress’ role in enacting user fees, insight into how user fees expanded to medical devices, advice from professional negotiators on how to bring new tools to the negotiation table and overall lessons learned for all stakeholders.

    This book serves as a guide to stakeholders preparing for any user fee negotiation, whether it’s for a new program, or reauthorization of an existing one. The book draws on the institutional knowledge of many of the most experienced user fee negotiators, affording a unique 360-degree view of the evolving nature of such negotiations; it offers practical insights not only for those at the negotiating table, but for anyone involved in helping to shape, analyze, monitor or understand user fee programs.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Catherine Ashcraft
    John Dore
    Julia Robinson
    Mark Smith

    Consensus Building

    Negotiate : reaching agreements over water

    Water practitioners are increasingly called upon to negotiate workable agreements about how to best use, manage and care for water resources. NEGOTIATE makes the case for constructive engagement and cooperative forms of negotiation in dealing with complex water issues. It unpacks constructive approaches such as Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSPs) and consensus building, and finally focuses on the diversity of agreements which can be produced to regulate or encourage fairer and more effective water allocation and use.

    This guide aims to provide practical tools for government officials, NGOs and local communities to create platforms for negotiations that are balanced and open, in order to arrive at collaborative action to improve water resources management.The book contains a brief overview of theory in this field, followed by practical tools and steps to change power relations. It describes how to analyse the issues and political play involved, convince colleagues and stakeholders, set up campaigns and advocacy, set in place participatory methods, enter negotiations, and move towards a multi-stakeholder platform for action.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Gary Hack
    Eugenie Birch
    Paul Sedway
    Mitchell Silver

    The Environment and Environmentalism

    Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice

    Local Planning is the all-new edition of the popular book, The Practice of Local Government Planning, which has been the valued resource for preparing for the AICP exam. This new edition helps the reader understand the complexities of planning at the local level, and prepare to make decisions in a challenging environment. The eight chapters in Local Planning, roughly spanning from context to applications, consists of articles written by a wide range of experts-academics, practitioners, clients, and observers of planning. Many examples of planning in action illustrate central principles.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Patrick Field
    Mieke van der Wansem
    Kevin Hanna
    Scott Slocombe

    Integrating Scientific Information, Stakeholder Interests, and Political Concerns in Resource and Environmental Planning and Management

    Integrated Resource and Environmental Management: Concepts and Practice

    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.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Michael Moffitt
    Robert Bordone

    Consensus Building and ADR: Why They Are Not the Same Thing!

    This volume is an essential, cutting-edge reference for all practitioners, students, and teachers in the field of dispute resolution. Each chapter was written specifically for this collection and has never before been published. The contributors–drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines–contains many of the most prominent names in dispute resolution today, including Frank E. A. Sander, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Bruce Patton, Lawrence Susskind, Ethan Katsh, Deborah Kolb, and Max Bazerman. The Handbook of Dispute Resolution contains the most current thinking about dispute resolution. It synthesizes more than thirty years of research into cogent, practitioner-focused chapters that assume no previous background in the field. At the same time, the book offers path-breaking research and theory that will interest those who have been immersed in the study or practice of dispute resolution for years. The Handbook also offers insights on how to understand disputants. It explores how personality factors, emotions, concerns about identity, relationship dynamics, and perceptions contribute to the escalation of disputes. The volume also explains some of the lessons available from viewing disputes through the lens of gender and cultural differences.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Michael Moran
    Martin Rein
    Robert Goodin

    Arguing, Bargaining and Getting Agreement

    Oxford Handbook of Public Policy

    Public policy is the business end of political science. It is where theory meets practice in the pursuit of the public good. Political scientists approach public policy in myriad ways. Some approach the policy process descriptively, asking how the need for public intervention comes to be perceived, a policy response formulated, enacted, implemented, and, all too often, subverted, perverted, altered, or abandoned. Others approach public policy more prescriptively, offering politically-informed suggestions for how normatively valued goals can and should be pursued, either through particular policies or through alternative processes for making policy. Some offer their advice from the Olympian heights of detached academic observers, others as 'engaged scholars' cum advocates, while still others seek to instill more reflective attitudes among policy practitioners themselves toward their own practices. The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy mines all these traditions, using an innovative structure that responds to the very latest scholarship. Its chapters touch upon institutional and historical sources and analytical methods, how policy is made, how it is evaluated and how it is constrained. In these ways, the Handbook shows how the combined wisdom of political science as a whole can be brought to bear on political attempts to improve the human condition.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Carrie Menkel-Meadow
    Michael Wheeler

    Expanding the Ethical Obligations of the Mediator: Mediator Accountability to Parties Not at the Table

    What’s Fair: Ethics for Negotiators

    What's Fair is a landmark collection that focuses exclusively on the crucial topic of ethics in negotiation. Edited by Carrie J. Menkel-Meadow and Michael Wheeler, What's Fair contains contributions from some of the best-known practitioners and scholars in the field including Roger Fisher, Howard Raiffa, and Deborah Kolb. The editors and distinguished contributors offer an examination of why ethics matter individually and socially, and explain the essential duties and values of negotiation beyond formal legal requirements. Throughout the book, these experts tackle difficult questions such as:

    What do we owe our counterparts (if anything) in the way of candor or disclosure?

    To what extent should we use financial or legal pressure to force settlement?

    Should we worry about whether an agreement is fair to all the parties, or the effects our negotiated agreements might have on others?


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Louis Carter
    David Ulrich
    Marshall Goldsmith
    Warner Burke
    Jim Bolt

    What Do We Know about Training World Class Negotiators?

    The Change Champion’s Field Guide: Strategies and Tools for Leading Change in Your Organization

    Nearly a decade later, leading change pioneers in the field have realigned to bring you the second edition of the Change Champion's Fieldguide.
      
    This thoroughly revised and updated edition of the Change Champion's Field Guide is filled with the information, tools, and strategies needed to implement a best practice change or leadership development initiative where everyone wins. In forty-five chapters, the guide's contributors, widely acknowledged as the "change champions" and leaders in the fields of organizational change and leadership development, explore the competencies and practices that define an effective change leader. Change Champions such as Harrison Owen, Edgar Schein, Marv Weisbord, Sandra Janoff, Mary Eggers, William Rothwell, Dave Ulrich, Marshall Goldsmith, Judith Katz, Peter Koestenbaum, Dick Axelrod, David Cooperrider, and scores of others provide their sage advice, practical applications, and examples of change methods that work.


  • Lawrence Susskind
    Stuart S. Nagel

    Super-Optimization: A New Approach to National Environmental Policymaking

    Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation

    Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation is the only book of its kind to present aspects of public policy evaluation that relate to economic, technology, social, political, international, and legal problems. Rather than looking at specific narrowly focused programs, this book emphasizes broad-based evaluation theory, study, and application, providing a rich variety of exceptional insights and ideas.