Public Policy Section
I follow the choroeographies and patterns of the craft we call conflict management, but every once in a while I help people really step out of the proverbial box they are in and discover (or stumble on) a peculiar new solution that seems to fit perfectly. Those are the golden moments I live for. Intermediaries, honest brokers, and would-be peacemakers have much to learn from warfare. In fact if you want to understand mediation, learn about war. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Howard Bellman, a long-time leader in the field of labor-management mediation and mediation in the public sector generally, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Doug Yarn, a leading conflict resolution academic, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. After 911, our lives changed seemingly forever. No longer a safe, secure, innocent society, Americans have come to a tipping point. Frank E.A. Sander ’52, a longtime Harvard Law School professor and a pioneer in the field of alternative dispute resolution, has died. He was 90. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Larry Susskind, a leading public policy mediator, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. Guerilla warfare is unconventional. Instead of relying on large, slow moving armies and doctrines of overwhelming force, guerillas depend on invisibility, highly portable weapons, quick ambushes, booby traps, and hundreds of pressuring tactics that achieve practical offensive or defensive results. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Peter Adler of Accord 3.0 and Past-President of The Keystone Center, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. Given that universities have only two primary tasks -- teaching and research – they ought to be willing to invest as much in improving the quality of their teaching as they do in providing an elaborate infrastructure to support basic and applied research. When we’ve put in effort to solve a problem, we want our solution, decision, or agreement to have every chance at long-run success. Ten big ideas on peace and justice from the career of Morton Deutsch. This is article six, focusing on social innovation. Most of us don’t go to the symphony to watch the conductor or to a sporting event to see the referees in action, but imagine the chaos without their participation. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with mediation pioneer Chris Moore, Founder of CDR Associates in Boulder, CO, and a long time leader in the area of public policy mediation, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Series. The evidence is in. After 43 years of federal practice under Rule 408 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (1975); 19 years of New York practice under CPLR 4547 (1998); and 16 years of practice in various states under the Uniform Mediation Act (2001), we can conclude: Statutory confidentiality is not necessary for effective mediation. The use of the joint session in mediation has been a hot topic of study and debate in recent years. Joint Fact Finding (JFF) is a public engagement strategy that creates a needed safe harbor for technical and scientific discussions between all sides. Is your workplace a toxic environment? If there is more than one person per week out sick in your department, chances are it is. Social media is changing how society behaves at a pace that we just cannot fathom. We have embraced it with open arms, but have we taken three steps back to digest it and understand how societal social skills have been affected? Today’s planners are committed to taking action – helping to implement improvements in the quality of life, particularly for the most vulnerable segments of society, often through public-private partnerships of various kinds. They are attempting to establish peaceful societies and minimize community conflicts. In the analyses of this week's budget deal, whether from the politicians of both parties or from the pundits, mostly we are hearing about which side scored the most points. For many years, a tempest has surrounded public policy approaches to consumer protection, largely implicating three utterly inapt legal constructs. In my sometimes over-simplified way of looking at negotiated agreements, I have argued that the most useful way to evaluate a potential deal is to compare it to alternatives that are actually available. When I was twenty-two years old, I did a two-year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Here is a brief account of a dispute resolution meeting with a local governing council called the panchayat. Peace is, and will continue to be, a pain in the butt.
Public Policy & Environmental Articles
The Mann Gulch Fire
The Ghosts of Melos
Interview with Howard Bellman
Interview with Doug Yarn
Splitting America Redux: Implications for Keeping our Kids Safe
In Memoriam: Frank E.A. Sander, pioneer in ADR (1927-2018)
Interview with Larry Susskind
Eye of the Storm Leadership: Guerilla Bridge Building
Interview with Peter Adler
Universities are Underinvesting in Efforts to Improve the Quality of Teaching
Go Back to the Future to Discover How Your Agreement Could Fail
A Grand Theory of Personality and Environment
How Does Your Mediator Add Value?
Interview with Chris Moore
A California Correction? Legislature Will Consider Allowing Attorney Malpractice Proof from Mediation
Study: Results Point to the Value of a Joint Session
A User's Guide to Joint Fact Finding — "JFF"
Toxic School Environments Make Teachers Sick
Conflict and the Advent of Social media in the Evolution of Society
What's Happening in the Field of Urban Planning?
Winning
Consumer Redress and “The New Handshake”
Compared to What?
Disputing at a Panchayat Meeting
Peace is a Tough Sell