Sanda Kaufman

Mining Negotiation Theory for Planning Insights

The rational planning model based on the view of planners as expert decision makers is gradually being replaced by collaborative models that acknowledge the joint nature of planning decisions. This article addresses the benefits of recognizing that negotiation is the key vehicle for joint decision making and therefore lies at the heart of planning. It calls for applying negotiation theory and practice lessons to examine and improve the dynamics of collaborative interactions. It proposes that analytical frameworks informed by negotiation theory can improve planning decisions and enhance the odds of their implementation. To illustrate their claims, the authors revisit three key concepts from the negotiation field—interests, mutual gains, and information—and illustrate their use in planning situations with vignettes from planning practice.

Quantitative and Research Methods in Planning: Are Schools Teaching What Practitioners Practice?

This paper offers a framework for reexamining the set of skills and techniques included in the quantitative and research methods curricula of American graduate planning programs. These offerings, viewed as the supply of skills, are compared to the demand—skills and techniques used by U.S. planning practitioners. The analysis explores the match between supply, current demand, and skills and techniques practitioners claim they intend to use in the future. Results of the analysis are linked with 1986 work by Contant and Forkenbrock. The quantitative curricular offerings of planning programs are found to be relatively unresponsive to current and future practitioner demand for skills. Directions for possible curriculum changes are suggested.

A Formal Framework for Mediator Mechanisms and Motivations

A mediator aids disputants in resolving their differences. A theoretical framework for mediator mechanisms extends the subjective expected utility perspective and permits formal examination of mediator attitudes toward the equity and efficiency of agreements. Two forms of impartiality in promoting gains to disputants are examined: active (jointly motivated to help both disputants) and responsive (more motivated to help one disputant at higher payoff levels for the other). It is shown that (1) observed mediator activity to help only one disputant at some point in a dispute is not necessarily a sign of bias, and (2) active mediators seek efficient outcomes.

building civic capacity to resolve environmental conflicts

Decisions involving environmental issues affect, and are affected by, numerous stakeholders. Solutions frequently require the efforts of multiple agencies, individuals, and interest groups. Civic capacity—consisting of institutions, organizations, and individuals, the knowledge and skills embedded in them, and their ability to collectively resolve problems affecting shared space or resources—is therefore a critical element of the collective ability to make complex environmental decisions. This article explores how shared frames for understanding and acting upon environmental issues promote civic capacity, as do processes of effective civic discourse and problem solving. Frames shape the manner in which stakeholders comprehend the environment, as well as the perceived fruitfulness of working with others. Civic discourse and deliberative processes enable cooperative joint problem solving. This article further argues that civic capacity can be cultivated, and that enhancements to civic capacity promote successful partnering between organizations, lay publics, and environmental professionals, and improve the quality of environmental decision making. Meaningful change in discourse and in outcomes is possible, even when parties to a conflict start out deeply divided, with significantly segmented frames; however, this change requires simultaneous improvements both in patterns of discourse and in the framing that underlies joint problem solving.

The role of mandates in third party intervention

ConclusionMandate, as a noun, is the charge that authorizes and legitimizes an intervenors actions. The intervenor may act at the bidding of the disputants or of third party stakeholders. Mandate provides a functional taxonomy of intervenors—from go-betweens to conciliators to mediators to arbitrators to dictators. Mandate affords a perspective for analyzing initiation, process, and evaluation of intervention. Useful heuristics have been proposed for categorizing the ways in which intervenors restricted to persuasion, such as mediators, can attempt to change beliefs. Future work might seek to determine conditions under which an intervenors persuasive abilities may change beliefs about available alternatives, about the probability that the alternative will lead to certain outcomes, and about the value of the outcome.

Just the Facts, Please: Framing and Technical Information

We use the concept of framing to explore how information producers and users understand, interpret, and interact with the technical and scientific fact-finding efforts associated with environmental disputes. We introduce three key categories of fact-finding frames that describe how stakeholders think about research objectives, trust and certainty, and technical communication. We illustrate these frames and their effects on the fact-finding process with examples drawn from environmental disputes. We suggest a number of strategies that could improve the ways in which experts, decision makers, environmental professionals, and the lay public deal with the factual basis of environmental issues.

Dynamics of two-group conflicts: A statistical physics model

We propose a “social physics” model for two-group conflict. We consider two disputing groups. Each individual i in each of the two groups has a preference si regarding the way in which the conflict should be resolved. The individual preferences span a range between +M (prone to protracted conflict) and −M (prone to settle the conflict). The noise in this system is quantified by a “social temperature”. Individuals interact within their group and with individuals of the other group. A pair of individuals (i,j) within a group contributes -si∗sj to the energy. The inter-group energy of individual i is taken to be proportional to the product between si and the mean value of the preferences from the other group’s members. We consider an equivalent-neighbor Renyi–Erdos network where everyone interacts with everyone. We present some examples of conflicts that may be described with this model.

Process design decisions in community-based collaboration: implications for implementation and collateral social benefits

Abstract Collaborative decision-making processes are conducted widely in public affairs at various scales, from community to metropolitan, regional and national. They vary from highly formalized and prescribed processes, such as “regulatory negotiations”, to collaborative planning processes directed by urban planners or other public agency staff, to rather informal processes within community-based organizations. While substantial effort has been invested in identifying the benefits of collaboration, we ask; do the benefits materialize in each case? We researched one ad hoc community collaborative in Oregon, USA, widely considered a success in the aftermath of agreement. We were interested in the implementation of agreement provisions, as well as in any social benefits from the process. Relying on published documents, surveys and interviews one year after the process ended, and additional interviews and on-site observations five years later, we found that despite the initial enthusiasm and confidence in actions proposed in the final report and social relationships strengthened during the process, evidence of long-term success on these two dimensions was mixed. This case provides a cautionary note to process facilitators, urban planners, public administrators and stakeholder and citizen participants. Participants face many strategic and process design decisions. Among these are choices about institutional linkages, stakeholders, the decision rule, and clarity about the purpose and goal of the process. While the degree of “success” of any collaborative may not be our call as observers, we contend that implementation and social impacts are critical to assessing the value of these processes. Consequently, we propose that participants and facilitators alike should understand and consider appropriately the micro-decisions that can and do add to critical implications on these two important dimensions.