THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC POLICY DISPUTE RESOLUTION

This article traces the history of public dispute resolution from its earliest days in the 1970s to the present, documenting the introduction of innovative practices into many of the arenas where policy is made. It argues that the first stirrings of the field can be traced to the confluence of four separate but related experiments: 1) a handful of successful attempts to resolve multi-party environmental disputes through the use of mediation; 2) a series of dialogues bringing federal state, and local officials together to negotiate public investment strategies; 3) attempts by a few federal agencies like EPA to supplement conventional rule-making with a consensus based approach called negotiated rule-making; and 4) the advent of community dispute resolution centers. The development of these four strands of activity is followed, showing how practitioners associated with each spurred further innovation, extended emerging dispute resolution techniques into new areas, and supported the founding and maturation of new dispute resolution networks and organizations. Some of the "best practices" that have emerged as the field has grown are described, along with potential ways in which institutionalization and the use of technology are likely to influence the further evolution of public dispute resolution.