Strategic issues in structuring multi-party public policy negotiations

Conclusion The protocols suggested here provide a framework for addressing the major strategic issues encountered in structuring multi-party public policy negotiations. A careful consideration of the procedures before substantive negotiations begin is the best assurance that these issues will not emerge as dilemmas and crises during the process itself. The protocols should be created by the parties to derive the full benefits of relevance and commitment. To borrow protocols created for another negotiation may result in both unrealistic and missing provisions.Having a good dispute, where the appropriate parties effectively explore and address their most essential and difficult differences, is the critical first step in effective dispute settlement.Gerald W. Cormick is regional director of The Mediation Institute, 15629 Cascadian Way, Mill Creek, Wash. 98012 and research associate professor at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, the University of Washington.An earlier version of this column was presented by the author during a panel on environmental and natural resource dispute resolution at a research conference sponsored by the Association for Public Policy and Management, 30 October 1987, in Bethesda, Md.