Institutionalizing Alternative Dispute Resolution: Insights from the Experiences of State Level Environmental and Public Policy Offices.

Abstract

During the 1970s and 1980s, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) emerged as a new decision-making construct for environmental and public policy (EPP) conflicts in the United States. Over the years, there has been a long and varied history of efforts to institutionalize ADR. The focus of this dissertation is on state-level EPP offices, an under studied but well established set of twenty-three organizations that constitute an organizational population. The overarching question of this research is, what insights can be gained about institutionalization of ADR from the experiences of state EPP offices? Review of natural resource management and environmental policy, ADR, organizational theory, and psychology literature provides a context for this research. This interdisciplinary research uses a focused qualitative analysis, which allows for the identification of unexpected patterns, while capturing the data needed to make a sound analysis. Data collection occurred through semi-structured telephone interviews, review of documents, and cognitive mapping of state EPP office directors. This research starts by developing a systematic understanding of the state EPP offices through a focus on six characteristics. Next, the origins and current influences on the population of state EPP offices are analyzed. A cognitive map analysis is used to better understand the frameworks directors use to make sense of the twenty-three state EPP offices. The final analysis focuses on the institutional logics, that is, the underlying assumptions that influence office leadership. This research shows that pathways to institutionalization can emerge organically from the bottom up and do not always occur in a top-down manner, a different approach than the typical federal ADR initiatives. While a dominant framing in the literature and among directors is based on the characteristic of affiliation (university, judiciary, executive, independent), the data indicates that affiliation is not predictive of an office’s purpose, logic, activities, or budget. In regard to origins, champions are identified as crucial but not the sole element of the institutionalization process. Finally, five logics are identified; these five discrete logics suggest a hybrid logic of effective collaborative governance for the population. Those interested in fostering institutionalization should enhance the networks and the visibility of the population.