Principal Investigator Lawrence Susskind
Public dispute resolution occupies an important space within the broader practice of conflict management. Professional public dispute mediators have helped to resolve disagreements over the allocation of scarce resources, the setting of standards, and the making of choices over policy priorities at the local, state, and national levels for almost thirty years. The purpose of this article is to provide a current snapshot of the field. The article looks at a small group of leaders in the field -- not a representative sample but a weighted set of individuals and organizations whose efforts indicate what is happening in the field as a whole. One goal was to tally the amount of revenue that this relatively small group generates. The authors hoped that their findings would show that, by any financial standard, the field is much bigger than you have imagined and consequently worthy of the investments of time, effo t, and money that a more rigorous economic analysis would require.