8125

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8125
• Author: Moore, C. W.
• Title: Editor
• USFW Year: Series
• USFW - Doc Type: 1986
• Copyright Material: YES

FOUR
Selecting a Strategy
to Guide Mediation
In Chapter One I presented several approaches to conflict
management and resolution. These spanned a continuum with
conflict avoidance at one extreme and physical violence at the
other. As one moved from left to right in the diagram (see Fig-
ure 1), the approaches became progressively more assertive and
coercive. My concern in this chapter is with the process people
use in conflict to select a particular approach or combination of
approaches along this continuum. Of particular concern is how
and under what circumstances people select mediated negotia-
tions as the principal way to manage or resolve conflict.
Selection of an arena is related to selection of a dispute
management approach. Arenas or locales vary according to the
degrees of several dimensions: publicness and privacy, informaI-
ity and formality, institutionalization and noninstitutionaliza-
tion, and voluntariness and coercion. Any given approach can
be acted out in a variety of arenas. For example, mediation can
occur in a private setting that is informal, voluntary, and un-
institutionalized-as in child custody and divorce settlements.
Mediation can also be conducted in a highly public setting with
standardized behaviors and rituals. An example of large-scale
public negotiations is the Negotiated Investment Strategy ses-
sions sponsored by the Kettering Foundation that enabled fed-
eral, state, and city agencies to develop coordinated policies on
issues ranging from site-specific land use matters to citywide
social service policies (Shanahan and others, 1982).
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