A Conflict Resolution Approach to Public Administration

Abstract

Public administrators often have to deal with conflicts. However, many public administrators have not been adequately exposed to the skills and rationales of conflict resolution. Ample literature about conflict exists in sister disciplines such as sociology, international relations, and labor relations. These studies focus on the impact of conflict, the nature of conflict, the players in the conflict, and possible strategies for conflict resolution. These studies can help public administrators better understand the nature of their work as well as their roles as conflict resolvers, conflict observers, or parties to conflict. The field of public administration could benefit greatly by incorporating the conflict resolution perspective into its teaching and research. Public administration literature has dealt extensively with how to execute the will of the people effectively and efficiently (Wilson, 1992; Gulick and Urwick, 1937; Brownlow, Merriam, and Gulick, 1937); how to deliver public services entrepreneurially and innovatively (Savas, 1987; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992); and how to be accountable and responsive to the public in general (Waldo, 1948; Ostrom, 1973; Goodsell, 1986; Rourke, 1992; Ingraham and Romzek, 1994). However, the field has had much less emphasis on conflict resolution, although sporadic studies have described the conflictual nature of public administrators' work or addressed microlevel (individual and organizational) conflict resolution in public organizations (Simon, 1957; Lipsky, 1980; Vizzard, 1995). The Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (28 U.S.C. sec. 471 et seq.), the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-552), and the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-648) explicitly expressed support, outlined methods, or stated requirements for federal agencies and departments to implement alternative strategies to resolve their administrative disputes (Madigan, 1992; Susskind, Babbit, and Segal, 1993; Manring, 1994; Deavel, 1994).[1] These acts are Congressional responses to the incredible growth in costs of civil litigation and delays that contribute to those costs.[2] They send out a strong message that conflict resolution is an indispensable component of contemporary public administration and that it is time the field started paying serious attention to it. Indeed, moving into the 1990s, the conflicts public administrators confront are much more complex, multifaceted, and intense. Besides the typical interpersonal and interorganizational conflicts, such as personnel grievances, labor disputes, and organizational jurisdiction disputes, many institutional-level conflicts have also surfaced or intensified. Such conflicts include economic development versus environmental protection; rising public interest concerns versus the call for more dependence on private methods; decentralization of power versus the need for coordinating larger tasks of high technology development and global competition; increased social wealth versus the enduring problems of poverty and crime; shaken public confidence in government versus increased need for confidence in the nation's economy; uncompetitive compensation versus the requirement for high-quality public service personnel; organizational uncertainty versus increased reliance on employee loyalty to public service; high-level national debt versus increased pressure for public spending on social and environmental programs; postmodern democratic demands versus modern quests for efficiency and effectiveness; special interests versus the general public interest; national homogeneity versus cultural diversity claims; need for cooperation versus tensions among ethnic groups and between genders; nationalism versus internationalism; and promotion for free international markets versus new tariffs to protect domestic industries. The length of this list, which is by no means exhaustive, underscores the message that today's public administrators cannot manage well without adequate understanding of, and skills in, conflict resolution. …