Conflict Resolution Methods and the Policy Process

Abstract

Advocates of a wide variety of conflict resolution techniques and processes assume that these efforts can open the path to more efficient and effective public program development and implementation.1 This article contends that to approach, much less achieve, such goals, scholars and practitioners must conceive of their task differently than they have up to now. A contextual analysis is necessary for first designing and then employing conflict resolution methods. Scholars and practitioners alike must become more sensitive to the patterns of relationships within the policy process which antedate their specific intervention. That network of associations defines and sustains patterns of causality within and among the organizations within which resolution efforts must necessarily occur.2 Those interested in conflict resolution can no longer ignore the impact of the policy process on the selection of conflict resolution techniques.