ABSTRACT
Mediators handle the arrangements necessary in the course of a prolonged negotiation and, in complex public disputes, play a crucial role in ensuring that public disputes are not transformed into private settlements. Despite the successes achieved thus far, the use of mediated negotiation in public sector disputes has its critics. This chapter focuses on five concerns: problems of representation, the difficulties of setting an appropriate agenda, obstacles to joint fact finding, difficulties of binding parties to their commitments, and obstacles to monitoring and enforcing negotiated agreements. It examines three cases in which mediated negotiation was used to settle public disputes. The three cases: a negotiated investment strategy undertaken by the state of Connecticut; a dispute over the siting of a low-income housing project in Forest Hills, New York; and an environmental dispute involving energy production facilities along the Hudson River.
