ABSTRACT

During the last two decades, in all highly industrialized western countries, one can identify the emergence of new boards and activities for out-of-court resolution of conflicts which were previously brought to the courts or regulated informally by the parties themselves (whether or not the parties first consulted advisory or mediatory organizations or experts). These boards exist in a wide variety of forms and often their status may be considered experimental or temporary. Despite the diversity between national developments, the common denominator may be adduced to the fact that they provide bargaining facilities for conflicts which should not (or no longer) be submitted to highly differentiated court-proceedings, the latter having historically achieved the most elaborated form of securing social consensus. Nor can the conflicts in question be resolved by everyday and ‘common-sense’ oriented strategies. These activities document an effort to resolve new or newly recognized social conflicts, which may no longer be ignored, and at the same time, the redefinition of societal means for resolving them. Looked at more closely, there is at least one class/type of these new boards in all countries, which seems to have gained stability and thus may represent a new type of intermediary institution: namely the boards for consumer-business conflicts. (Tentative international surveys are provided by Denti and Vigoriti 1983; Blankenburg and Taniguchi 1987; for the USA see Gottwald 1981; Abel 1982a; for West Germany see Blankenburg et al. 1980; 1982; Morasch 1984.)