An examination of how to move from consensus to implementation using collaborative approaches to natural resource management, urban planning, and environmental policy. Collaborative approaches are increasingly common across a range of governance and policy areas. Single-issue, single-organization solutions often prove ineffective for complex, contentious, and diffuse problems. Collaborative efforts allow cross-jurisdictional governance and policy, involving groups that may operate on different decision-making levels. In Beyond Consensus, Richard Margerum examines the full range of collaborative enterprises in natural resource management, urban planning, and environmental policy. He explains the pros and cons of collaborative approaches, develops methods to test their effectiveness, and identifies ways to improve their implementation and results. Drawing on extensive case studies of collaborations in the United States and Australia, Margerum shows that collaboration is not just about developing a strategy but also about creating and sustaining arrangements that can support collaborative implementation. Margerum outlines a typology of collaborative efforts and a typology of networks to support implementation. He uses these typologies to explain the factors that are likely to make collaborations successful and examines the implications for participants. The rich case studies in Beyond Consensus—which range from watershed management to transportation planning, and include both successes and failures—offer lessons in collaboration that make the book ideal for classroom use. It is also designed to help practitioners evaluate and improve collaborative efforts at any phase. The book's theoretical framework provides scholars with a means to assess the effectiveness of collaborations and explain their ability to achieve results.

Presents a critical evaluation of a controversial interpretative tool the ECtHR uses to answer morally/politically sensitive human rights questions.

This excellent book, newly available in paperback, addresses the growing dissatisfaction with the neo-liberal post-Washington consensus. The concern of the contributors in writing this collection was that this consensus has established itself as a new orthodoxy, more powerful and widespread than its predecessor. This broad-ranging critique explains that without a much broader political economy the consensus is unlikely to provide a coherent framework for successful development policies. Development Policy in the 21st Century is unique in its depth and assesses the postures of the new consensus topic by topic, whilst posing strong alternatives. It will improve and stimulate the reader's understanding of this important area, and is required reading for any student, academic or interested reader that wishes to understand one of the most important issues in international economics.

This report examines the precise nature of the required institutional reforms needed to achieve higher sustained rates of growth and to make a dent in poverty reduction and provides a framework for their design and implementation. The more modest objective is to examine how the concepts of the new institutional economics are useful for analyzing and designing institutions and to evaluate how political economy concepts can be used to develop strategies for implementing institutional reforms. Employing some of these concepts, the report demonstrates that sound institutional reform can be technically and politically viable in the following key sectors: banking; capital markets and legal institutions; educational institutions; judicial reforms; and public administration.

A step-by-step guide to the most efficient and effective method for participatory group decision-making Are you frustrated by that common challenge called group decision-making? Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making can help! Clearly written and well organized, keep this book by your side and refer to it often. Groups you are part of will function better as a result. -- Peggy Holman, author, Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity For any group or organization to function effectively, it must be able to make decisions well. Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making is the first book to offer groups (and group facilitators) a clear and efficient path to generating widespread agreement while fostering full participation and true collaboration. Poised to become the new standard for group facilitation, Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making combines: Deep insight into complex group dynamics Effective conflict resolution techniques Powerful communication skills Groups using this simple, step-by-step approach experience increased cohesion and commitment and stronger relationships as a result of their successful cooperation. Incorporating the principles of collaboration, inclusion, empathy, and open-mindedness, the consensus-oriented decision-making (CODM) process encourages shared ownership of group decisions. The method can be used in any group situation, regardless of whether the final decision-making power rests with a single person or team, a vote of members, or unanimity. Business, government, nonprofit, social, and community organizations can all benefit from Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making . Whether you are a designated facilitator or an active participant, understanding this powerful framework will help you contribute to the success of your group through achieving maximum participation and efficiency, a clearer decision-making process, better decisions, and improved group dynamics. Tim Hartnett, PhD, is a group facilitator and mediator who blends extensive knowledge of non-violent communication with insightful understanding of group dynamics and effective techniques for conflict resolution.

If you follow politics or the news, America is a country of culture wars and great divides, a partisan place of red states and blue states, of us against them. From pundits to politicians it seems that anyone with an audience sees a polarized country - a country at war with itself. In a radical departure from this "conventional wisdom," Carl Anderson explores what the talking heads have missed: an overwhelming American consensus on many of the country's seemingly most divisive issues. If the debates are shrill in public, he says, there is a quiet consensus in private - one that America's institutions ignore at their peril. From health care, to the role of religion in America, to abortion, to the importance of traditional ethics in business and society, Anderson uses fresh polling data and keen insight in BEYOND A HOUSE DIVIDED to show that a surprising consensus has emerged despite these debates. He sheds light on what's been missing in the public and political debates of the last several years: the consensus that isn't hard to find if you know where to look. For Anderson, allowing polar opposites to drive the discussion has made the resolution of contentious issues impossible. Instead, he says, we should look to the consensus among Americans as the best prospect for a beneficial conclusion.