The Complex Dispute Resolution series collects essays on the development of foundational dispute resolution theory and practice and its application to increasingly more complex settings of conflicts in the world, including multi-party and multi-issue decision making, negotiations in political policy formation and governance, and international conflict resolution. Each volume contains an original introduction by the editor, which explores the key issues in the field. All three volumes feature essays which span an interdisciplinary range of fields, law, political science, game theory, decision science, economics, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and anthropology and consider issues in the uses of informal and private processes, as well as more formal and public processes. The essays question whether the development of universal theoretical insights about conflict resolution is possible with variable numbers of parties and issues and in multi-cultural and multi-jural settings. Each volume also presents a coda, summarizing key issues in the field and suggesting further avenues for research. The second volume (and the introductory essay here) applies the theoretical foundations and practices of primary processes in dispute resolution-negotiation, mediation, arbitration and some hybrid processes in both public and private, informal and formal settings to more complex multi-party and multi issue settings, and asks whether foundational theories must be altered when there are more parties and issues. What difference do larger numbers make in theory and practice of dispute resolution and decision making? Other theoretical and empirical observations of the role of third party neutrals and facilitators in multi-party settings are explored, and applied disciplines such as game theory and decision sciences are applied to complex dispute resolution settings. Illustrations of uses of these processes in different substantive areas, e.g. legal disputes, public policy decision making, politics and governance, environmental matters, institutional relations, and high conflict settings are provided. The volume collects classic articles in multi-party, multi-issue theory and practice while interrogating the issues of how the numbers of parties and issues, different contexts and cultures challenges our efforts to create generalizable theory and practice of human conflict resolution. The review essay also discusses recent efforts to seek correspondences and learning from application of conflict resolution theory and practice to the work on deliberative democracy and political decision making. The coda suggests avenues for future research. Some attention is paid to issues of ethics and political theory, as well as evaluation of efficacy, in the use of third party facilitators in public policy and governance disputes.

The articles selected for this volume draw on game theory, political science, psychology, sociology and anthropology to consider how the process of dispute resolution is altered, challenged and made more complex by the presence of multiple parties and/or multiple issues. The volume explores issues of coalition formation, defection, collaboration, commitments, voting practices, and joint decision making in settings of increasing human complexity. Also included are examples of concrete uses of deliberative democracy processes taken from new applications of complex dispute resolution theory and practice. The selected essays represent the latest theoretical advances and challenges in the field and demonstrate attempts to use dispute resolution theory in a wide variety of settings such as political decision making and policy formation; regulatory matters; environmental disputes; healthcare; community disputes; constitutional formation; and in many other controversial issues in the polity.

The Complex Dispute Resolution series collects essays on the development of foundational dispute resolution theory and practice and its application to increasingly more complex settings of conflicts in the world, including multi-party and multi-issue decision making, negotiations in political policy formation and governance, and international conflict resolution. Each volume contains an original introduction by the editor, which explores the key issues in the field. All three volumes feature essays which span an interdisciplinary range of fields, law, political science, game theory, decision science, economics, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and anthropology and consider issues in the uses of informal and private processes, as well as more formal and public processes. The essays question whether the development of universal theoretical insights about conflict resolution is possible with variable numbers of parties and issues and in multi-cultural and multi-jural settings. Each volume also presents a coda, summarizing key issues in the field and suggesting further avenues for research. The third volume (and the introductory essay here) applies foundational dispute resolution theories and practices to a wide variety of transnational, international and transcultural dispute settings. The essays explore the uses of formal diplomacy, political negotiation processes, formal international adjudication in a variety of tribunals, public and private arbitration, mediation processes, and a new set of hybrid processes. The introductory essay and chapters here also describe and interrogate new forms of international conflict handling, if not “resolution,” in modern forms of transitional and restorative justice, truth and reconciliation commissions, as well as hybrid tribunals. Some of the essays critique the tensions between the need for formal prosecution, punishment and adjudication of grievous wrongs, as in genocides and human rights violations and the needs and desires of societies and individuals to “move on” or create ways of re-integrating or restoring peace, as well as justice, in post-conflict situations. The question of whether “alternative” forms of justice and process are consistent with efforts to create international “rule of law” regimes is also queried. The Coda and other essays also explore whether there are necessarily cultural variations in conflict resolution, restorative and retributive or punitive justice. As with volumes I and II in this series, some of the classic works in the field of international dispute resolution are presented, while the idea of whether there are “universal” theories and practices of dispute resolution, across cultures and contexts is examined by the series editor and a number of authors.

The Complex Dispute Resolution series collects essays on the development of foundational dispute resolution theory and practice and its application to increasingly more complex settings of conflicts in the world, including multi-party and multi-issue decision making, negotiations in political policy formation and governance, and international conflict resolution. Each volume contains an original introduction by the editor, which explores the key issues in the field. All three volumes feature essays which span an interdisciplinary range of fields, law, political science, game theory, decision science, economics, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and anthropology and consider issues in the uses of informal and private processes, as well as more formal and public processes. The essays question whether the development of universal theoretical insights about conflict resolution is possible with variable numbers of parties and issues and in multi-cultural and multi-jural settings. Each volume also presents a coda, summarizing key issues in the field and suggesting further avenues for research. The first volume (and the introductory essay here) reviews the history, theoretical foundations and practices of the primary processes in process pluralism - negotiation, mediation, arbitration and some hybrid processes in both public and private, informal and formal settings. Illustrations of uses of these processes in different substantive areas, e.g. legal disputes, family law, transactional matters, environmental matters, institutional relations, consumer, employment and legal and court reform are provided. The volume collects classic articles in foundational theory and practice while interrogating the issues of how the numbers of parties and issues, different contexts and cultures challenges our efforts to create generalizable theory and practice of human conflict resolution.

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This volume brings together leading research articles in to the theory, research findings and applications of modern dispute resolution. The articles relate to a wide variety of settings and cover the primary processes of negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as well as exploring combinations and hybridization of those processes. Also included are articles on the search for 'value-added' or 'pie-expanding' creative solutions; the choosing of strategies, based on game theory, economics and social and cognitive psychology; how foundational theories have been altered or modified, depending on contexts, and numbers of parties and issues; and what issues are raised by the 'privatization of justice'. The articles span both the 'science' and 'art' of dispute resolution, consider the relationship of peace to justice and include both empirical (descriptive) and normative (prescriptive) assessments of how these processes of dispute resolution function.

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