From Conflict To Consensus

Resolving Environmental Disputes presents detailed case studies from the key contemporary themes in resource management and environmental protection, such as: access to the countryside for recreation, sustainable forestry, pollution and risks to health, and coastal zone management. The book spans both theory and practice in assessing the relationship between public participation and mediation. It is structured around detailed case studies from Britain, the USA and the Netherlands, which are interspersed with chapters providing explanation and interpretation of the theoretical and practical issues involved. In reviewing the state of environmental conflict resolution, the author examines how and why conflicts occur and whether approaches to conflict resolution based on consensus building could be more widely applied.

This book presents a bold new theory of the processes of collective decision-making that draws on theoretical influences ranging from group decision theory through to the authors' own social representations theory. Moscovici and Doise offer a novel analysis of group conflict and the construction of consensus to produce a general theory of collective decisions. Going beyond the traditional view that compromise is a negative process where group members merely comply in order to sustain cohesion, the authors argue that the conflict at the root of group decisions can be a positive force leading to changes in opinion and to innovation. Their theoretical framework is illustrated in depth with numerous empirical investigations fro

This book examines conflict resolution efforts in Latin America by the Organization of American States (OAS) over the past fifty years by exploring the relationship of the United States with other member states within the context of the OAS. The book focuses on the impact of institutional factors on the influence that member states are able to wield within the organization. This innovative theoretical approach yields general insights into organizational behaviour and interstate relations within an international organization. The examination of thirty-one cases provides a wealth of empirical data and facilitates cross case comparisons.

This book offers a fresh view of postwar British politics, very much at odds to the dominant view in contemporary scholarship. The author argues that postwar British politics, up to and including the Blair Government, can be largely characterised in terms of continuity and a gradual evolution from a period of conflict over the primary aims of government strategy to one of recent relative consensus. This book provides a provocative and challenging account of the historical background to the election of the Blair Government and will be of interest to a wide audience.

This book explores the meaning of local ownership in peacebuilding and examines the ways in which it has been, and could be, operationalized in post-conflict environments. In the context of post-conflict peacebuilding, the idea of local ownership is based upon the premise that no peace process is sustainable in the absence of a meaningful degree of local involvement. Despite growing recognition of the importance of local ownership, however, relatively little attention has been paid to specifying what precisely the concept means or how it might be implemented. This volume contributes to the ongoing debate on the future of liberal peacebuilding through a critical investigation of the notion of local ownership, and challenges conventional assumptions about who the relevant locals are and what they are expected to own. Drawing on case studies from Bosnia, Afghanistan and Haiti, the text argues that local ownership can only be fostered through a long-term consensus-building process, which involves all levels of the conflict-affected society. This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, development studies, security studies and IR.

Few aspects of American military history have been as vigorously debated as Harry Truman's decision to use atomic bombs against Japan. In this carefully crafted volume, Michael Kort describes the wartime circumstances and thinking that form the context for the decision to use these weapons, surveys the major debates related to that decision, and provides a comprehensive collection of key primary source documents that illuminate the behavior of the United States and Japan during the closing days of World War II. Kort opens with a summary of the debate over Hiroshima as it has evolved since 1945. He then provides a historical overview of thye events in question, beginning with the decision and program to build the atomic bomb. Detailing the sequence of events leading to Japan's surrender, he revisits the decisive battles of the Pacific War and the motivations of American and Japanese leaders. Finally, Kort examines ten key issues in the discussion of Hiroshima and guides readers to relevant primary source documents, scholarly books, and articles.

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