Deliberative Democracy and Dispute Resolution

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Lawrence Susskind.
Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, September, 2009

There are three problems with the way our traditional approach to democratic decisionmaking allocates scarce resources, establishes policy priorities, and sets health, safety, and related standards in the public arena. The way we make public policy and “do” democracy in America can be improved in a rather straightforward manner by addressing these three problems in a new and different way.

The purpose of this article is to describe these three problems and then explain why and how a “consensus building approach” to public decisionmaking can produce better—that is, fairer, stabler, wiser, and more efficient—results.

To read the full text of this article as it appears in the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, download the PDF.

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