Can Mediation Be Scaled Up to Facilitate Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making?

This chapter is a commentary, both friendly and critical, on a proposal to use multi-stakeholder mediation in the particular context of the siting of controversial renewal energy facilities, using models developed by Larry Susskind and the Consensus Building Institute in a new clinical format. It reviews the theory behind multiparty mediated decision-making in the environmental context, as outlined by Susskind, and analyzes the question of whether and how mediation models can be scaled up with many more parties than the usual smaller numbers in conventional mediation settings. The chapter also questions the ongoing use of the controversial term “stakeholder,” derived from property law and conquest as a land use concept, and suggests the better (and less politically charged) use of “interested parties.” The chapter is generally supportive of the models of mediated participation suggested here with a variety of interested parties, but as the process has not yet been fully implemented, no empirical conclusions can yet be offered. The chapter concludes this is a promising process, focusing on the applicable theories of consensus building and deliberative democracy and the evaluative criteria specified by the book’s editors—full evaluation awaits actual implementation.