This book has its origins in an M.I.T. research project that was funded
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Our immediate
objective was to prepare a set of case studies that examined bargaining
and negotiation as they occurred between government, environmental
advocates, and regulatees throughout the traditional regulatory process.
The project was part of a larger effort by the EPA to make environmental
regulation more efficient and less litigious. The principal investigator
for the research effort was Lawrence Sus- skind of the Department of
Urban Studies and Planning. Eight case studies were prepared under the
joint supervision of Susskind and the authors of this book. Studying the
negotiating behavior of parties as we worked our way through an
environmental dispute proved enlightening. We observed missed oppor-
tunities for settlement, negotiating tactics that backfired, and
strategies that ap- peared to be grounded more in intuition than in
thoughtful analysis. At the same time, however, we were struck by how
often the parties ultimately managed to muddle through. People
negotiated not out of some idealistic commitment to consensus but
because they thought it better served their own interests. When some
negotiations reached an impasse, people improvised mediation. These
disputants succeeded in spite of legal and institutional barriers, even
though few of them had a sophisticated understanding of negotiation.