Lawrence Susskind - Teaching and Research

Current Courses Doctoral Advisees Research Interests New Research Directions

Current Courses

As head of the Environmental Policy Group in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT, Professor Susskind currently teaches five courses. These are briefly described below with links to the course home pages, where appropriate.

11.011 The Art and Science of Negotiation
11.255 Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the Public Sector
11.257 Addressing the Land Claims of Indigenous People (AKA: Seminar on Theory-Building in Multi-Party Negotiation
11.364 International Environmental Negotiation (taught jointly with Fletcher School of Diplomacy)
11.601 Introduction to Environmental Policy and Planning

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Doctoral Advisees

Since 1979, Professor Susskind has supervised close to fifty doctoral candidates. They are presented here, by year of graduation, with dissertation title.

2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1995 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1980 1979

Year	Advisee	Dissertation Title

2010	Anguelovski, Isabelle	TBA
	Araujo, Kathy	TBA
	Healy, Rachel	TBA
	van Maasakkers, Tijs	TBA

2009	Kock, Beaudry	TBA

2008	Ferenz, Michele	TBA
	Odeh, Nancy	TBA
	Ashcraft, Catherine	TBA

2007	Macey, Gregg	Sheltering in Place: The Limits to Integrative Bargaining Following Industrial Accidents
	Nielsen, Erik	Networked Governance: China’s Changing Approach to Transboundary Environmental Management
	Rosan, Christina	Metropolitan Governance and Local Land Use Planning in Boston, Denver, and Portland
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2006	Kohler, Pia	Towards a Global Consensus on Matters of Science: How process and membership can generate valid and sustainable science advice in multilateral environmental treaty negotiations
	Kim, Dong Young	The Politics of Consensus Building: The Case of Diesel Passenger Cars and Urban Air Quality Management in South Korea
	Matsuura, Masahiro	Localizing Public Dispute Resolution In Japan: lessons from experiments with deliberative policy-making
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2005	Fuller, Boyd	Trading zones: cooperating for water resource and ecosystem management when stakeholders have apparently irreconcilable differences.
	Flores, Andres	Private vs. Public Ownership of Power Generation in Mexico: Should Environmental Policymakers Care?
	Mostashari, Ali	Stakeholder-assisted modeling and policy design for engineering systems
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2004	Blockhus, Jill	The Potential for Trickle Up: How Local Actors’ Experiments Influence National Forest Policy Planning
	Martinez, Janet	International Dispute Settlement system Design: Analyzing the Experience of the World Trade Organization
	Sewell, Granville	Conflicting Beliefs: Actors, Coalitions and the Framework Convention on Climate Change
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2003	Rossi, Mark	Greening the Invisible Hand: How Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Succeed and Fail in Technology Change
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2002	Corburn, Jason	Street Science: The Fusing of Local and Professional Knowledge in Environmental Policy
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2001	Ali, Saleem	Environmental resistance and Aboriginal development : a comparative study of mining ventures in the United States and Canada
	Najam, Adil	Getting Beyond The Lowest Common Denominator: Developing Countries In Global Environmental Negotiations
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2000	Long, Marybeth	Grains of Truth: Science and the Evolution of International Desertification Policy Making
	Merrigan, Kathleen A.	Negotiating Identity Within the Sustainable Agriculture Advocacy Coalition
	Oliveira, Jose Antonio P.	Implementing Environmental Policies in Developing Countries: Responding to the Environmental Impacts of Tourism Development by Creating Environmentally Protected Areas in Bahia, Brazil
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1999	Gutner, Tamar	Banking on the Environment: Multilateral Development Banks and Environmental Policy Making in Central and Eastern Europe
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1998	Beattie. Robert B.	Common ground: Sustainable Development Conflicts in the Northern Forest of New England and New York
	Laws, David	Planning in the Shadow of the Future: Intergenerational Ethics in Environmental Decision-making
	Sandford, Rosemary	A Comparative Study of Global Environmental Treaty Secretariats: Their Roles and Influence in Treaty Implementation
	Fairman, David	Reforming Natural Resource Policies in Developing Countries: The Politics of Forest Policy Reform in Southeast Asia
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1997	Kaufmann, Joanne	Beyond the Blue Horizon: The Role of Industry in Global Environmental Politics
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1995	Dolin, Eric J	Remedial Adjudication in Environmental Institution Cases: Lessons from Boston Harbor
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1993	Babbit, Eileen	Beyond Neutrality: The Use of Leverage by Powerful States as Mediators in International Conflict
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1992	Alberti, Marina	Minimization of Hazarduous Waste in Western Europe Policy: Implementation and Harmonization
	Raab, Jonathan	Consensus-Building in Electric Utility Regulation
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1991	Konkel, Steven Richard	Using Joint Fact-Finding To Resolve Disputes Over Cleanup Of Hazardous Waste Sites
	Pokharel, Jagadish Chandra	Environmental Resource Negotiation between Asymmetrically Powerful Nations: Power of the Weaker Nations
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1990	Andrews, Clinton James	Improving the Analytics of Open Planning Process: Scenario-based Multiple Attribute Tradeoff Analysis for Regional Electric Power Planning
	Gamman, John K.	Environmental Policy Implementation in Developing Countries
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1989	McCreary, Scott T.	Resolving Science-intensive Public Policy Disputes: Lessons from the New York Bright Initiative
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1988	Ozawa, Connie	Consensual Approaches and the Role of Science in Public Decision Making
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1986	Horan, Cynthia L.	Empty Coffers: Tax Reform and Politics in Boston and New York
	Kim, Karl E.	Urban Infrastructure: The Role of Long-term Municipal Borrowing
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1984	Elliott Michael L. P.	Coping with Conflicting Perceptions of Risk in Hazarduous Waste Facility Siting Disputes
	Horberry, John A	Development Assistance and the Environment: A Question of Accountability
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1982	Perry, Charles J.	State growth management: prospects for consensus-oriented land use planning and conflict resolution
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1980	Polk, Jr., William Gastion	The National Rural Cable TV Development Task Force: A Case Study of a “Coordinative Approach” to Federal Policy and Program Implementation
	Wondolleck, Julia M.	Oil and Gas and the Public Lands: Conflict and Resolution
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1979	Yaffee, Stephen Lewis	Prohibitive Policy and the Implementation of the Endangered Species Act

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Research Interests

Professor Susskind has pursued four broad research themes over the past several decades: the mediation of public disputes (particularly land use and environmental disputes), global environmental treatymaking, public involvement in governmental decision-making (particularly science-intensive policy disputes), and environmental technology innovation.

His work in the public disputes field includes studies of the effectiveness of mediation; the dynamics of multi-party, multi-issue negotiation, the ethics of public dispute resolution, and cross-cultural obstacles to transferring public dispute mediation strategies from the United States to other parts of the world.

With regard to global environmental treaty-making, his work has focused on the role of science and scientists in the treatymaking process, the expanding role of non-governmental interests in treaty-making, the relationship between informal (Track II) diplomacy and the formal processes of treaty-making, and the difficulties of enforcing transboundary environmental agreements.

In the area of public involvement in governmental decision-making his emphasis has been on the tactics and strategies of collaborative decision-making (especially joint fact finding and integrated assessment), the obstacles to expanding deliberative democracy, alternatives to Robert's Rules of Order and majority rule in group decision-making, facility siting and land use disputes, and the use of interactive technologies to expand public participation.

Under the heading of environmental technology innovation, Professor Susskind focuses on what he called public entrepreneurship networks -- the complex web of individuals and institutions needed to harmonize efforts for "green" innovation to be successful at the community or regional scale.

New Research Directions:

Over the next three to five years, Professor Susskind's research will focus on (1) ways of addressing the land and sovereignty claims of indigenous peoples (especially Bedouins in Israel, First Nations in Canada, Mindinaouans in the Philippines, and Navajo in the United States); (2) ways of building consensus on
local, state and national adaptive responses to the likely impacts of climate change; and (3) strategies for encouraging greater reliance on renewable energy (particularly wind energy).

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