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Issue 2.1 Abstracts

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Process Evaluation for Discursive Decision Making in Environmental and Risk Policy

By Seth Tuler and Thomas Webler

Many important environmental and risk policy issues have become disputatious and difficult to resolve by traditional methods. Regulators and policy analysts have begun to look at tools for collective decision- making and shared problem solving to overcome the limitations of traditional techniques. These tools have been labeled "discursive" because they are based on exchange (and development) of knowledge and values in structured discourse settings. While discursive methods have been implemented in a number of cases, few have been systematically evaluated. Yet, social and institutional learning about the strengths and weaknesses of discursive methods to collective decision-making will depend on our learning about the successes and failures of actual cases. In this article we describe a process evaluation methodology that integrates perspectives of planners, participants, and normative theory at the same time that it pays close attention to the specifics of particular processes.

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Bioregional Organization: A Constitution of Home and Place

By Michael V. McGinnis

The heart of this essay is an attempt to raise the standards of both environmental policy-making and administration to encompass bioregional principles. The author first shows the importance of a bioregional approach to environmental administration. Second, the author characterizes bioregional administration by employing theories of ecology, conservation biology, and biogeography. The goal of bioregional administration is to sustain, protect and restore cultural and biological diversity and ecosystem integrity.

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