Activity 4.2 Environmental Policy Frameworks

Environmental conflict resolution	Context in environmental conflicts	Environmental Framing Consortium
Identity “Who am I?” Has to do with beliefs and values a person associates with.	Cultural Has to do with persons values, attitudes, and beliefs. Demographic Has to do with characteristics of the population such as age, gender, race, religion and ethnic categories.	Identity How people view themselves. What their beliefs and values are.
Characterization “Who are they?” Has to do with other people’s values and beliefs that are distinctly different.		Characterization “Who are they?” How people view others.
Conflict Management How people decide to manage conflicts.	Legal Laws, regulations, and legal procedures are how people make decisions for conflicts. Political How authority administrators choose to exercise, to uphold, or change a conflict.	Conflict Management How people think and respond to different types of conflict management.
Fact-Finding How people process facts, and how specific framing influences what people choose to accept as fact.	Technological How peoples level of knowledge influence their methods of understanding and managing issues and the assumptions they make.	Fact How people process facts in a policy dispute and how much people trust the facts.
Social Control How decisions regarding social issues should be made. Has to do with the degree of ownership over the decision or the degree to which people should be dependent on others for decisions
Power Ways that individuals can gain power in a conflict.	Economic Influences who has power and resources, and what priorities take precedence.
Risk Has to do with the different ways people perceive risk.		Risk How individuals respond to the potential risks associated with a particular policy decision.
	Ecological Where someone is influenced by how they think about the characteristics of the physical environment, including climate, geographical characteristics, pollution, natural resources, and the nature and density of organizational populations.	Views of Nature How someone thinks about the effects of human interaction on the natural environment.
		Gain/Loss Making decisions based on what a person might lose or gain.

My Five-Point Environmental Policy Framework

1.    Identity – “Who am I?” Relating to values, attitudes, beliefs, age, gender, race, religion and ethnic categories.

2.    Characterization – “Who are they?” Relating to other people’s values, attitudes, beliefs, age, gender, race, religion and ethnic categories. that are distinctly different.

3.    Ecological – Relating to how people view physical environment and the effects of human interaction on the natural environment.

4.    Risk – Relating to how individuals respond to the potential risks.

5.    Conflict Management – Relating to how people how people make decisions for conflicts.

To begin, I put the most important frame first- Identity. Before people know where they stand on environmental policies and problems, they have to understand themselves and who they are. I combined identity, cultural, and demographic into one frame because all of those factors really play in to who people are, and how they think. A young man who grew up in the country is not going to think the same as an old woman that has lived in the city her entire life.

My second frame is Characterization. After people understand who they are, they know where they stand on environmental policies and conflicts. The next thing a person has to think about is who “they” are. Who are the other people or organizations in the conflict? To resolve any conflict it’s important to understand who or what you are dealing with. Knowing the other parties values, attitudes, and beliefs helps you understand how to react in the conflict.

My third frame is Ecological. I combined how people think about the characteristics of the physical environment, including climate, geographical characteristics, pollution, natural resources, and the nature and density of organizational populations and how someone thinks about the effects of human interaction on the natural environment to come up with my ecological frame. How someone views and thinks about the environment around them plays a huge role in how they will handle policies and conflicts about it.

My fourth frame is Risk. How people perceive risk and how they respond to potential risks is a big factor in how people think about a conflict. Many factors are involved in how people perceive risk including someone’s training on a subject, their level of exposure to the hazard, and their experience with the hazard. The amount if risk involved or what the risk is will greatly influence how people react to the decision of a conflict, and how much they will fight a decision if they do not agree with it.

My fifth frame is Conflict Management. Conflict management is the different ways people think about and respond to different types of conflict resolution styles. I have made conflict management include the legal (laws, regulations, and legal procedures) and political (how authority administrators choose to exercise, to uphold, or change a conflict) aspect of dealing with environmental conflicts. The legal and political conflict management is at the heart of all environmental conflicts.

Reference:

Davis, C. B., & Lewicki, R. J. (2003). Environmental conflict resolution: Framing and intractability--an introduction. Environmental Practice, 5(3), 200-206. DAVISandLEWICKI_2003_Environmental_conflict_resolution__Framing.pdf

Bryan, T. (2003). Context in environmental conflicts: Where you stand depends on where you sit. Environmental Practice, 5(3), 256-264. BRYAN_2003_Context_in_environmental_conflict Framing.pdf

Environmental Framing Consortium. (2005). Framing choices. Understanding Environmental Problems. Retrieved from http://www.intractableconflict.org/environmentalframing/framing_choices.shtml