Environmental Justice: Process, Experience, and Acceptance of Policy from an Environmental Dispute Resolution Process

本研究探讨了公众如何看待环境争端解决的创新程序，以及这些程序的看法如何影响对争端解决程序结果的反应。该研究采用了对积极参与者和受正在进行的环境政策进程结果影响的人进行的反复小组调查。正在研究的争议解决过程是一个科学的水质建模过程，制定政策，降低北卡罗来纳州河流的营养污染水平。该研究重点关注影响三组公平判断和政策接受的认知，社会和政治因素：积极参与公民参与进程（主要是环境和工业利益集团以及市政府的代表），居住在河流附近地区的普通民众，还有一个特殊的群体，这项研究试图填补我们现有的关于解决争端心理学知识的一个重要空白和公共政策。 那么，过程感知从何而来？过程感知的影响如何与先前存在的态度和意识形态的影响以及自身利益的关注相融合，以决定一项政策是被接受还是被拒绝？这是拟议研究的中心科学主题。探讨这个问题将促进我们对法律中一个关键的心理过程的理解，它将建议如何改善政策制定过程，如本文所研究的环境纠纷解决过程。拟议的研究还将提供关于少数群体对污染政策和污染政策制定过程的看法的数据，从而指导决策者如何制定更能为弱势群体接受的政策。

The research examines how innovative procedures for environmental dispute resolution are viewed by the public and how these process perceptions affect reactions to the outcome of the dispute resolution process. The research uses repeated panel surveys of active participants and of people affected by the outcome of an ongoing environmental policy process. The dispute resolution process under study is a scientific water quality modeling process that makes policies for lowering nutrient pollution levels in North Carolina rivers. The research focuses on the cognitive, social, and political factors affecting fairness judgments and policy acceptance in three groups: active participants in the citizen input process (mostly representatives of environmental and industry interest groups and city governments), the general population living in areas adjacent to the rivers, and a special group consisting of African-American farmers and farm workers in areas near the rivers.The research seeks to fill an important gap in our existing knowledge of the psychology of dispute resolution and public policy. Where then do the process perceptions come from and how do the effects of process perceptions merge with the effects of pre-existing attitudes and ideologies, and with self-interest concerns, to determine whether a policy is accepted or rejected? This is the central scientific topic of the proposed research. Answering this question will advance our understanding of a key psychological process in law in action, and it will suggest ways to improve policy-making processes like the environmental dispute resolution process under study here. The proposed research will also provide data on the perception of pollution policy and pollution policy-making processes by a minority population, and thus will offer guidance to policy makers about how to develop policy more acceptable to disadvantaged populations.