Big Ideas for Big Problems: Lessons from Conflict Resolution for Public Administration

• Date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Kevin Campbell,Rosemary O'Leary
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21146

C R Q, vol. 33, supplement 1, Winter 2015 S107

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21146

Big Ideas for Big Problems: Lessons from Con ict

Resolution for Public Administration

Kevin Campbell

Rosemary O’Leary

Christina Merchant bridged the worlds of confl ict resolution and public

administration. Her message to her students in her later years was sim-

ple: the fi eld of confl ict resolution has a long and deep tradition refl ected

in literature and practice from which the fi eld of public administra-

tion can benefi t. In the spirit of her life and work, this article discusses

fi ve big ideas from confl ict resolution that public administrators should

embrace.

As a commissioner with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Ser-

vice, Christina mediated hundreds of labor disputes and designed and

taught collaborative training programs with the aim of improving labor

and management relations. She was highly respected within the labor and

management communities. She created the fi rst labor-management coop-

eration program for the US government. She also worked with the staff of

President Clinton and other dispute resolution professionals to establish

an offi cial labor-management partnership under executive order 12871

(Clinton 1993).

Christina worked with numerous partnership councils in many

executive branch agencies and with unions representing federal workers.

In her last year with the federal government, Christina worked for the

Department of Defense as project director for labor-management coop-

eration, where she off ered training, facilitation, and mediation assistance

to labor- management negotiations and partnerships in the department’s

installations worldwide. She resigned from the federal government and

became a highly successful independent dispute resolution consultant.