Edward A. Parson, Teaching
Courses
International Environmental Law and Policy — Undergraduate
Environ 365
Winter 2009
This course examines how society manages (or fails to manage) environmental issues that fall beyond the authority or capability of a single national government.
Some classes will focus on specific international environmental issues. The issues considered will include stratospheric ozone depletion, trans-boundary air pollution, protection and management of biological systems – including forests, endangered species, biological diversity, and marine fisheries – and global climate change.
We will examine each issue from three perspectives. We will describe the history and status of attempts to manage the issue, and of our knowledge about it (mostly scientific knowledge, sometimes also technological, economic, and other relevant knowledge). We will seek to explain the policy outcomes we see, asking why things are being done in this way and not some other. And we will seek to assess the effectiveness with which the issue is being managed, relative to its apparent severity and urgency.
Other classes will pursue more general and conceptual topics. We will examine the nature and historical development of global environmental stresses and the driving forces underlying them; systematic structural issues and other problems that obstruct effective management of environmental (or other) issues at global scale; and the elements or components of a responses to manage these issues – e.g., international negotiation of treaties or other instruments, international organizations, international legal principles, financial measures, implementation and compliance systems, and initiatives by NGOs as alternatives or supplements to government action.
Additional topics to be considered will include the use of science – scientific knowledge and uncertainty, consensus and controversy – in international policy-making; and the linkages of international environmental issues to other issues of trade, development, and international economic policy. We will briefly examine how, in many parts of the world, colonial states attempted to govern nature and for what ends; and the present-day nature of the effects of these historical environmental policies.
Overall, the perspective of the course will be synthetic: it will seek to apply insights from research and scholarship to help advance practical understanding of what is happening, why, and how things might be done better. The bridge between theory and practice will go both ways: we will both use theoretical concepts to help understand specific issues, and use evidence from these issues to help criticize and refine theoretical claims.
Draft syllabus, December 23, 2008
International Environmental Law and Policy — Graduate
Law 682, NRE 501.117
last taught Winter 2008, jointly with Prof. Rebecca Hardin -- next offered, Fall 2009
Winter 2008 syllabus
Negotiations
Law 712
Winter 2009 (enrollment limit 48)
This course offers an introduction to the analysis and practice of negotiations, through a mixture of three roughly equal pedagogical components:
- Presentation of theoretical concepts useful for analyzing negotiation situations
- Case discussion of past negotiations
- Participation in, and subsequent analysis of, simulated negotiation exercises.
The course goal is to enhance your effectiveness as a negotiator, defined as your ability to identify and advance your goals – on average – across the range of negotiation situations and counterparts you are likely to encounter in life, professional and otherwise.
We pursue this goal principally through building your abilities of perception and analysis, to make you better able to recognize when you are engaged in a negotiation (it is not always obvious, and the participants do not always agree!), what the most important elements of its structure are – e.g., parties to the negotiation and issues to be decided, the configuration of parties’ interests and their alternatives to a negotiated agreement, information, uncertainty, time, and ongoing relationships – and the implications of these structural elements for tactics: those likely to be employed, those likely to be effective, and associated risks.
There will be some consideration of behavioral and communicative aspects of negotiations – e.g., relevant attitudes, behavioral proclivities, skills of communication, assertiveness, building rapport and empathy – but this will be secondary to our treatment of structural and strategic aspects of negotiations and associated skills of analysis. In this domain we will seek a few “low-hanging fruit” insights: recognition of the salient dimensions relevant to negotiation behavior and outcomes on which people differ; some progress in recognizing your own dispositions; and recognizing some of the opportunities and risks, specific to particular negotiation situations or partners, that these may carry.
We will also discuss ethical issues that arise in negotiations – both in reality and in course exercises – in order to sharpen your ethical judgments about tactics, outcomes, and externalities in negotiations.
Draft syllabus, December 23, 2008
Thinking Analytically for Policy and Decisions
NRE 575, Law 796, PubPol 500
Fall 2008
This course develops the skills of using analytic methods and models to understand real decisions and policy issues, drawn from the realms of natural resource management, public policy, business strategy, politics, negotiations, and conflict.
The perspective is that of a decision-maker seeking better understanding of complex situations she/he faces in managerial and professional life, and practical guidance for making decisions in these situations.
The course considers a variety of analytic techniques, methods, and models, particularly those emphasizing uncertainty and strategic interactions in decision-making. Some elementary concepts of modeling are also introduced, with emphasis on dynamics, uncertainty, and optimal choice under constraints.
The emphasis throughout is on fundamental concepts, insights, and intuitions, often drawing the material for discussion from current issues and controversies that we find in the newspaper. Formalism and computation are kept to the minimum necessary to convey the basic concepts. We especially practice basic skills of abstraction and formulation: recognizing situations where some simple analytic concept is potentially applicable to some messy reality; abstracting the essential characteristics of the messy reality to develop a relevant model; and critically examining the model's implications in light of our understanding and judgments about the messy reality. We often move iteratively between thinking about complex messy realities and simple models, using each perspective to probe, critique, and improve our understanding from the other perspective.
This course will next be offered in Fall 2010.
Informal Seminar on Chamber Music
Law School, Fall 2007 - Winter 2008 (non-credit)
This seminar provides an introduction to western classical chamber music, ranging from 18th century classics to major 20th-century works. This seminar will include six evening sessions over the fall and winter semester, listening to and talking about chamber music, Each evening will focus on one or two works from a particular composer or period, and will involve some introductory remarks, looking at scores for those who wish, and listening to and discussing performances -- sometimes recorded performances, but I will try to have as many as possible of these be live readings featuring local musicians, UM faculty, and music students. Participants are welcome with a little, or a lot of prior familiarity with classical music. There will be plenty of opportunity to answer basic "music-appreciation" questions such as "what's sonata form" or "how do you get a sound out of that instrument"?
Notes for session 1, chamber music introduction and Haydn string quartets, October 10, 2007
Notes for session 2, Brahms string sextets, November 14, 2007
Notes for session 3, Beethoven's early chamber music, November 28, 2007
Notes for session 4, Beethoven's middle and late string quartets, January 16, 2008
Teaching Materials, Cases, and Textbooks:
Cases and exercises in Negotiations
In preparation, to be made available starting in Winter 2008 under Creative Commons license -- a series of new simulation/gaming exercises for use in teaching negotiations, developed by UM law students under my supervision.
E.A. Parson, M. Baghai, J. Martinez, and M. Webster, Climate Change Negotiation
Exercise: 50-person simulation exercise with computer program, for professional and
executive instruction. Strategic Environmental Simulations, Inc., 1999 (Ver. 4).
E.A. Parson and M. Baghai, CO2: The Global Warming Game, 24-person simulation for
high-school and college classes. Strategic Environmental Simulations, Inc., 1994 (Ver 3).