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Everyday Disputes and Mediation in the United States: A Reply to Professor Felstiner

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Richard Danzig  and
Michael J. Lowy
Richard Danzig
Affiliation:
Stanford University Law School
Michael J. Lowy
Affiliation:
Stanford University Law School
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Extract

In a recent article in these pages Professor W.L.F. Felstiner (1974) made a substantial contribution to the literature on dispute processing by analyzing the role of avoidance as a means of ending disputes, and by correlating the ubiquity of this technique with differing forms of societal organization. In brief, his insight—richly developed in the article—is that the tendency to walk away from contentious situations is greater in “technologically complex, rich societies” than in “technologically simple, poor societies.” This is because the organization of richer societies minimizes the importance and the intertwining (multiplexity) of family and other group ties and maximizes social, occupational and geographic mobility. In contrast, citizens of poorer societies are bound closely to the individuals in their communities and thus have a greater need and capacity for resolving—rather than walking away from—disputes with those individuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Summer 1975 , pp. 675 - 694
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

*

We are grateful to Lawrence Friedman, Fred Hill, Linda Singer, and Michael Wald for their valuable criticisms of this article.

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