Evaluating environmental mediation: Mediation in the waste management programme of Neuss County, Germany. Results of a participant survey

Little empirically based social scientific research has been carried out with the aim of evaluating mediation procedures. Generally, such procedures are evaluated retrospectively and on the basis of very general criteria (Was an agreement achieved?). The Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) is conducting a research project into mediation procedures in the field of environmental protection, the central object of study being the mediation procedure undertaken to resolve the dispute over the waste management programme of Neuss County in Germany. This paper presents some results of the accompanying social scientific research, with the aim of evaluating the success of the mediation. It begins by describing the problems underlying the mediation procedure in Neuss, the procedure itself and the results achieved. There then follows an evaluation of this procedure, based on 18 key procedural and results-related criteria for evaluating the success of the mediation. The analysis shows that the evaluation of mediation procedures is a highly complex affair, and that this is reflected in the evaluations made by the participants themselves.