be most appropriate to the problem at hand. These strategies, moreover, will 

 necessarily be of a bargaining nature, since natural resources issues are 

 resolved in a climate of bargaining (Ingram 1972). 



4.3 PHASE III: POWER ANALYSIS 



In any instream flow problem, there Are inevitable and conflicting 

 preferences among actors with unequal levels of power and influence. Each 

 organization, in the process of interacting with other participants in a 

 bargaining situation, modifies its original objectives to achieve a mutually 

 acceptable decision that at least partially benefits its original goal. 

 Neither side, as was the case with the Cedar River problem, typically has 

 enough support to achieve its goals totally or by simple caveat. 



Organizational power in instream flow issues is postulated to exist in 

 three major categories: resources, expertise, and support. In the first 

 category. Lamb and Doerksen have identified a number of important sources of 

 power, all of which relate to the actual resources an organization has to 

 expend in the resolution of a conflict at any given point in time. These 

 include: statutory authority; the ability to physically control stream flow; 

 designation as the implementing agency; legal ownership or management of the 

 land or water in question; political support; public support; money; personnel; 

 and the frequency and intensity of past involvement in such issues (Lamb and 

 Doerksen 1978). These last two elements of power — frequency and intensity of 

 past involvement — are indicative of the degree to which an organization is 

 willing to commit itself to use its resources on behalf of a particular out- 

 come; commitment is thus an important ingredient of power (Lamb and Doerksen 

 1978; Bachrach and Lawler 1981). 



The second category of organizational power has to do with differentials 

 in organizational expertise. The resolution of instream flow issues tends to 

 be highly dependent on the availability of technical and scientific informa- 

 tion; the nature of organizational expertise in relation to the technical 

 issues involved, then, is also a crucial component of organizational power 

 (Lamb and Doerksen 1978; Rourke 1976; Clark and McCool 1985). Methodological 

 sophistication for data acquisition and analysis, for example, directly affects 

 an organization's ability to support its recommendations (Lamb and Doerksen 

 1978). Important considerations in this regard include: What type of informa- 

 tion is an organization involved in collecting and disseminating — and to what 

 degree? What organizational routines are currently in place that facilitate 

 the flow of information? Does the organization typically produce information 

 that is easily understood by the other participants — both in terms of method- 

 ologies and results? Is an organization dependent on other groups for the 

 information it needs — or is it in the business of supplying such information 

 to others? What is the reputational quality of an organizations' s expertise? 

 Does it tend to generate a high level of respect in its field? The answers to 

 these questions enable an analyst to better predict the tactics that will be 

 chosen by the groups involved to pursue a particular outcome, as well as the 

 nature of the outcome itself (Rourke 1976; Bachrach and Lawler 1981). 



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