Public Management Decision Making: Effects of Decision Content

One obvious aspect of public management decisions and decision making has largely escaped attention—decision content. We examine the effects of decision content by asking the following questions for budget cutback and information technology decisions: How does content affect the time required for decision making? How does content affect who participates? How does content affect the decision criteria employed? How does content affect the information quality used in the decision-making process and red tape? The results suggest that information technology and budget cutback decisions differ in important ways. For information technology decisions, cost-effectiveness is not a significant criterion, average decision time is much longer, and decisions are generally viewed as permanent and stable. For cutback decisions, cost-effectiveness is a significant criterion, decisions are made much more quickly, and they are viewed as unstable and changeable. Surprisingly, decision content does not appear to affect the number of participants.     

Risk Management and Risk Avoidance in Agency Decision Making

Despite decades of efforts to enhance the public's role in bureaucratic decision making, citizens still tend to have little influence on the decisions that public managers make. Solutions often focus on the processes or structures of participation, but such changes may be of limited effectiveness if the structure is only part of the problem. Although much research has argued the normative justification for including the public, noting that frameworks that do not encourage genuine participation may diminish rather than enhance public influence, there has been less focus on how participants’ divergent frames of reference may also diminish the influence of public input. This research explores this gap from a risk management perspective, suggesting that public managers tend to view risk as something to be managed, whereas citizens tend to view risk as best avoided.     

论风险社会中的决策

在工业社会中,政治的文明化和科学技术的进步意味着人的一切理性化的行动都是在决策的前提下进行的。民主决策和科学决策是两种基本的决策模式,特别是在20世纪得到了自觉的建构,成为成熟的决策模式。这两种决策与工业社会中普遍存在的社会化大分工是一致的,都是专门性的活动。民主决策表现为政治精英和社会治理专家的职业活动,而科学决策则属于政策科学家的专业活动。因而,都存在决策者与执行者相分离的问题。与一切社会活动一样,专业化使决策显示出优势,但在风险社会中,也就是在社会的高度复杂性和高度不确定性条件下,这种分离则会使决策脱离实际和出现时间滞后等问题。因此,我们主张一种新型的行动中的决策。行动中的决策是一种即时决策,行动者既是决策者也是执行者,是决策与执行的统一化。     

科学决策的思维模式——略论决策内容与不同特点思维的对应关系

科学决策过程是科学思维过程。笔者经过多年研究发现 ,决策程序的每一个环节、每一种决策技术、决策的每一种类型 ,都有特定的思维方式与之对应。本文即是对这种一一对应关系的专门研究     

Consumer Decision Making in the Information Age

Providing people with more information and more options may seem as a good policy. However, because of limited attention and cognitive resources, people are not able to use all available information and freedom of choice effectively to achieve their own best interests. When cognitive resources and attention are depleted, decision making becomes shallow and intuitive, often unable to take important aspects of given situations into account – even though this information is readily available. An intuitive decision making may lead to suboptimal outcomes by overestimating the importance of the most salient cues and disregarding the less obvious future consequences. Although this creates a demand for decision making aides that could be satisfied by markets, policy regulation may be necessary in some areas. We provide specific examples of problems arising from limited attention together with solutions based on behavioral economics approach to policy making known as nudging.     

Institutional Effects on Decision Making on Public Lands: An Interagency Examination of Wildfire Management

A significant increase in catastrophic wildfires in the interior West of the United States has left public land agencies scrambling to reduce dangerous fuel loads and manage forests according to an ecological understanding of fire and forest health. However, this has not translated into standardized on‐the‐ground fire and fuel management in public land agencies. Different on‐the‐ground management practices raise questions about the extent to which ecosystems management is being utilized and how well land agencies are adapting to their new responsibilities. This study employs an institutional analysis and development framework to examine how and why on‐the‐ground decisions and outcomes differ. Decisions and outcomes are discussed as a function of the multiple layers of institutions that guide and constrain the decision processes of line officers who are responsible for developing and executing fire and fuel management projects.     

非理性因素在管理决策中的积极作用

决策是管理活动中的核心环节,决策者在管理活动中经常面对复杂的信息和环境以及不确定性等状况,不能够简单地使用以前的准则和程序来解决这类问题,应该发挥需要、情感、意志、无意识、灵感、直觉等非理性因素在决策活动中积极的引导作用、创造作用和协调作用。     

Policy Target Populations and Public Participation in Agency Decision Making

Why are some government agencies more open to public input than others? Although many agree about the normative desirability of involving citizens in administrative decision making, there is significant variation across agencies in the extent of public participation. This article investigates the conditions under which public managers solicit greater public participation. We argue that, in addition to normative rationales, participation also serves instrumental considerations related to agency constituency. We draw on a rich body of literature examining participation in the policy process to develop empirically testable hypotheses about the patterns of participation in the administrative decision making of public agencies. Using data on the approaches to gathering citizen input in the budget process at four state departments—environmental protection, transportation, child protective services, and corrections—we find that the characteristics of target populations (namely, their political power and social construction) are strong predictors of an agency's openness to the public.     

决策中寻租行为的成因分析

在政府决策中仍然存在着无意寻租、被动寻租和主动寻租三种寻租类型.社会转型期,由于社会资源的稀缺、寻租机会的出现、寻租动机的萌发以及制度约束的缺位等原因,我国政府决策中政府官员的寻租活动仍然普遍存在着.深入分析决策中寻租行为的成因,对抑制寻租活动的蔓延具有重要意义.     

冲突管理视角下的公共决策咨询

在冲突管理的视角下，公共决策咨询机构成为调解制定决策中不同利益群体间利益冲突的第三方干预。一项政策的决策不可能满足社会中所有利益群体的利益，这时就需要出现一个客观的、独立的和具有科学分析能力的权威调解人出现，调解利益群体间的冲突，帮助决策者作出最终决策，实现最大可能的利益。但就目前我国的公共决策咨询机构来讲，还存在着许多缺陷，为了使决策更加科学化民主化，我们还要从法律等方面加强对公共决策咨询的支持，促使公共决策咨询的发展，使其能更好地服务于决策。     

以商谈求共识:行政决策听证中公共意愿的形成

在当前利益主体多元化、利益矛盾加剧的背景下,推进和完善行政决策听证需要解决的一个关键性问题,在于如何协调差异和矛盾,聚集民意,以便为政府决策提供价值前提。协商共识理论为深化行政决策听证的研究提供了新的指向;行政决策听证的功能在于为理性论辩提供建制化空间以集结民意,制约行政决策;在听证议题的形成、听证代表的遴选、话语规范的确立及其制度保障等主要环节中,通过制度程序的建构,排除权力和金钱的侵入,在平等协商对话中整合利益,集结公共意愿。     

The Promise and Perils of Interpretivism in Australian International Relations

Australian International Relations (IR) was once a hybrid of American and European styles of political science, but today it is dominated by a British‐inspired post‐positivism which has its virtues – and its vices – and which utilises various interpretive and semi‐interpretive approaches. This paper welcomes the ‘interpretive turn’ in Australian IR, but recognises its weaknesses, and argues that, to overcome them, interpretivists must be clear about what interpretivism should and should not entail. It argues that a thoroughgoing interpretivism offers two things that qualitative work in Australian IR desperately needs: a revived focus on explaining international relations, as well as understanding it, and a renewed engagement with other fields and other modes of studying the field.     

关于从严治校的思考——学习《中国共产党党校工作条例》

按照<中国共产党党校工作条例>,从严治校是办好党校应该坚持的原则.从严治校就要从严整治党校学风,就要树立具有党校特色的良好校风,就要加强纪律保障.坚持从严治校,重在严于律己,身教胜于言教.