The decision process of a professionalized legislature: A cognitive anthropology approach

Political science research indicates that some state legislatures have become more professionalized, i.e., taken on many of the characteristics of Congress such as yearround sessions, professional staffs, and formalized bill processes. But is professionalization a factor in legislators' decision making? Triangulated analysis—consensus, cluster, and multidimensional scaling—of two paired comparisons that were administered to a stratified random sample of a professionalized legislature suggests that some of the professionalized characteristics do affect legislators' perception of their decision making on one area of policy, the regulation of and resource allocation to public universities. The analysis also shows that influences on legislators' decision process fluctuate according to issue.     

Climate change adaptation in the Alpine Shire of Australia: a decision process appraisal

This study aims to integrate scientific knowledge from a variety of disciplines with local experience to describe, contextually and in detail, the impact of flood events on the community of the Alpine Shire and current mitigation efforts to alleviate and reduce these impacts. The Myrtleford Floodplain Management Study was the cornerstone of the strategy to address the goal of reducing flood damage in the community. It was found that the most consequential deficiencies in the Myrtleford flood mitigation scheme decision process are related to flaws in four elements of the process: the articulation of goals; the development of appropriate knowledge support; the effectiveness of promotion; and the ability to move from invocation to application. The Alpine Shire can be used as a microcosm that can represent adaptation challenges in other communities to climate change and extreme events. This research contributes to the development of the conceptual and analytical framework of integrated assessments, while making concrete contributions to the development of adaptive policies in Alpine Shire.     

Adapting the environmental impact statement process to inform decision makers

The environmental impact statement (EIS) process is central to the assessment of environmentally significant actions. Yet decisions about what matters in the environment and what gets studied as part of an EIS are based on values that are largely implicit and come primarily from technical experts. In this article we propose using the techniques of decision analysis (DA) to articulate values explicitly and make the EIS process more effective as an aid to decisionmakers in developing defensible environmental policies. We identify five major sources of problems with the current EIS approach, propose a new environmental decision process that incorporates DA in the EIS framework, and consider the merits, problems, and feasibility of implementing the suggested policy improvements.     

Note on rent-seeking and committees using a proportionate-sharing rule

The paper examines how the effort expended in pursuit of rents may be affected by having the rents awarded by either an individual or a committee, under differing allocation rules. Congleton (1984) found that rent-seeking efforts should be markedly lower when rents are awarded by committees rather than by a single administrator. This paper reexamines the proportionate-sharing rule, and finds that, depending on decision-making norms followed by committee members, allocation by committee may result in rent-seeking expenditures that are less than, equal to, or greater than those where rents are proportionately divided by a single administrator.     

Note on Teaching Intelligence

Over the last decade, intelligence has become one of the most widely taught subjects in higher education. In response to this, a sub-discipline has emerged within Intelligence Studies devoted to thinking about how the subject is actually taught. One of the most common arguments to come out of this literature is that there should be more practitioner involvement in the university teaching of intelligence. However, it is rarely specified what exactly intelligence professionals bring to the classroom, save the largely self-evident point that because they have ‘walked the walk’, they are uniquely qualified to teach the subject. Drawing on student questionnaires, as well as interviews with serving and retired intelligence officers, this article attempts to probe a little deeper and identify the specific benefits of incorporating practitioners into the university teaching of intelligence. It is argued that practitioners ‘put a face on the profession’ and help to remove some of the mystique and misperceptions that surround intelligence work. It is claimed that practitioners, especially with their ‘inside stories’, give added meaning to academic theories and make the subject more exciting. Finally, it is argued that practitioners enrich the broader ‘student experience’. In UK higher education, now under a new fees regime, students are looking for departments to go the extra mile not only in terms of their teaching, but also in areas like careers advice and support. In this context, intelligence professionals are enormously valuable.     

Agency reform as decision process: The reengineering of the Agency for International Development

The Agency for International Development (AID), the U.S. Government's principal dispenser of foreign economic assistance, is struggling to define its mission in the post Cold War era. AID staff and overseas presence has contracted in recent years following reinvention reforms. But reinvention has not clarified the agency's mission nor protected it from powerful critics. AID's future depends on its ability to develop a mission that excites popular demand. Agency reformers promote foreign aid as a means to advance sustainable development in developing countries. But AID's sustainable development mission lacks credibility because it excludes references to reforms required in post-industrial societies. Participation of U.S. local interests in aid management and more effective promotion of familiar premises for aid (many of them consistent with the tenets of sustainable development) are essential elements of a revitalized foreign aid program.     

Leaps of Faith in the Obesity Debate: a Cautionary Note for Policy Note for Policy-makers

The obesity epidemic has become an issue of major public concern in recent years, with dire predictions of its impact on public health budgets and the long-term health of populations in the developed world. Governments are being urged to act to improve our eating habits and make us more active. Policy proposals range from education campaigns to banning junk food advertising to more extreme measures such as 'fat taxes'. Although the debate has included discussion of public policy solutions to the problem, there has been little input from public policy specialists. This article explores some of the leaps of faith that are currently being made in the obesity debate and suggests that policy-makers need to be cautious about how they respond to calls for action. It is suggested that public policy research may provide some useful frameworks for considering the nature of the problem and assessing possible solutions.     

Editor's Note on Policy Advocacy Essays

As our legion of obviously highly observant and dedicated readers will immediately note, this issue of the Policy Studies Review is marked by the introduction of a new feature which we have chosen to characterize as policy advocacy essays. Specifically, the two essays featured in this issue—"Strategic Treasury Debt Management in Public Policy" by Campbell R. Harvey and "How the Clinton Administration Can Make Foreign Aid Work" by Neil S. Zank—are significantly different from our typical articles. They go a good way beyond the usually rather cautious recommendations for policy change that are upon occasion put forward at the conclusion of our typically quite analytical and often empirically based articles. In contrast, neither of the two essays that follow intend to be objective. Rather, both authors, as individuals with long-time expertise in the areas about which they are writing, have quite decided opinions about significant reforms in major areas of national policy which they would like to see implemented.