All-pay-all aspects of political decision making

Decision-making processes are studied using non-standard all-pay structures. Our interest is motivated by regulatory, political, legal, military, and economic applications in which individual actions determine the consequences for a larger group or the general public. The common features of these examples are a competitive environment, a winner-takes-all reward structure, and some form of all-pay-all payment rule.     

The impact of stakeholder engagement on local policy decision making

Policy Sciences - We investigate how grassroots stakeholder engagement in municipal meetings shapes the decision making of local elected officials (LEOs) by examining the choices LEOs in New York...     

和谐社会建设与世界遗产保护

从建设社会主义和谐社会的高度认识、理解、做好世界遗产的保护工作,既是时代的要求,也是保护世界遗产的意义所在。     

The risky shift in policy decision making: A comparative analysis

The article explores the policy decision making relevance of the fairly well documented phenomenon that individuals tend to move towards riskier decisions after group discussions (risky shift). Four hundred and thirty two policy decision makers and managers from various parts of the world participated in the research. Somewhat contrary to the risky shift-literature, the findings show consistent moves towards greater risk-avoidance if problems are important and if decision makers are initially less cautious. The findings suggest a contingency theoretical explanation of risk-proneness and risk-avoidance in groups rather than universalist assumptions of risk behavior in groups.     

Federalism and nuclear waste disposal: The struggle over shared decision making

Traditionally the domain of federal agencies, authority to select sites for the disposal of commercial high-level nuclear wastes has recently been expanded to include a role for host states. State opposition to earlier siting efforts had demonstrated the dificulties federal agencies faced in resolving conflict between the local population bearing the costs and the dispersed population receiving the benefits. The new model defines the agency and the state as adversarial representatives of these competing interests. An outstanding weakness, however, is that it does not clearly specify who should speak for the state, and may actually promote intrastate conflict. The adversarial approach does not provide a generic solution to the problem of federalism, but it may prove useful at the state level for selecting disposal sites for low-level radioactive wastes and hazardous chemical wastes.     

Small group decision making: The uncertain role of information in reducing uncertainty

Although decision-making analysis has been widely pursued in political science and other fields, most emphasize an outcome orientation, ignoring (or assuming away) the process by which decisions are made. This study treats the process of decision making at the small group level by applying the cognitive information processing model to the methods by which search behavior reduces uncertainty in the collective environment. After examining the theoretical constraints on search behavior, an experiment is performed on student subjects with two of the constraints—information level and decision rule—operationalized as treatment variables on the volume and type of search by individuals in a small group environment. The findings suggest that increasing information availability and requiring consensus decisions will increase search, but that subjects are easily overloaded with information, increasing—not reducing—their uncertainty about their decisions.     

Scaling legislative decision making: A methodological exercise

Previous work in American state politics shows that an accurate measure of legislative decision-making attributes can be a useful tool for empirical research. Using data from a new survey of state legislators, conducted in 1981, the present analysis includes both an improved survey item and a sophisticated scaling procedure.     

The role of behavioral economics and behavioral decision making in Americans' retirement savings decisions

Traditional economic theory posits that people make decisions by maximizing a utility function in which all of the relevant constraints and preferences are included and weighed appropriately. Behavioral economists and decision-making researchers, however, are interested in how people make decisions in the face of incomplete information, limited cognitive resources, and decision biases. Empirical findings in the areas of behavioral economics and judgment and decision making (JDM) demonstrate departures from the notion that man is economically rational, illustrating instead that people often act in ways that are economically suboptimal. This article outlines findings from the JDM and behavioral-economics literatures that highlight the many behavioral impediments to saving that individuals may encounter on their way to financial security. I discuss how behavioral and psychological issues, such as self-control, emotions, and choice architecture can help policymakers understand what factors, aside from purely economic ones, may affect individuals' savings behavior.     

Validation of voter recall: Time of electoral decision making

Accuracy of respondent recall has long been a concern in political science research. Earlier analyses of voter behavior discovered errors which included 10 to 25 percent of the sample. The present work examines an important attitudinal question which appears in each national election study: the time at which the respondent recalls making a final presidential vote choice. Data from the four-wave 1980 National Election Panel Study are used to validate the recall variable for that election campaign. A new variable — candidate preference patterns — is created which reflects consistency in individual voter preference. Only forty percent of the sample reflect consistent responses on the two measures. Furthermore, partisan strength and political involvement are found to be positively related to inconsistent behavior. Cognitive dissonance and the bandwagon effect are offered as explanations for these results.     

Public participation in decision making: A three-step procedure

This article introduces a novel model of public particpation in political decisions. Structured in three consecutive steps, the model is based on the view that stakeholders, experts, and citizens should each contribute to the planning effort their particular expertise and experience. Stakeholders are valuable resources for eliciting concerns and developing evaluative criteria since their interests are at stake and they have already made attempts to structure and approach the issue. Experts are necessary to provide the data base and the functional relationships between options and impacts. Citizens are the potential victims and benefactors of proposed planning measures; they are the best judges to evaluate the different options available on the basis of the concerns and impacts revealed through the other two groups. The three-step model has been developed and frequently applied as a planning tool in West Germany. We compare this experience with the model's first application in the United States, and conclude that the three-step procedure offers a limited, but promising future for democratizing policy making in the United States.     

Institutional reform and public attitudes toward EU decision making

In the face of the discourse about the democratic deficit and declining public support for the European Union (EU), institutionalist scholars have examined the roles of institutions in EU decision making and in particular the implications of the empowered European Parliament. Almost in isolation from this literature, prior research on public attitudes toward the EU has largely adopted utilitarian, identity and informational accounts that focus on individual-level attributes. By combining the insights from the institutional and behavioural literature, this article reports on a novel cross-national conjoint experiment designed to investigate multidimensionality of public attitudes by taking into account the specific roles of institutions and distinct stages in EU decision making. Analysing data from a large-scale experimental survey in 13 EU member states, the findings demonstrate how and to what extent the institutional design of EU decision making shapes public support. In particular, the study finds a general pattern of public consensus about preferred institutional reform regarding powers of proposal, adoption and voting among European citizens in different countries, but notable dissent about sanctioning powers. The results show that utilitarian and partisan considerations matter primarily for the sanctioning dimension in which many respondents in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden prefer national courts to the Court of Justice of the EU.     

A model of decision making and the public service professional

This article offers a reformulation of the concept of professionalism as it applies to public sector decision making. After critically evaluating existing work, we present a role theoretic model of public sector decision making that provides a precise conceptual and operational meaning to the term professionalism. We then evaluate the model's applicability to public sector actors, using city managers as an example. Finally, we discuss some of the public policy implications of increasing public service professionalization.