Local Decision Procedures for Avoiding the Tragedy of Commons

Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Saha ◽  
Sandip Sen
2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Christian Göbel ◽  
Jie Li

Why do Chinese governments at various levels set up public complaint websites where citizen petitions and government responses can be reviewed by the general public? We argue that it is the result of two factors: strong signals sent by the central government to improve governance, and the availability of new technologies to promote policy innovation. To impress their superiors, local officials adopted newly available commercial technology to innovate existing citizen feedback systems, which presented a developmental trajectory from “openness,” “integration,” to “big data-driven prediction.” Drawing on policy documents and interviews with local politicians and administrators, we provide a chronological perspective of how technical development, central government’s signals and local decision-making have interacted in the past two decades to bring forth today’s public complaint websites. The contingent and non-teleological nature of this development can also be applied to other policies such as the social credit system.


2021 ◽  
pp. 232949652110288
Author(s):  
Meaghan Stiman

In theory, participatory democracies are thought to empower citizens in local decision-making processes. However, in practice, community voice is rarely representative, and even in cases of equal representation, citizens are often disempowered through bureaucratic processes. Drawing on the case of a firearm discharge debate from a rural county’s municipal meetings in Virginia, I extend research about how power operates in participatory settings. Partisan political ideology fueled the debate amongst constituents in expected ways, wherein citizens engaged collectivist and individualist frames to sway the county municipal board ( Celinska 2007 ). However, it was a third frame that ultimately explains the ordinance’s repeal: the bureaucratic frame, an ideological orientation to participatory processes that defers decision-making to disembodied abstract rules and procedures. This frame derives its power from its depoliticization potential, allowing bureaucrats to evade contentious political debates. Whoever is best able to wield this frame not only depoliticizes the debate to gain rationalized legitimacy but can do so in such a way to favor a partisan agenda. This study advances gun research and participatory democracy research by analyzing how the bureaucratic frame, which veils partisanship, offers an alternative political possibility for elected officials, community leaders, and citizens to adjudicate partisan debates.


1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 255-274
Author(s):  
Rohit Parikh

We study monotonic and non-monotonic Logics of Knowledge, giving decision procedures and completeness results. In particular we develop a model theory for a non-monotonic Logic of Knowledge and show that it corresponds exactly to normal applications of a non-monotonic rule of inference due to McCarthy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 3768
Author(s):  
Fengqing Li ◽  
Isakbek Torgoev ◽  
Damir Zaredinov ◽  
Marina Li ◽  
Bekhzod Talipov ◽  
...  

Central Asia is one of the most challenged places, prone to suffering from various natural hazards, where seismically triggered landslides have caused severe secondary losses. Research on this problem is especially important in the cross-border Mailuu-Suu catchment in Kyrgyzstan, since it is burdened by radioactive legacy sites and frequently affected by earthquakes and landslides. To identify the landslide-prone areas and to quantify the volume of landslide (VOL), Scoops3D was selected to evaluate the slope stability throughout a digital landscape in the Mailuu-Suu catchment. By performing the limit equilibrium analysis, both of landslide susceptibility index (LSI) and VOL were estimated under five earthquake scenarios. The results show that the upstream areas were more seismically vulnerable than the downstream areas. The susceptibility level rose significantly with the increase in earthquake strength, whereas the VOL was significantly higher under the extreme earthquake scenario than under the other four scenarios. After splitting the environmental variables into sub-classes, the spatial variations of LSI and VOL became more clear: the LSI reduced with the increase in elevation, slope, annual precipitation, and distances to faults, roads, and streams, whereas the highest VOL was observed in the areas with moderate elevations, high precipitation, grasslands, and mosaic vegetation. The relative importance analysis indicated that the explanatory power reduced with the increase in earthquake level and it was significant higher for LSI than for VOL. Among nine environmental variables, the distance to faults, annual precipitation, slope, and elevation were identified as important triggers of landslides. By a simultaneous assessment of both LSI and VOL and the identification of important triggers, the proposed modelling approaches can support local decision-makers and householders to identify landslide-prone areas, further design proper landslide hazard and risk management plans and, consequently, contribute to the resolution of transboundary pollution conflicts.


1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 163-182
Author(s):  
Alexander Leitsch

It is investigated, how semantic clash resolution can be used to decide some classes of clause sets. Because semantic clash resolution is complete, the termination of the resolution procedure on a class Γ gives a decision procedure for Γ. Besides generalizing earlier results we investigate the relation between termination and clause complexity. For this purpose we define the general concept of atom complexity measure and show some general results about termination in terms of such measures. Moreover, rather than using fixed resolution refinements we define an algorithmic generator for decision procedures, which constructs appropriate semantic refinements out of the syntactical structure of the clause sets. This method is applied to the Bernays – Schönfinkel class, where it gives an efficient (resolution) decision procedure.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Stollenwerk

Opened in April 1960, the overseas port at Rostock resulted from a convergence of factors related to geopolitics, geography, economics and the unique needs and challenges of building a socialist port. Local, national and global pressures played on each other in establishing the port, making Rostock a singular product of the Cold War in the German Democratic Republic. The history of decision-making that went into the building of the port demonstrates the importance of politics in the Cold War, as well as its limits. Although informed by geopolitics, economic decisions in Europe’s socialist economies reflected a broad array of factors. This article argues that national and local decision-makers managed competing regional and national interests in order to develop their own economic strategies that functioned on several different levels. Rostock’s history highlights the common problematic of operating within and outside of the boundaries that the Cold War produced.


Author(s):  
Robert C. Schmidt

AbstractIn this short paper, I look back at the early stages of the Corona crisis, around early February 2020, and compare the situation with the climate crisis. Although these two problems unfold on a completely different timescale (weeks in the case of Corona, decades in the case of climate change), I find some rather striking similarities between these two problems, related with issues such as uncertainty, free-rider incentives, and disincentives of politicians to adequately address the respective issue with early, farsighted and possibly harsh policy measures. I then argue that for complex problems with certain characteristics, it may be necessary to establish novel political decision procedures that sidestep the normal, day-to-day political proceedings. These would be procedures that actively involve experts, and lower the involvement of political parties as far as possible to minimize the decision-makers’ disincentives.


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