Political Decision-Making in a Risk-Taking Situation: Swedish Local Councils in the Face of Amalgamation

1971 ◽  
Vol 6 (A6) ◽  
pp. 54-86
Author(s):  
LENNART BRANTGÄRDE
2020 ◽  
pp. 251-258
Author(s):  
Anders Esmark

Taking up the case of climate change, the conclusion considers the argument for moretechnocracy in the face of ‘the end world as we know it’. Climate change is probably the strongest case for a technocratic model of political decision-making. At the very least, insufficient political adherence to the scientific evidence on climate change is an almost commonsensical part of the problem of in the current state of affairs. While fully acknowledging this problem, the chapter argues that attention to the destructive and mutually reinforcing interplay of technocracy and populism is necessary also in to the all-important challenge of climate change.


2020 ◽  
pp. 92-112
Author(s):  
Carolyn James

This chapter explores the ways in which gender shaped the respective approaches to political decision-making by the marquis and his wife. I argue that while the delegated nature of her authority encouraged Isabella to keep her emotions strictly in check and to be prudent in a diplomatic setting, Francesco was far more erratic. On the one hand, he adopted strategies of temporizing, prevarication, and swift changes of allegiance to hedge his bets politically, seen by contemporaries as intrinsically female vices, on the other, he indulged in reckless and competitive behaviour designed to display his masculine courage and princely disdain for caution. Together the couple evaded the dangers posed by the second French descent and the fall of Milan to Louis XII, but it was Isabella’s prudence that neutralized the ill-considered risk-taking of her husband.


2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Smith ◽  
Corinne Wales

In the face of widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary democratic practice, there has been a growing interest in theories of deliberative democracy. However theorists have often failed to sufficiently address the question of institutional design. This paper argues that recent experiments with citizens' juries should be of interest to deliberative democrats. The practice of citizens' juries is considered in light of three deliberative democratic criteria: inclusivity, deliberation and citizenship. It is argued that citizens' juries offer important insights into how democratic deliberation could be institutionalized in contemporary political decision-making processes.


1971 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Burns

Despite many years of severe criticism, the American jail has shown little sign of improvement. The main obstacle to remedial action is conflict. Individuals with different interests and opin ions disagree about what—if anything—is to be done. The process of administrative and political decision-making is sensi tive to pressure from several directions. Reform is usually a threat to the administration in power. Thus, any attempt—no matter how small—to reform a system risks opposition, which is likely to be far greater than the amount of support the reform ers are able to mount. In the face of public indifference, policy- makers cannot be expected to sustain the reformers' initiative.


Author(s):  
Xavier Noël ◽  
Nematolla Jaafari ◽  
Antoine Bechara

Decisions on matters affecting a group by a member of that group (e.g., decisions on a political choice) engage a mix of cognitive and emotion-based resources. Political decision-making involves rationality, but also empathy, intuition, compassion, morality, and fairness. Importantly, coping with uncertainty, assuming risk, dealing with huge responsibilities and resisting disappointment and considerable pressure are also crucial. Some of those decision-making elements from a neurocognitive framework proposed under the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) are developed here. Based on the observation of abnormal decision-making characterizing patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), the SMH affords discussions of mechanisms involved in antisocial decision-making in the political realm, such as engaging in immoral and corrupt behaviors. In addition, the SMH sheds light on pivotal attributes required for good leadership and governance, such as resistance to pressure, risk-taking, seduction, and dominance, discussed with respect to modern theories of psychopathic tendencies in the context of political decision-making.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-259
Author(s):  
Etienne Verhoeyen

Met dit boek levert Frank Seberechts een nagenoeg volledige studie af van een van de minder fraai kanten van de Belgische samenleving in 1940: de administratieve arrestatie en de wegvoering naar Frankrijk van enkele duizenden personen (de ‘verdachten’), Belgen of in België verblijvende vreemdelingen. De extreem-rechtse en pro-Duitse arrestanten hebben na hun vrijlating dit feit politiek in hun voordeel uitgebaat, waardoor volledig in de schaduw kwam te staan dat de overgrote meerderheid van de weggevoerden joodse mensen waren die in de jaren voor de oorlog naar België waren gevlucht. Dat het beeld van de wegvoeringen niet volledig is, is grotendeels te wijten aan het feit dat de meeste archieven die hierop betrekking hebben tijdens de meidagen van 1940 vernietigd werden. Met name de politieke besluitvorming over de wegvoeringen vertoont nog steeds schemerzones, zodat het vastleggen van verantwoordelijkheden ook vandaag nog een gewaagde onderneming is.________Deportations and the deported during the Maydays in 1940 By means of this book Frank Seberechts provides an almost complete study of one of the less admirable sides of Belgian society in 1940: the administrative arrest and the deportation to France of some thousands of people (‘the suspects’), Belgians or foreigners residing in Belgium. The extreme-right and pro-German detainees politically exploited this fact after they had been freed, but this completely overshadowed the point that the large majority of the deported people were Jews who had fled to Belgium during the years preceding the war. This incomplete portrayal of the deportations is mainly due to the fact that most of the archives relating to the events had been destroyed during the Maydays of 1940. The history of the political decision-making about the deportations in particular still shows many grey areas and it is therefore still a risky business even today to determine which people should be held accountable.


Author(s):  
Takeuchi Ayano

AbstractPublic participation has become increasingly necessary to connect a wide range of knowledge and various values to agenda setting, decision-making and policymaking. In this context, deliberative democratic concepts, especially “mini-publics,” are gaining attention. Generally, mini-publics are conducted with randomly selected lay citizens who provide sufficient information to deliberate on issues and form final recommendations. Evaluations are conducted by practitioner researchers and independent researchers, but the results are not standardized. In this study, a systematic review of existing research regarding practices and outcomes of mini-publics was conducted. To analyze 29 papers, the evaluation methodologies were divided into 4 categories of a matrix between the evaluator and evaluated data. The evaluated cases mainly focused on the following two points: (1) how to maintain deliberation quality, and (2) the feasibility of mini-publics. To create a new path to the political decision-making process through mini-publics, it must be demonstrated that mini-publics can contribute to the decision-making process and good-quality deliberations are of concern to policy-makers and experts. Mini-publics are feasible if they can contribute to the political decision-making process and practitioners can evaluate and understand the advantages of mini-publics for each case. For future research, it is important to combine practical case studies and academic research, because few studies have been evaluated by independent researchers.


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