Whither the Daang Matuwid?: Overconfidence in Benigno S. Aquino III’s Perception of Survival (2010–2016)

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-148
Author(s):  
Eryan Ramadhani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Political Institution ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Political Decision Making

Abstract The study of political decision-making cannot exclude the actors involved in the process. Neither can it disregard the interplay between decision-makers and political institution where they operate. This article aims to explain how perception of survival affects decision-making by focusing on leaders, specifically by analysing Benigno S. Aquino III’s leadership (2010–2016). Built on political psychology, I will show that motivation to maintain power may bias leaders’ reasoning leading to suboptimal decision. Accountability can help leaders mitigate bias, or de-bias, by stimulating their use of cognitive complexity. But the same effort may backfire and make leaders resort to heuristics instead. Where leaders end up in the cognitive spectrum depends on the types of audiences to whom they feel accountable: core (the ruling elites and loyal voters) and external (the opposition and its supporters) audiences. Preoccupation with core audiences can make leaders downplay the opposition challenge. Furthermore, leaders’ perceived understanding of their support base may be erroneous. The result is overconfidence in their perception of survival. I argue that President Aquino’s misperception of survival was rooted in his belief that (1) Filipinos would like to have his legacy continued and that (2) his popularity would help his successor Manuel Araneta Roxas II win the 2016 presidential race. This overconfidence turned out to be detrimental. Roxas’s electoral loss to Rodrigo Duterte put an end to the Daang Matuwid, President Aquino’s good governance platform.

Perception of survival and overconfidence: The case of Najib Razak (2009–2018)

2020 ◽  
pp. 205789112095983
Author(s):  
Eryan Ramadhani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Political Survival ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Judgment Bias ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
National Organisation

This article aims to examine political decision-making by focusing on how leaders’ motivation to maintain power affects their perception of political survival. Such motivation however is susceptible to judgment bias. Built on political psychology, accountability may help leaders improve their cognitive complexity or make them resort to cognitive shortcuts. Where leaders end up in the cognitive spectrum depends on the type of audiences to whom they feel accountable: core (i.e. ruling elites and loyal voters) and external (i.e. the opposition and its supporters) audiences. Preoccupation with the former may prompt leaders to downplay the latter’s challenges. Moreover, leaders’ understanding of their support base may be mistaken—that core audiences may shift their allegiance to the opposition. The result is overconfidence. Analysing Najib Razak’s leadership (2009–2018), I argue that Najib’s perception of survival stemmed from his perceived unwavering loyalty towards core audiences, invulnerability as the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) standard-bearer and the weakness of the opposition. Unfortunately, his overconfidence resulted in Barisan Nasional’s (BN) defeat in GE14.

Sunk Costs and Political Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sunk Costs ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Forward Looking

The “sunk costs fallacy” is a popular import into political science from organizational psychology and behavioral economics. The fallacy is classically defined as a situation in which decision-makers escalate commitment to an apparently failing project in order to “recoup” the costs they have already sunk into it. The phenomenon is often framed as a good example of how real decision-making departs from the assumption of forward-looking rationality which underpins traditional approaches to understanding politics. Researchers have proposed a number of different psychological drivers for the fallacy, such as cognitive dissonance reduction, and there is experimental and observational evidence that it accurately characterizes decision-making in certain contexts. However, there is significant skepticism about the fallacy in many social sciences, with critics arguing that there are better forward-looking rational explanations for decisions apparently driven by a desire to recoup sunk costs – among them reputational concerns, option values and agency problems. Critics have also noted that in practical situations sunk costs are informative both about decision makers’ intrinsic valuation for the issue and the prospects for success, making it hard to discern a separate role for sunk costs empirically. To address these concerns, empirical researchers have employed a number of strategies, especially leveraging natural experiments in certain non-political decision making contexts such as sports or business, in order to isolate the effects of sunk costs per se from other considerations. In doing so, they have found mixed support for the fallacy. Research has also shown that the prevalence of the sunk costs fallacy may be moderated by a number of factors, including the locus of decision-making, framing, and national context. These provide the basis for suggestions for future research.

scholarly journals Between technochauvinism and human-centrism: Can algorithms improve decision-making in democratic politics?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal D. König ◽  
Georg Wenzelburger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThe promise of algorithmic decision-making (ADM) lies in its capacity to support or replace human decision-making based on a superior ability to solve specific cognitive tasks. Applications have found their way into various domains of decision-making—and even find appeal in the realm of politics. Against the backdrop of widespread dissatisfaction with politicians in established democracies, there are even calls for replacing politicians with machines. Our discipline has hitherto remained surprisingly silent on these issues. The present article argues that it is important to have a clear grasp of when and how ADM is compatible with political decision-making. While algorithms may help decision-makers in the evidence-based selection of policy instruments to achieve pre-defined goals, bringing ADM to the heart of politics, where the guiding goals are set, is dangerous. Democratic politics, we argue, involves a kind of learning that is incompatible with the learning and optimization performed by algorithmic systems.

The role of the Wali al-Faqih in the process of external political decision-making: An analytical study of the relevant articles of the revised Iranian constitution of 1989

2020 ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Wissam Saleh Abdul-Hussein Jassim Al-Rub
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political System ◽  
Analytical Study ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Supreme Leader ◽  
Political Decision Making

The Iranian Constitution of 1979 and the amendment of 1989 considered the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolution the most powerful institution in influence and presence in the political system. The guide, directly or indirectly, through the agencies operating under his administration, and here we say that the political vision of the wali al-Faqih governs its authority over all the perceptions of decision-makers in their formulation and implementation of strategic decisions that achieve the goals of the Iranian regime at home and abroad.

The Effect of Dynamic and Static Choice Sets on Political Decision Making: An Analysis Using the Decision Board Platform

1997 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mintz ◽  
Nehemia Geva ◽  
Steven B. Redd ◽  
Amy Carnes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Process ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Strategy Selection ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Choice Sets ◽  
Static Versus Dynamic ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Choice Set

Previous studies of political decision making have used only “static” choice sets, where alternatives are “fixed” and are a priori known to the decision maker. We assess the effect of a dynamic choice set (new alternatives appear during the decision process) on strategy selection and choice in international politics. We suggest that decision makers use a mixture of decision strategies when making decisions in a two-stage process consisting of an initial screening of available alternatives, and a selection of the best one from the subset of remaining alternatives. To test the effects of dynamic and static choice sets on the decision process we introduce a computer-based “process tracer” in a study of top-ranking officers in the U.S. Air Force. The results show that (1) national security decision makers use a mixture of strategies in arriving at a decision, and (2) strategy selection and choice are significantly influenced by the structure of the choice set (static versus dynamic).

Prospect Theory and Political Decision-Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Gross Stein ◽  
Lior Sheffer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Prospect Theory ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Decision Making

Prospect theory has been adopted unevenly across different domains of political decision-making. Research drawing on prospect theory has contributed to important advances in the understanding of processes of elite decision-making in foreign policy and domestic politics. Political scientists have also contributed several important extensions of and qualifications to prospect theory that augment the original theoretical framework and are applicable in other disciplines. The next wave of research needs to be far more careful in specifying the scope conditions that have been the focus of research in behavioral economics. Scholars will also have to pay closer attention to the distribution of probability estimates across options; whether political decision makers are choosing among risky/certain bimodal distributions, high-probability distributions, high/low distributions, or low-probability distributions matters to the predicted impact of framing effects. Finally, studies will need to pay greater attention to the information political decision makers are given and to the impact of group dynamics in political settings. Identifying the scope conditions of prospect theory in the context of political and policymaking processes over time can make a significant contribution to the explanation of both domestic and foreign policy decisions, fill a gap between individual-level choice and institutionally based outcomes, and provide a stronger behavioral foundation for understanding the dynamics of multiactor policy choice.

RESOLVING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AND IDEOLOGIES: A SIMULATION OF POLITICAL DECISION-MAKING

1983 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhonda L. Love ◽  
Richard M. Rozelle ◽  
Daniel Druckman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Conflict Of Interest ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Alternative Programs ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
High Conflict ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
Political Decision Making

This study was designed to assess the relative importance of conflicting interests and ideologies as determinants of conflict resolution. The conflict was defined in the context of a simulation of political decision-making. Decision-makers had different preferences for the allocation of resources to alternative programs. Six male and six female dyads were run in each cell of a design that made size of conflicting interests orthogonal to amount of ideological dissensus. A significant main effect for conflict of interest was attained on each measure of negotiating behavior. High conflict of interest dyads took longer to negotiate, allocated less funds, produced more asymmetrical out comes, and had more unresolved conflicts than low conflict of interest dyads. Perceptions of the situation corresponded to negotiating behavior. High conflict dyads viewed the negotiation more like a “win-lose” competition, were less willing to compromise, regarded compromise as being more like defeat, and so on. The amount of variance accounted for by the ideology and sex variables was negligible on most of the behavioral and perceptual indices. The implications of these results were discussed in terms of a weighting that is affected by aspects of the conflict situation.

scholarly journals An Alternative to Representation: Explaining Preferences for Citizens as Political Decision-Makers

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 224-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergiu Gherghina ◽  
Brigitte Geissel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Civic Involvement ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Political News ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Extensive scholarly attention is devoted to citizens’ preferences for alternative models of political decision-making. However, few efforts were made to identify who these citizens are and why they display a certain preference. To address this void in the literature, our article analyzes the determinants of preferences for citizens as decision-makers. It uses individual-level data from a 2014 survey on a probability representative sample in Germany and tests the effects of political attitudes toward institutions of representative democracy, interest in politics, and civic involvement. It controls for consumption of political news, education, and age.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document