The move to Accrual Based Accounting: the challenges facing central governments

2006 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Marty ◽  
Sylvie Trosa ◽  
Arnaud Voisin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Implementation Strategy ◽  
Financial Information ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Political Decision Making

France’s decision to move to Accrual Based Accounting, triggered by the application of the Organic Law to the Finance Laws, has a tangible impact on political decision-making mechanisms. By adopting accounting and financial information standards derived from the private sector, it has the effect of reinforcing the economic rationality of public decisions. It makes it possible, in particular, to draw comparisons between public and private costs, comparisons that are necessary to set up any possible contract-based links with private suppliers. The move towards Accrual Based Accounting sets out to improve the information provided to the public operators. It also tends to limit the possibilities of arbitrations that are unfavourable to long-term investments and the maintenance of public assets. It gives parliaments, control bodies and citizens an appreciation of the policies being carried out, thus reinforcing the demands for the transparency of public accounts and the accountability of their managers. However, there is no getting away from the fact that it is a complex and costly reform, whose implementation requires a favourable political context and an appropriate implementation strategy.

Adviesraden als stap naar institutionalisering en medebeslissing

Res Publica ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
Wilfried Dewachter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Selection Function ◽  
Information Function ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Advisory Councils ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Representative Function ◽  
Political Decision Making

Several tendencies in the process of political decision-making in Belgium tend to put under strain the official model of representative democracy. One of these evolutions is the set up of many advisory councils, and especially the dynamism of some of these advisory councils to move up to participation in the decision-making itself.The process starts at the functional basis of the advisory councils: an information function, an advice function, a function to make proposals, an investigation function and a selection function. It is possible to get to the care of the decision for reason of a liability to advice, the quality as regards content of the advice, the composition of the councils and the appeal to the public opinion.  The dysfunctions are the obstacles that need to be advoided: the alibi function, a basis for non-decision, the delay and concealing of the decision-making itself, a certain obliqueness in the composition and the undermining of the representative function of parliament.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
John Gastil ◽  
Katherine R. Knobloch
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Reliable Information ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ballot Measures ◽  
Ballot Measure ◽  
Political Decision Making

Citizens are often asked to make decisions about ballot measures, but they rarely have access to reliable information with which to make those decisions. This chapter tells the story of Seattle’s failed monorail project to explain the problems voters face when figuring out how to cast their vote. It introduces a new governing institution that could help solve that dilemma, the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR). The CIR gathers together a small group of citizens to deliberate about a ballot measure and then pass along their findings for voters to use when making their own decisions. The CIR continues the tradition of experimental democracy, which seeks to improve the ways that citizens govern themselves. The CIR, and deliberative institutions like it, attempt to empower the public by introducing reliable information into political decision making.

Marketization in a state-centred policing context: The case of Sweden

2019 ◽  
pp. 147737081988290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Industry ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Private Security Industry ◽  
Political Decision Making

This article examines how and why marketization of policing may occur in a historically state-centred policing context in the absence of governmental policy promoting privatization and marketization. In Sweden, a community-level marketization is increasingly becoming the new norm. It is a result of a political mobilization by the private security industry, characterized by an association of private security with the public interest in safety, an absence of national political decision-making, and pragmatic local initiatives to increase public safety, but it results in the dispersion of political decision-making that fails to ensure democratic governance of policing and security provision.

Framing and Political Decision Making: An Overview

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Oxley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Government Budget ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
Political Decision Making

Political communicators have long used framing as a tactic to try to influence the opinions and political decisions of others. Frames capture an essence of a political issue or controversy, typically the essence that best furthers a communicator’s political goals. Framing has also received much attention by scholars; indeed, the framing literature is vast. In the domain of political decision making, one useful distinction is between two types of frames: emphasis frames and equivalence frames. Emphasis frames present an issue by highlighting certain relevant features of the issue while ignoring others. Equivalence frames present an issue or choice in different yet logically equivalent ways. Characterizing the issue of social welfare as a drain on the government budget versus a helping hand for poor people is emphasis framing. Describing the labor force as 95% employed versus 5% unemployed is equivalency framing. These frames differ not only by their content but also by the effects on opinions and judgements that result from frame exposure as well as the psychological processes that account for the effects. For neither emphasis nor equivalence frames, however, are framing effects inevitable. Features of the environment, such as the presence of competing frames, or individual characteristics, such as political predispositions, condition whether exposure to a specific frame will influence the decisions and opinions of the public.

scholarly journals Conditional legitimacy: How turnout, majority size, and outcome affect perceptions of legitimacy in European Union membership referendums

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sveinung Arnesen ◽  
Troy S Broderstad ◽  
Mikael P Johannesson ◽  
Jonas Linde
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Decision Making

This conjoint study investigates the type of mandate a referendum confers in the political decision-making process. While a majority of citizens in general believe that the government should follow the results of a referendum on European Union membership, its perceived legitimacy in the eyes of the public heavily depends upon the level of turnout, the size of the majority, and the outcome of the specific referendum in question. Thus, whether a referendum legitimizes a political decision in the eyes of the public is conditional upon these three dimensions.

STRUCTURING LONG-TERM DECISIONS

1999 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 213-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH ATHERTON ◽  
SIMON FRENCH
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Discount Rate ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Alternative Methodology ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Societal Decision

The public is demanding more democratic decision making processes that take into account their opinions and views. In order to make large societal decision making processes inclusive, it is necessary to find a way of communicating the issues involved in a decision without becoming swamped with the technical aspects. Many of the societal decisions that have to be made, e.g., about the greenhouse effect and radiation, have very long-term impacts, which make them even more complex. One of the more controversial issues in evaluating long-term impacts is the choice of discount rate, or indeed whether discounting is appropriate. When the decision is societal and there are many stakeholders, the debate about the discount rate can become very heated. Using exponential discounting focuses attention on the discount rate and does not help stakeholders explore their opinions and beliefs. Atherton and French (1998) suggested an alternative methodology based upon a time-era structuring of attributes. By dividing time into distinct eras and weighting these rather than applying one discount rate over the whole lifetime of the project, a seemingly more transparent way of dealing with time preferences was developed. To further investigate the acceptability of the methodology to a broad range of people, an interactive World Wide Web page was set up. The page was not context specific and talked about an undefined project, not a particular decision situation. The subjects were asked to define the time eras themselves and to weight them. They were then asked to indicate what had motivated their weights and finally they were asked how their weights would change if the issues changed. Most subjects found the ideas easy to comprehend and commented positively about the experiment. Seventy-five per cent of the subjects divided time into increasing intervals in line with the suggestions made in Atherton and French (1998). Sixty-five per cent of them had decreasing time era weights, but their weights decreased more slowly than those prescribed by constant discounting. This paper describes the results of the experiment, indicating the implications they may have for societal decision making.

The Public Sector and the Courts

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg ◽  
Helena Wockelberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Institutional Autonomy ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Constitutional Reforms ◽  
Administrative Model ◽  
Political Decision Making

Recurring themes relating to the central constitutional principles of the public sector and the courts can be summarized asadministrative dualism(administrative agencies are organized in separate units outside the ministries) andinstitutional autonomy. The scope of the dual Swedish administrative model, as well as how much institutional autonomy government agencies and the courts are granted by the Constitution, have been strongly debated. These debates exemplify what we refer to as “the Swedish Constitution as a story of unresolved issues.” Paradoxically, substantial constitutional reforms in this area rarely come about due to regular constitutional reform-making in Sweden. Instead, they are often the result of formally less demanding political decision-making.

How do political decision-making processes affect the acceptability of decisions? Results from a survey experiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212199825
Author(s):  
Miho Nakatani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
City Council ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Economic Growth Rates ◽  
Political Decision Making

This study aims to identify the types of city council decision-making processes that influence public perceptions of procedural fairness and the acceptability of decisions. Using an online experimental scenario survey conducted in Japan, this study found that, given the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process and when the decision is reached through a compromise among council members, people tend to feel that the process is fair and accept the decision even when it is unfavourable to them. This result is important for the governance of many advanced countries with low economic growth rates but great public demands. Additionally, this study highlights the process preferences of the public, which has received little attention compared with research on policy preferences.

Political Legitimacy Under Epistemic Constraints

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabienne Peter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Epistemic Constraints ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
Political Decision Making

The aim of this chapter is to provide an epistemological argument for why public reasons matter for political legitimacy. A key feature of the public reason conception of legitimacy is that political decisions must be justified to the citizens. They must be justified in terms of reasons that are either shared qua reasons or that, while not shared qua reasons, support the same political decision. Call the relevant reasons public reasons. Critics of the public reason conception, by contrast, argue that political legitimacy requires justification simpliciter—political decisions must be justified in terms of the reasons that apply. Call the relevant reasons objective reasons. The debate between defenders and critics of a public reason conception of political legitimacy thus focuses on whether objective reasons or public reasons are the right basis for the justification of political decisions. I will grant to critics of a public reason conception that there are objective reasons and allow that such reasons can affect the legitimacy of political decisions. But I will show, focusing on the epistemic circumstances of political decision-making, that it does not follow that the justification of those decisions is necessarily in terms of those reasons.

Engendering Political Decision-Making

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hatchard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The World ◽  
Women In Decision Making ◽  
Political Decision Making

In November, 1996, the Fifth Meeting of the Commonwealth Ministers Responsible for Women's Affairs recommended that member countries be encouraged to achieve a target of not less than 30 per cent of women in decision-making in the political, public and private sectors by the year 2005. This is an ambitious target for, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the proportion of women involved in politics world-wide declined from 12.1 per cent in 1985 to 11 per cent in 1995. The situation throughout Africa is especially bleak for, as the following table indicates, with the notable exceptions of Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Eritrea and Uganda, most African countries fall well below the world average.

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