Political testimony

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han van Wietmarschen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Expert Testimony ◽  
Decision Procedure ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Political Judgment ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Political Question

I argue that reliance on political testimony conflicts with two democratic values: the value of mutual justifiability and the value of equality of opportunity for political influence. Reliance on political testimony is characterized by a reliance on the assertions of others directly on a political question the citizen is asked to answer as part of a formal democratic decision procedure. Reliance on expert testimony generally, even in the context of political decision-making, does not similarly conflict with democratic values. As a consequence of the argument, citizens have a pro tanto reason to rely on their own political judgment when determining their vote, and democratic societies have a reason to only ask citizens questions they are able to answer without reliance on political testimony.

Social Media Lessons on the Nature of Political Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas R. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Political Judgment ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
New Models ◽  
Political Decision Making

Traditional models of political decision making tend to focus on the subject’s information levels or information-processing strategy. One of the most common conceptions of political decision making assumes that voters who are informed by a store of factually accurate policy information make more optimal decisions—that is, decisions more in line with their supposed political interests—than those who lack such information. However, this traditional view of political decision making minimizes the roles of affect and social influence on judgment. No phenomenon underscores the primary place of these constructs more so than the meteoric rise of online social media use. Indeed, scholars working at the intersection of social media use and political judgment have made important revisions to the traditional model of political decision making. Specifically, the popularity of online social networks as a tool for exchanging information, connecting with others, and displaying affective reactions to stimuli suggest that new models of competent political decision making which take into account social, affective, and cognitive elements are replacing older, information-based and rational choice models. In this essay, I review some of the pertinent literature on social media use and decision-making and argue that motivation, emotion, and social networks are key components of political judgment and are in fact more relevant to understanding political decisions than political knowledge or political sophistication. I also propose that new models of political decision-making would do well to take into account automaticity, social approval, and the role of information in both rationalizing preferences and persuading others.

Wegvoeringen en weggevoerden tijdens de meidagen van 1940

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-259
Author(s):  
Etienne Verhoeyen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Belgian Society ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Risky Business ◽  
Political Decision Making

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.

Institutionalizing the Liberal Creed

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronen Mandelkern
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Market Economic ◽  
Ministry Of Finance ◽  
Political Entrepreneurs ◽  
Long Term Trend ◽  
Political Decision Making

This chapter analyzes the role Israeli economists have played as purveyors of pro-market economic ideas and political entrepreneurs of economic liberalization in Israel. Israeli economists were strongly committed to economic liberalism already in the 1950s, but they were lacking decisive political influence. Two mechanisms increased their power over policy. First, long-term institutional changes gradually eroded “political” decision-making mechanism and opened the way to greater involvement of professional economists. This long-term trend was joined and reinforced by economists’ institutional entrepreneurship at the height of the 1980s economic crisis, when they initiated changes of macroeconomic governance. These changes enhanced the political power of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Israel and supported the institutionalization of neoliberalism in Israel.

scholarly journals A survey of methods for evaluating mini-publics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takeuchi Ayano
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
Practical Case ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Decision Making

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.

scholarly journals The Process of Political Decision-Making in Groups

1976 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Kirkpatrick ◽  
Dwight F. Davis ◽  
Roby D. Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Decision Making

The effect of cross-cutting partisan debates on political decision-making

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Sheagley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Selective Exposure ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Original Experiment ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Political Decision Making

Party identification provides citizens with an anchor from which they derive many of their political attitudes and issue preferences. But what happens when people encounter political debates that place their partisan identities and policy attitudes into conflict with one another? This article draws on an original experiment designed to study the effect of debates that cut across people’s partisan identities and policy attitudes. The results show that cross-cutting debates make people less likely to engage in selective exposure, more likely to feel ambivalent toward their political party, and less likely to rely on party cues when rendering a judgment.

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