Robust, resilient, agile and improvisatory styles in policymaking: the social organisation of anomaly, risk and policy decay

Author(s):  
Perri 6

This theory development article employs neo-Durkheimian institutional theory to present a fresh understanding of policy styles in the policy process. Calls for resilient, robust, agile and improvisatory policymaking are not readily compatible with each other. Each of these styles carries risks and each generates anomalies. Each tends to decay over time. Governments should therefore expect risks of inconsistency and decay in policymaking shaped by these styles. The article argues that these styles, and their risks and tensions, and the trajectories of their decay all arise from the contrasting forms of informal social organisation among policymakers in which they are cultivated. These forms of social organisation give rise to distinct types of bounded rationality, which shape decision-making differently in each ordering.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Laurens E. Tacoma

Traditionally, historians regard the demise of the Roman Republic as the end of politics. If politics is regarded as decision making that affects society as a whole, something certainly changed with the advent of single rule. Yet the traditional political institutions of senate and city council continued to exist for a remarkably long period of sixth centuries afterwards. It is argued that their role became social rather than political and that they became self-referential, offering the elite a platform to define and negotiate its own position and enact and negotiate major tensions and ambiguities of elite life. The behaviour of their members is best analysed under the heading of political culture, here defined as ‘a style of doing politics’. Such an approach focuses on the social meaning of the form of the behaviour rather than on the content of the decisions. The approach is underpinned by the theory of bounded rationality, which assumes that participants are bound by language and conventions. It is argued that a case study approach, focusing on specific texts or clusters of texts, offers the best way to proceed. It presents seven cases that will be studied in successive chapters, each representing a major tension or ambiguity inherent in Roman political culture.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-212
Author(s):  
Larry R. Hearld ◽  
Jeffrey A. Alexander ◽  
Laura J. Wolf ◽  
Yunfeng Shi

Cross-sector collaborative organizations are increasingly viewed as an effective means of addressing multifaceted health and social challenges. Given their dependence on volunteers to develop and implement strategy, members’ perceptions of future strategic priorities is a critical concern for leaders and sponsors of these organizations. Research set in more hierarchical, single-sector organizations acknowledges the important relationship between structure and strategy; however, relatively little research has explored these relationships in the context of collaborative organizations. We examined these relationships using multiple rounds of an Internet survey. All three dimensions of social structure (locus of decision making, formalization, and integration) had independent associations with participant’ perceptions of different strategic priorities, suggesting there is more than one approach to influencing the perceived priorities of the alliance. However, some dimensions of the social structure changed more than other dimensions over time, highlighting differential opportunities for influencing strategic priorities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.


Crisis ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoon A. Leenaars ◽  
David Lester

Canada's rate of suicide varies from province to province. The classical theory of suicide, which attempts to explain the social suicide rate, stems from Durkheim, who argued that low levels of social integration and regulation are associated with high rates of suicide. The present study explored whether social factors (divorce, marriage, and birth rates) do in fact predict suicide rates over time for each province (period studied: 1950-1990). The results showed a positive association between divorce rates and suicide rates, and a negative association between birth rates and suicide rates. Marriage rates showed no consistent association, an anomaly as compared to research from other nations.


1970 ◽  
pp. 53-57
Author(s):  
Azza Charara Baydoun

Women today are considered to be outside the political and administrative power structures and their participation in the decision-making process is non-existent. As far as their participation in the political life is concerned they are still on the margins. The existence of patriarchal society in Lebanon as well as the absence of governmental policies and procedures that aim at helping women and enhancing their political participation has made it very difficult for women to be accepted as leaders and to be granted votes in elections (UNIFEM, 2002).This above quote is taken from a report that was prepared to assess the progress made regarding the status of Lebanese women both on the social and governmental levels in light of the Beijing Platform for Action – the name given to the provisions of the Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The above quote describes the slow progress achieved by Lebanese women in view of the ambitious goal that requires that the proportion of women occupying administrative or political positions in Lebanon should reach 30 percent of thetotal by the year 2005!


2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (9) ◽  
pp. 154-160
Author(s):  
Dr. Kartikey Koti

The essential idea of this assessment is investigate the social factors affecting particular theorists' decisions making limit at Indian Stock Markets. In the examination coordinated standard of direct is Classified subject to two estimations the first is Heuristic (Decision making) and the resulting one is prospect.. For the assessment coordinated the data used is basic natured which is assembled through a sorted out survey from 100 individual money related authorities based out in Hubli and Dharwad city, Karnataka State in India on an accommodating way. The respondents were both sex and overwhelming part male were 68% . These theorists were having a spot with the age bundle between35-45 which is 38%. These respondents have completed their graduation were around 56%. These respondents had work inclusion of 5 to 10 years which is 45% and the majority of which were used in government portion which is 56%. Their compensation was between 4 to 6 Lakh and were fit for placing assets into business areas. The money related experts were widely masterminded placing assets into different portfolios like 32% in Share market and 20 % in Fixed store. These examiners mode to known various endeavor streets were through News, family and allies.  


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-192
Author(s):  
Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl

Autonomy is associated with intellectual self-preservation and self-determination. Shame, on the contrary, bears a loss of approval, self-esteem and control. Being afflicted with shame, we suffer from social dependencies that by no means have been freely chosen. Moreover, undergoing various experiences of shame, our power of reflection turns out to be severly limited owing to emotional embarrassment. In both ways, shame seems to be bound to heteronomy. This situation strongly calls for conceptual clarification. For this purpose, we introduce a threestage model of self-determination which comprises i) autonomy as capability of decision-making relating to given sets of choices, ii) self-commitment in terms of setting and harmonizing goals, and iii) self-realization in compliance with some range of persistently approved goals. Accordingly, the presuppositions and distinctive marks of shame-experiences are made explicit. Within this framework, we explore the intricate relation between autonomy and shame by focusing on two questions: on what conditions could conventional behavior be considered as self-determined? How should one characterize the varying roles of actors that are involved in typical cases of shame-experiences? In this connection, we advance the thesis that the social dynamics of shame turns into ambiguous positions relating to motivation, intentional content,and actors’ roles.


1978 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-382
Author(s):  
M. Javed Akbar Zaki

To many social theoreticians, the population explosion, particularly in the developing nations presents a crippling threat to their developmental pro¬cesses. Their argument's validity rests mainly on the assumption that expected economic progress is swallowed up by unbalanced rise of numbers in the population. The book being reviewed deals mainly with this subject matter and is divided into two parts, each containing three articles contributed by various researchers. Part one, 'The Social context of Fertility Decision' is focused on analyzing the role of factors affecting fertility at the micro-level decision making process. The first article 'Fertility decision in rural India' by Vinod Jainath, examines the applicability to rural India of various models of the process of fertility decision making and finds most of these wanting with respect to the Indian social situation. While analyzing the fertility patterns of Rural India, he points out the positive need for larger families among the poor small farmers mainly due to labour supply considerations. The author argues that unemployment and under¬employment actually motivate the poor to have more children as it better ensures their economic security in their old age. As the chances of gaining employ¬ment for their offspring diminish, they are induced to increase the total number of children in order that atleast one will be able to support them. Thus a vicious circle of poverty arises in large families because of each of the parents wanting to increase their children's chances of employment by ultimately reducing the overall employment opportunities even further and exacerbating their poverty.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Grossmann ◽  
Richard Eibach

Previous theory and research on bounded rationality has emphasized how limited cognitive resources constrain people from making utility maximizing choices. This paper expands the concept of bounded rationality to consider how people’s rationality may be constrained by their internalization of a qualitatively distinct standard for sound judgment, which is commonly labeled reasonableness. In contrast to rationality, the standard of reasonableness provides guidance for making choices in situations that involve balancing incommensurable values and interests or reconciling conflicting points-of-view. We review recent evidence showing that laypeople readily recognize the distinctions between rationality and reasonableness and thus are able to utilize these as distinct standards to inform their everyday decision-making. The fact that people appear to have internalized rationality and reasonableness as distinct standards of sound judgment supports the notion that people’s pursuit of rationality may be bounded by their determination to also be reasonable.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seng Bum Michael Yoo ◽  
Benjamin Hayden ◽  
John Pearson

Humans and other animals evolved to make decisions that extend over time with continuous and ever-changing options. Nonetheless, the academic study of decision-making is mostly limited to the simple case of choice between two options. Here we advocate that the study of choice should expand to include continuous decisions. Continuous decisions, by our definition, involve a continuum of possible responses and take place over an extended period of time during which the response is continuously subject to modification. In most continuous decisions, the range of options can fluctuate and is affected by recent responses, making consideration of reciprocal feedback between choices and the environment essential. The study of continuous decisions raises new questions, such as how abstract processes of valuation and comparison are co-implemented with action planning and execution, how we simulate the large number of possible futures our choices lead to, and how our brains employ hierarchical structure to make choices more efficiently. While microeconomic theory has proven invaluable for discrete decisions, we propose that engineering control theory may serve as a better foundation for continuous ones. And while the concept of value has proven foundational for discrete decisions, goal states and policies may prove more useful for continuous ones.


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