Driving forces and patterns of water policy making in Egypt

Water Policy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Luzi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Water Policies

In studies on transboundary river management, it is often assumed that national water policies are made by ‘governments’ or ‘water ministries’ as unitary, rational decision-makers. This article analyzes actors, institutions, and decision-making processes in the Egyptian water sector and explores implications for the design and implementation of water policies. Rational choice is assumed to be only one possible pattern of water policy making, and is distinguished from other mechanisms driven by organizational routines or bargaining over stakeholders' interests. It is found that in Egypt, despite considerable planning capacities, many water policy outcomes are influenced by developments beyond the control of the water ministry. Water governance is also influenced by top-level strategic decision-making, conflicts of interest between sectors, enforcement priority given to policies that prioritize political stability and/or certain privileged interest groups, and intra-organizational resistance to institutional reform. Policies in the traditional core tasks of the water ministry, i.e. water supply and drainage provision, and important strategic decisions regarding water allocation priorities are mainly made in a ‘rational choice’ fashion by the respective authorities. Issues that have emerged more recently, such as water quality or demand management, are subject to interest bargaining between different stakeholder groups in both the planning and the implementation phases.

scholarly journals Challenges of Water Policy Involvement of the Community in the East Coast River Basin of Thailand

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 3395
Author(s):  
Nittaya Ponok ◽  
Noppol Arunrat ◽  
Nathsuda Pumijumnong ◽  
Hironori Hamasaki ◽  
Sukanya Sereenonchai
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Community Sector

Water policy-making requires the dedicated involvement of all stakeholders, but difficulties remain for the community sector. This study aims to examine the critical challenges of community involvement in water policy decision-making in Thailand. Both qualitative and quantitative methods used in this research project consisted of 39 interviews with informants from a variety of interested parties and 403 community members from around the East Coast River Basin in Thailand completing a survey questionnaire. The results have shown that although mechanisms to enable community involvement in decision-making, such as public consultation and water-related committees, exist, problems remain within the community sector. The critical challenges lie in the opportunities of being consulted and the sharing of power in water policy-making. Although the networks are important, at the same time, they are also obstructing the community sectors in linking their requirements to a final decision, as well as dealing with politics, policy-makers, and staff who organized the process. Therefore, the government should further develop water committee mechanisms by setting up a comprehensive yet practically easy consultation process so that new or inexperienced community members get an opportunity to practice and learn the vital elements necessary in water policy-making. Further research should be conducted in order to compare the opportunities in water decision-making between communities in rural and urban areas. Studies at the local government level should be carried out, with results used as a mechanism to enable community involvement at higher levels of water policy decision-making.

6. How Policies Are Made

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Hayes-Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Legislative Procedure ◽  
Ordinary Legislative Procedure

This chapter examines how European Union policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, under which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the Treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. EU policy-making is open to criticism on grounds of democracy, transparency, and efficiency, but it continues to deliver an impressive amount and array of policy outcomes. The chapter considers the basic rules and principal actors involved in EU policy-making and how the policy-making process works in practice. It also asks whether the EU policy-making process is democratic, transparent, and efficient before concluding with an assessment of the theory and practice underlying the process.

6. How Policies Are Made

2018 ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Daniel Kenealy ◽  
Fiona Hayes-Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Legislative Procedure ◽  
Ordinary Legislative Procedure

This chapter examines how European Union policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, under which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the Treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. EU policy-making is open to criticism on grounds of democracy, transparency, and efficiency, but it continues to deliver an impressive amount and array of policy outcomes. The chapter considers the basic rules and principal actors involved in EU policy-making and how the policy-making process works in practice. It also asks whether the EU policy-making process is democratic, transparent, and efficient, before concluding with an assessment of the theory and practice underlying the process.

scholarly journals Strategic decision-making by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus) and children in a Snowdrift-Game task

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Sanchez-Amaro ◽  
Shona Duguid ◽  
Josep Call ◽  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Pan Paniscus ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Coordination Failure ◽  
Snowdrift Game ◽  
Resource Distributions ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Evolutionary Context ◽  
The Cost

Chimpanzees must be able to coordinate with others even when conflicts of interest are present. The “Snowdrift-Game” provides a model to understand how organisms coordinate and make decisions under conflict situations. By investigating whether and how chimpanzees solve this dilemma we can gain insight into the mechanisms of cooperation. Moreover, by comparing chimpanzees with their closest relatives, bonobos and humans, we can understand the evolutionary context of decision making in this situation. We presented pairs of captive chimpanzees (N=10; Mage= 20.5 years) and bonobos (N=6, Mage=13.7 years) housed at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany as well as 20 children dyads from the same city, with an adapted version of the Snowdrift games. In our task, subjects were faced with an unequal reward distribution. In the critical condition the higher reward was acquired by letting a partner act, with the risk that if neither partner acted the rewards would be lost after a period of thirty seconds. Both chimpanzees and children were highly successful at coordinating their actions to solve the dilemma (bonobo data is currently under collection). They almost never lost the rewards because at least one partner was willing to pay the cost of getting the decreased reward, to avoid coordination failure (no reward). Both species behaved strategically as they waited longer for their partner to act when this would lead to a higher reward. However, evidence from their resource distributions, their action latencies and their communicative acts suggests that children behaved more strategic than chimpanzees. Our results demonstrate that both species can successfully coordinate their actions in conflict situations although they differ in the way they achieve coordination.

scholarly journals Energy and Water Policies in Chile, Two Different Endings with Implications in the Water-Energy Nexus

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3286
Author(s):  
Roxana Bórquez ◽  
Rodrigo Fuster
Keyword(s):  
Water Policy ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Water Policies ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
Water Energy Nexus ◽  
Term Energy ◽  
Policy Problems

Energy and water have faced important levels of conflicts in the last 20–25 years in Chile. However, the way that they have been politically addressed in the last decade differs. These differences emerge from how these fields have been historically configurated, impacting on how the policy problems and policy options have been framed. Using thematic analysis of 93 interviews and documentary analysis, this article analyzes by contrasting two participatory processes which nourish the formulation of the energy and water policies in Chile in 2014–2015. It seeks to understand the factors that may influence why the development, impact and inclusion of new voices in public policies related to water and energy have been different, and how that can impact the water–energy nexus. Five factors emerge as determinants in this difference: structure of use, number of actors, governance and institutional framework, elite conformation, and legal framework. These factors impacted the policy processes and the scope of the policy outcomes, generating two different results: a long-term energy policy, and a water policy that did not survive the presidential period. Thus, the water–energy nexus is under pressure as a result of the tension between power structures, social responses to environmental issues and decision-making, environmental limitations, and climate change stressors, creating greater vulnerability and conflicts.

Sequential Decision Making and Information Aggregation in Small Networks

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Patty ◽  
Elizabeth Maggie Penn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Incentive Compatibility ◽  
Information Aggregation ◽  
Comparative Statics ◽  
Sequential Decision Making ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Sequential Decision ◽  
Acyclic Network

This article describes and investigates a model of strategic sequential decision making in networked policy-making environments with three agents. The primary interest is the effect of network structure on sequential policy making and information aggregation. The model and results illustrate how individual policy decisions of varying weight (in terms of a decision maker's unilateral effect on policy outcomes) can enable information aggregation in decentralized environments. In the studied environment, the incentive compatibility conditions for information aggregation are not invariant to network isomorphisms: individuals’ positions in the network matter. The study derives exact conditions for every acyclic network of three or fewer agents and illustrates the counterintuitive nature of comparative statics with respect to both network structure and individual agents’ policy preferences and discretionary authority.

Intelligence and the Core Executive

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
British Government ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Executive

Much of the analysis of intelligence and security in British government has treated it as a separate and distinct sphere. This article argues that the core executive framework provides a useful mechanism for integrating security policy making with other aspects of the domestic policy process. The article analyses the changing nature of the core executive and its impact on decision-making. The article argues that if we look at intelligence through the core executive framework we can analyse intelligence as a particular form of knowledge that can provide the Prime Minister with considerable influence on policy outcomes. This is not, however, to suggest that the Prime Minister is presidential.

The Nixon-Kissinger Foreign Policy System and U.S.-European Relations: Patterns of Policy Making

1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfrid L. Kohl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Process Model ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Organizational Process ◽  
Royal Court

No single model adequately explains the American foreign policy-making process. At least six models are required, singly or in some combination, to understand recent American foreign policy formation under the Nixon Administration. The six models are: democratic politics, organizational process/bureaucratic politics, the royal-court model, multiple advocacy, groupthink, and shared images or mind-sets. After a review of the rules of the foreign policy game in Washington and the main elements of the Nixon-Kissinger National Security Council system, the article seeks to apply the models to a number of cases in recent American policy making toward Europe. U.S.-Soviet relations, the “Year of Europe,” and Nixon's New Economic Policy of August 1971 are examined as cases of royal-court decision making. A second category of cases exhibits mixed patterns of decision making: SALT, the Berlin negotiations, U.S. troops in Europe, MBFR, and U.S. trade policy. Bureaucratic variables alone explained policy outcomes in international economic policy making in the autumn of 1971, and an organizational process model was found to be dominant generally in the formation of recent international monetary policy, led by the Treasury Department. The conclusion considers the relationships between the models and certain kinds of policies.

scholarly journals BETWEEN POLICY-MAKING AND PLANNING

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (03) ◽  
pp. 319-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
IVAR LYHNE
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Strategic Environmental Assessment ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This article deals with the challenge of approaching decision-making processes through strategic environmental assessment (SEA). It is argued that the interaction between policy-making and planning in strategic decision-making processes is a neglected reason for problems with applying SEA, as legislation and guidance on SEA primarily approach either the policy or plan level. To substantiate the argument, the extent of interaction is empirically investigated. Four contemporary decision-making processes in the Danish energy sector are mapped as a series of choices. Fundamental changes with considerable environmental impacts are decided these years, often without preceding SEA processes. The mapping shows a profound interaction between policy-making and planning. In this interaction, public consultation, systematic environmental analyses, and transparency on alternatives are primarily related to choices of planning character. The findings lead to a discussion of the existing SEA guidance that is challenged in terms of adequacy of the guidance to approach the interaction.

scholarly journals Strategic decision-making by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus) and children in a Snowdrift-Game task

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Sanchez-Amaro ◽  
Shona Duguid ◽  
Josep Call ◽  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Pan Paniscus ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Coordination Failure ◽  
Snowdrift Game ◽  
Resource Distributions ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Evolutionary Context ◽  
The Cost

Chimpanzees must be able to coordinate with others even when conflicts of interest are present. The “Snowdrift-Game” provides a model to understand how organisms coordinate and make decisions under conflict situations. By investigating whether and how chimpanzees solve this dilemma we can gain insight into the mechanisms of cooperation. Moreover, by comparing chimpanzees with their closest relatives, bonobos and humans, we can understand the evolutionary context of decision making in this situation. We presented pairs of captive chimpanzees (N=10; Mage= 20.5 years) and bonobos (N=6, Mage=13.7 years) housed at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany as well as 20 children dyads from the same city, with an adapted version of the Snowdrift games. In our task, subjects were faced with an unequal reward distribution. In the critical condition the higher reward was acquired by letting a partner act, with the risk that if neither partner acted the rewards would be lost after a period of thirty seconds. Both chimpanzees and children were highly successful at coordinating their actions to solve the dilemma (bonobo data is currently under collection). They almost never lost the rewards because at least one partner was willing to pay the cost of getting the decreased reward, to avoid coordination failure (no reward). Both species behaved strategically as they waited longer for their partner to act when this would lead to a higher reward. However, evidence from their resource distributions, their action latencies and their communicative acts suggests that children behaved more strategic than chimpanzees. Our results demonstrate that both species can successfully coordinate their actions in conflict situations although they differ in the way they achieve coordination.

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