Decision Making in Soviet Cities

1972 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Michael Frolic

How are decisions made in Soviet cities? Who are the municipal decision makers? What kinds of decisions do they make? Is there a Soviet urban political system? This article attempts to answer these questions by focusing on four aspects of decision making in Soviet cities: budget formulation, the planning process, housing construction and allocation, and the staffing of key municipal posts.Urban autonomy has increased in the past decade, but Soviet municipalities are very much restricted in their decision making. Superior Party and governmental authorities continue to dominate the decision-making process and any decision made by municipal authorities can be vetoed by superior Party and governmental organs.Soviet municipal decision making is now being influenced by three tendencies: municipal administrators are acquiring more influence in municipal government and administration; the educational qualifications and professional expertise of city Party members are rising; ad hoc citizen and group interest articulation may be developing. Comparisons between Soviet and North American urban decision-making models are useful and valid, although they require an improved methodology and much more Soviet data.

Author(s):  
John Hunsley ◽  
Eric J. Mash

Evidence-based assessment relies on research and theory to inform the selection of constructs to be assessed for a specific assessment purpose, the methods and measures to be used in the assessment, and the manner in which the assessment process unfolds. An evidence-based approach to clinical assessment necessitates the recognition that, even when evidence-based instruments are used, the assessment process is a decision-making task in which hypotheses must be iteratively formulated and tested. In this chapter, we review (a) the progress that has been made in developing an evidence-based approach to clinical assessment in the past decade and (b) the many challenges that lie ahead if clinical assessment is to be truly evidence-based.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva D. Regnier ◽  
Joel W. Feldmeier

General Eisenhower’s decisions to postpone and, one day later, to launch the “D-Day” invasion of Normandy are a gripping illustration of sequential decisions under uncertainty, suitable for any introductory decision analysis class. They’re also the archetypal example of weather-sensitive decision making using a forecast. This paper develops a framework for analyzing weather-sensitive decisions with a focus on the less-familiar strategic decisions that determine how forecasts are produced and what operational alternatives are available so that decision makers can extract value from forecasts. We tell the story of the decisions made in the months before D-Day regarding how to set up the forecasting process and the myriad decisions implicating nation-level resources that prepared Allied forces not just to invade, but to hold open that decision until the last possible hour so that Eisenhower and his staff could use the critical forecasts. Finally, we overview the current state of the weather-forecasting enterprise, the current challenges of interest to decision analysts, and what this means for decision analysts seeking opportunities to help the weather enterprise improve forecasts and to help operational decision makers extract more value from modern weather forecasts.


1999 ◽  
Vol 1999 (1) ◽  
pp. 863-866
Author(s):  
Michael de Bettencourt ◽  
John Tarpley ◽  
Kathleen Ward

ABSTRACT The Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team (SCAT) process has done a tremendous amount to standardize the language of shoreline impact and cleanup needs over the past 8 years. The SCAT process has been standardized regionally, and this process now generates a tremendous amount of information in a very short period of time. However, the SCAT-generated information can be extremely complicated and dense. In the urgency of the oil spill crisis, the information is often filtered and distilled down to a point where it is so generalized that it is nearly useless. This inability to manage critical information often wastes valuable resources and time. To better manage the information and decision making associated with shoreline cleanup, the SCAT process must be fully integrated into the Incident Command System (ICS). The information generated by the SCAT must not only be thorough, the spill management team and the supervisors in the field must easily understand it. This paper discusses the problems and opportunities associated with integrating the SCAT process and the ICS planning process.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-210
Author(s):  
Jason J. Morrissette

This article seeks to establish a better scholarly understanding of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s decision to launch an ill-planned, risky, and ultimately disastrous invasion of the breakaway republic of Chechnya in 1994. Examining the decision-making environment that led up to the invasion, I conclude that while neorealism provides an adequate explanation for Yeltsin’s motives in this case, the decisions that he made in pursuit of these goals do not reflect the logic of rational utility maximization commonly associated with neorealist theory. Instead, I suggest that prospect theory – based on the idea that decision-makers tend to be risk averse when confronted with choices between gains while risk acceptant when confronted with losses – offers significantly more explanatory insight in this case. Thus, the article offers further support for an alternative theoretical approach to international relations that some scholars have termed ‘cognitive realism’, incorporating neorealist motives with a more empirically accurate perspective on the decision-making processes undertaken in pursuit of these motives.


1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 912-928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter F. Nardulli ◽  
Roy B. Flemming ◽  
James Eisenstein

This article uses a variety of multilevel data collected from a nine-county study of felony courts to examine the joint effects of contextual and individual level (sociopolitical characteristics of decision workers) upon decisions made in face-to-face groups. The research finds that although the sociopolitical characteristics of decision makers (attitudes toward punishment, Machiavellianism, and operating styles) made a difference in the outcome of interactions, their role could not be accessed independent of the contextual factors surrounding the interactions. Some of the most important contextual factors were the kind of criminal case being handled, prosecutor office policies restricting discretion, and the configuration of attributes in the group handling the case. Although the data are wholly derived from the criminal court setting, the implications of the findings for studying decision making in other face-to-face groups are developed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger A. Pielke

This essay explores the management and creation of ignorance via an exploration of the landscape of eastern Germany, which has seen profound social, political, and technological changes over the past several decades. Like in many places around the world decision makers in eastern Germany are seeking to reach a future state where seemingly conflicting outcomes related to the economy and the environment are simultaneously realized. The management of ignorance is an important but often overlooked consideration in decision making that the concept of "post-normal science" places into our focus of attention.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
yola febriani ◽  
Hade Afriansyah ◽  
Rusdinal

This article aims to describe how is the process of decision making. Decision making is something that is never separated from human life, both simple decision making and complex problems. Everyone is always faced with the choice to take a decision. To be able to take the right decisions, every person should know the steps. This article presents what the decision-making steps and what is the importance of creative thinking in decision making. Creative thinking will help decision makers to improve the quality and effectiveness of problem solving and decision making results were made. In relation to the process of decision making, creative thinking is needed, especially in identifying problems and develop alternative solutions. The methodology used to arrange this article is Systematic Literature Review (SLR). First, researcher find relevant theories, and then make a conclusion about it, then analyzing, and finally make a new information based researcher analyzing.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
yola febriani ◽  
Hade Afriansyah ◽  
Rusdinal

This article aims to describe how is the process of decision making. Decision making is something that is never separated from human life, both simple decision making and complex problems. Everyone is always faced with the choice to take a decision. To be able to take the right decision, every person should know the steps. This article presents what the decision making steps and what is the importance of creative thinking in decision making. Creative thinking will help decision makers to improve the quality and effectiveness of problem solving and decision making results were made. In relation to the process of decision making, creative thinking is needed, especially in identifying problems and develop alternative solutions. The methodology used to arrange this article is Systematic Literature Review (SLR). First, researcher find relevant theories, and then make a conclusion about it, then analyzing, and finally make a new information based researcher analyzing


Author(s):  
Anuja Shaktawat ◽  
Shelly Vadhera

Assessment of hydropower projects with respect to sustainability criteria is a multidimensional and a complex issue that decision makers usually face during planning process. In hydropower projects, it is important to consider technical, environmental and social parameters instead of purely economic ones for sustainability assessment and decision making. Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods offer a practical approach to a problem having conflicting criteria. The flexibility to consider several criteria and objectives simultaneously made MCDM methods well accepted in the field of energy planning. This paper aims for applicability of MCDM methods which will facilitate the decision makers to select the most sustainable hydropower projects by making real and logical choices based on various sustainability criteria. For comprehensively rank hydropower projects of Indian region based on sustainability criteria four MCDM methods are applied i.e., analytic hierarchy process (AHP), technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE II) and elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE III). To ensure better decision making the eight criteria selected are compatible to the sustainable development of hydropower projects.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Kirkpatrick ◽  
Brandon Turner ◽  
Per B. Sederberg

The dynamics of decision-making have been widely studied over the past several decades through the lens of an overarching theory called sequential sampling theory (SST). Within SST, choices are represented as accumulators, each of which races toward a decision boundary by drawing stochastic samples of evidence through time. Although progress has been made in understanding how decisionsare made within the SST framework, considerable debate centers on whether the accumulators exhibit dependency during the evidence accumulation process; namely whether accumulators are independent, fully dependent, or partially dependent. To evaluate which type of dependency is the most plausible representation of human decision-making, we applied a novel twist on two classic perceptual tasks; namely, in addition to the classic paradigm (i.e., the unequal-evidence conditions), we used stimuli that provided different magnitudes of equal-evidence (i.e., the equal-evidence conditions). In equal-evidence conditions, response times systematically decreased with increases in the magnitude of evidence, whereas in unequal evidence conditions, response times systematically increased as the difference in evidence between the two alternatives decreased. We designed a spectrum of models that ranged from independent accumulation to fully dependent accumulation, while also examining the effects of within-trial and between-trial variability. We then fit the set of models to our two experiments and found that models instantiating the principles of partial dependency provided the best fit to the data. Our results further suggest that mechanisms inducing partial dependency, such as lateral inhibition, are beneficial for understanding complex decision-making dynamics, even when the task is relatively simple.


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