scholarly journals Industrial Youth, Housing and Socialist Expertise in Late Socialist Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Mara Mărginean
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Circulation Of Knowledge ◽  
New Industrialization

Abstract This article examines the part played by foreign academic literature translated into Romanian during the 1970s. Dwelling on the activity of the Centre for the Study of Youth Problems (CSYP), it aims to highlight the national authorities’ efforts to mobilize youth for a new industrialization wave as part of an encompassing global trend of making the youth into an object of professionalized knowledge and policy. To this end, it analyses how the internationalization of expertise by transnational production and circulation of knowledge changed the Romanian scientific practices and recalibrated the experts’ visibility within the state’s decision-making processes. My contribution explores the shifting relationship between public housing and industrial growth as a foundation for socialist labour politics, the transnational emergence of a ‘rule of experts’, and the political interests around research on youths and their living conditions.

Getting to the Future

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Michael K. MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Future ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Electoral Cycles ◽  
Shared Futures ◽  
Deliberative Processes

This chapter makes three arguments in support of the claim that we need inclusive deliberative processes to shape the future in collectively intentional, mutually accommodating ways. First, inclusive collective decision-making processes are needed to avoid futures that favour the interests of some groups of people over others. Second, deliberative processes are needed to shape our shared futures in collectively intentional ways: we need to be able to talk to ourselves about what we are doing and where we want to get to in the future. Third, deliberative exchanges are needed to help collectivities avoid the policy oscillations that are (or may be) associated with the political dynamics of short electoral cycles. Effective processes of reciprocal reason giving can help collectivities maintain policy continuity over the long term—when continuity is justified—even as governments and generations change.

scholarly journals Technology, Public Participation, and the American Bureaucracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher George Torres
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Environmental Literacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This dissertation analyzes three participatory technology assessment (pTA) projects conducted within United States federal agencies between 2014 and 2018. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) argues that a lack of public participation in addressing issues of science and technology in society has produced undemocratic processes of decision-making with outcomes insensitive to the daily lives of the public. There has been little work in STS, however, examining what the political pressures and administrative challenges are to improving public participation in U.S. agency decision-making processes. Following a three-essay format, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel, and bringing STS, policy studies, and public administration scholarship into conversation, this dissertation argues for the significance of “policy entrepreneurs” who from within U.S. agencies advocate for pTA and navigate the political controls on innovative forms of participation. The first essay explores how the political culture and administrative structures of the American federal bureaucracy shape the bureaucratic contexts of public participation in science and technology decision-making. The second essay is an in-depth case study of the role political controls and policy entrepreneurs played in adopting, designing, and implementing pTA in NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. The third essay is a comparative analysis of how eight political and administrative conditions informed pTA design and implementation for NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, DOE’s consent-based nuclear waste siting program, and NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. The results of this dissertation highlight how important the political and administrative contexts of federal government programs are to understanding how pTA is designed and implemented in agency science and technology decision-making processes, and the key role agency policy entrepreneurs play in facilitating pTA through these political and administrative contexts. This research can aid STS scholars and practitioners better anticipate and mitigate the barriers to embedding innovative forms of public participation in U.S. federal government science and technology program design and decision-making processes.

Can Democracy be Deliberative & Participatory? The Democratic Case for Political Uses of Mini-Publics

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Negative Conclusion ◽  
Political Decision Making

This essay focuses on recent proposals to confer decisional status upon deliberative mini-publics such as citizens' juries, Deliberative Polls, and citizens' assemblies. Against such proposals, I argue that inserting deliberative mini-publics into political decision-making processes would diminish the democratic legitimacy of the political system as a whole. This negative conclusion invites a question: which political uses of mini-publics would yield genuinely democratic improvements? Drawing from a participatory conception of deliberative democracy, I propose several uses of mini-publics that could enhance the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making in current societies.

The Political Analysis of Negotiation: How Who Gets What and When

1974 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. William Zartman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Underdeveloped Area ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Models ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Number Of Parties

Negotiation is one of the basic political or decision-making processes, but if processes in general have been sorely neglected in political analysis, negotiation has been neglected more than most. Legislation as an institutional function has a respectable literature; as a process wherein goal values are constant and decisions are made by aggregating a sufficient number of parties to constitute a numerically superior side, it has become the subject of coalition theory. Adjudication has also given rise to a large quantity of institutional literature, although a theory explaining the process wherein a single party combines events and values to produce a decision is less well established. Similarly, diplomacy—and more recently, collective bargaining—has been thoroughly described, and economists and mathematicians using game and utility theories have developed some complex models of bargaining. But negotiation as a political process, specifically explained in terms of power, is an underdeveloped area of theory.

scholarly journals Euxenippos at Oropos

2019 ◽  
pp. 68-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Bowden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dream Recall ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Moment

The chapter explores how divination through dream incubation was involved in the decision-making processes of the Athenian democracy. It focuses on the consultation of Amphiaraos in the mid-fourth century by a delegation including Euxenippos, which we know about from a speech of Isaios. It explores the wider evidence about the practical aspects of dream incubation, and draws on modern studies of dreaming, looking at the practice of recording dreams in writing at the moment of waking, and self-training to improve dreaming and dream recall. The chapter argues that, as in other forms of divination, Athens employed men like Euxenippos as ‘expert dreamers’, who were expected to have dreams when required, and who were supported by other Athenians, who acted as assistants and witnesses of the process. It further argues that divination by dreaming was taken seriously by the democracy, with expert dreamers having potentially great influence on decision-making, and becoming themselves inevitably part of the political process.

scholarly journals Graham Allison et le paradigme bureaucratique : vingt-cinq ans plus tard est-il encore utile ?

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Michaud
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Question ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Twenty-five years ago, Graham T. Allison brought to the political scientists community a new tool to help us to understand questions in the domain of Foreign Policy : the Bureaucratic Politics Model. Since then, his Essence of Decision has been one of the most read books in Universities and one of the texts most referred to in scholar works. However, it is of interest to analyze if, beyond the framework's reputation and despite the numerous criticisms addressed to it, the bureaucratic politics is still useful for someone who wishes to do analysis based on Us elements. How bureaucratic politics can still help us to better understand the decision-making processes ? Are there avenues, questions or problems that still can be better explained by referring to this scheme ? The answer we offer to these questions refers to the model's components, to an update of the evaluation several scholars made of it, and, finally, to a dynamic orientation that puts forward the paradigmatic dimension of the theory and an application to a specific question.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Michael K. MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Political ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Future Selves ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Electoral Cycles ◽  
Democratic Systems

This chapter outlines four interrelated but conceptually distinct claims that have been made by proponents of the democratic myopia thesis. It has been argued that democratic systems are functionally short-sighted because of (1) the myopic preferences of voters; (2) the political dynamics of short electoral cycles; (3) the fact that future others who will be affected by our decisions cannot be included in our decision-making processes; and (4) the reality that democratic processes are often captured by powerful actors with dominant short-term objectives. When taken together these four arguments make a persuasive case for why democracies might be functionally short-sighted. This chapter—and the book as a whole—argues that we do not need to choose between our normative commitments to democracy and the well-being of our future selves and future others, because there are democratic responses to each of these components of the democratic myopia thesis.

scholarly journals UMA ANÁLISE DOS SENTIDOS DA NÃO-PARTICIPAÇÃO POPULAR NO ESTADO BRASILEIRO: dilemas históricos e perspectivas contemporâneas.

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 737
Author(s):  
Francisca Fábricia Teodoro Costa ◽  
Alba Maria Pinho de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Authoritarian Leadership ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Brazilian State ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Em um cenário marcado pelo ultraneoliberalismo autoritário e pela desproteção no campo dos direitos sociais e humanos, o estudo empreende um resgate bibliográfico e reflexivo acerca das configurações da formação do Estado brasileiro e sua relação com a sociedade civil, em um contexto permeado por dilemas e limites de uma democracia ainda jovem. Ao longo da análise, foi possível configurar que a formação estatal brasileira, ora em crise, em suas raízes históricas, revela a presença de um Estado forte e autoritário, em detrimento de uma população não participante dos processos decisórios. Talfragilização vincula-se à forma de condução autoritária das elites que não viabilizaram a participação das camadas populares na esfera política de forma protagonista. Conclui que o fortalecimento da participação popular no tempo presente requer avanços capazes de responder às complexas questões contemporâneas.Palavras-chave: Participação. Estado brasileiro. Sociedade civil. Autoritarismo.AN ANALYSIS OF THE MEANINGS OF POPULAR NON-PARTICIPATION IN THE BRAZILIAN STATE: historical dilemmas and contemporary perspectivesAbstractIn a scenario marked by authoritarian ultraneoliberalism and the lack of protection in the field of social and human rights, the study undertakes a bibliographic and reflective rescue about the configurations of the formation of the Brazilian State and its relationship with civil society, in a context permeated by dilemmas and limits of a still young democracy. Throughout the analysis, it was possible to configure that the Brazilian state formation, now in crisis, in its historical roots, reveals the presence of a strong and authoritarian State, to the detriment of a population not participating in the decision-making processes. Such weakening is linked to the form of authoritarian leadership of the elites who did not allow the participation of the popular strata in the political sphere in a protagonist way. The strengthening of popular participation at the present time requires advances capable of responding to complex contemporary issues.Keywords: Participation; Brazilian state; Civil society. Authoritarianism.

scholarly journals Decision-making in the public administration: a dialogue of rationalities

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabete De Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Theoretical Modelling ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Management Models ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
Decision Making Processes

The Science of Public Administration has been the stage for a heated debate on thesearch for the management models and organisational designs that best suit asystem which will simultaneously achieve the goals that are set for it and make appropriateuse of the resources at its disposal. The desired end is an instrumental,managerial rationale derived from a theoretical modelling of the decision-makingprocess that is widely adopted in both management and economic fields: the rationaldecision-making model. However, it is not entirely clear that this model matcheswhat actually happens in the reality it seeks to describe and explain. There areother models, born out of studies of an inductive, pragmatic nature, that providedifferent visions of and explanations for decision-making processes, particularlywhen two variables are introduced: the political context; and when decisions concernambiguous problems that tend to be complex. The author synthetically systematisesome of these models, in the hope that considering them may provide valuable assistance in the process of transforming the administrative systemeffectively.

scholarly journals Ethnic Conflict between the Muslims and Christians in Nigeria: The Dilemma of Decision-Making of the Political Elites

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Ikechukwu Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

This paper examines how ethnic conflict occurred as a result of actions or decisions made by either local  government, state or federal government in Nigeria. Ethnic conflict can be triggered due to various factors, such geographical proximity, group identity, deliberate manipulation of negative perceptions by political leaders, competition of resources, weakness of political institution transitions to democracy, and etc. However, the main focus of this paper is the implementation of Shari’a law in the Northern Nigeria and how the decisions and the implementations have led to blood-shed conflicts in the country. In general, a number of blood-shed events that occurred in Nigeria are also due to the process of decision-making by the political elites that could not fulfil the requirements of the respective ethnic groups. The implications had been overwhelmingly devastating in the country. Uncountable lives were lost via mayhem and blood-shed wars. Homes, shops and properties were destroyed. The economic implications of ethnic conflict have resulted in unequal distribution of resources among individual, groups and regions within the country. The growing economic disparities may increase the fear of those ethnic groups that are disadvantaged; this has warranted that the ignorant masses are often being remote and mobilized by the political class to engage in religious crisis in order to achieve their selfish political interests. In the same vein, similar ethnic based political movements have arisen in Nigeria. Therefore, decision-making is one source that could lead to ethnic conflict in a multi-cultural and ethnic country like Nigeria. Decision-making approach was used to examine the scene of conflict by focusing only on the religious conflict between Muslims and Christians in the country.

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