Winners and losers - communicating the potential impacts of policies

Individual decision-makers need communications that succinctly describe potential harms and benefits of different options, but policymakers or citizens evaluating a policy are rarely given a balanced and easily understood summary of the potential outcomes of their decision. We review current policy option communication across diverse domains such as taxes, health, climate change, and international trade, followed by reviews of guidance and evidence for communication effectiveness. Our conceptual synthesis identifies four characteristics of policy options that make their communication particularly difficult: heterogeneous impacts on different segments of the population, multiple outcomes, long timescales, and large uncertainties. For communicators that are trying to inform rather than persuade, these complexities reveal a core tension between issue coverage and comprehensibility. We find little empirical evidence for how to communicate policy options effectively. We identify promising current communications, analyze them based on the above synthesis, and suggest priorities for future research. Recognizing the particular challenges of balanced, effective policy option communications could lead to better guidelines and support for policy decision-making. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0121-9

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Winners and losers: Communicating the potential impacts of policies (post-print)

10.31234/osf.io/z3dbr ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Cameron Brick

Keyword(s):

Policy Decision ◽

Policy Option ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Future Research ◽

Communication Effectiveness ◽

Policy Options ◽

Effective Policy ◽

Policy Decision Making ◽

Long Timescales ◽

Review Current

There is increasing attention to supporting individual decision-makers with communications that succinctly describe potential harms and benefits of different options, but policymakers or citizens evaluating a policy are rarely given a balanced and easily-understood summary of the potential outcomes of their decision. We review current policy option communication across diverse domains such as taxes, health, climate change, and international trade, followed by reviews of guidance and evidence for communication effectiveness. Our conceptual synthesis identifies four characteristics of policy options that make their communication particularly difficult: heterogeneous impacts on different segments of the population, multiple outcomes, long timescales, and large uncertainties. For communicators that are trying to inform rather than persuade, these complexities reveal a core tension between issue coverage and comprehensibility. We found little empirical evidence for how to communicate policy options effectively. We identify promising current communications, analyze them based on the above synthesis, and suggest priorities for future research. Recognizing the particular challenges of balanced, effective policy option communications could lead to better guidelines and support for policy decision-making.

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Foreign Policy Decision Making

10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.398 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

James M. Goldgeier

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

Short Circuit ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Political Processes ◽

Patterns Of Behavior ◽

Policy Decision Making ◽

The Cold War

Decision makers, acting singly or in groups, influence the field of international relations by shaping the interactions among nations. It is therefore important to understand how those decision makers are likely to behave. Some scholars have developed elegant formal theories of decision making to demonstrate the utility of rational choice approaches in the study of international relations, while others have chosen to explain the patterns of bias that exist when leaders face the difficult task of making decisions and formulating policy. Among them are Herbert Simon, who introduced “bounded rationality” to allow leaders to short-circuit the decision process, and Elizabeth Kier, who has shown how organizational cultures shaped the development of military doctrine during the interwar period. The literature on foreign policy decision making during the Cold War looked inside the black box to generate analyses of bureaucratic politics and individual mindsets. Because decision making involves consensus seeking among groups, leaders will often avoid making choices so that they will not antagonize key members of the bureaucracy. Scholars have also investigated the role of “policy entrepreneurs” in the decision-making process, bringing individual agents into organizational, diplomatic and political processes. Over time, the field of policy decision making has evolved to help us understand not only why leaders often calculate so poorly but even more importantly, why systematic patterns of behavior are more or less likely under certain conditions.

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Trends and Perspectives of PRC's Energy Policy Making Institutions and Policies

International Area Review ◽

10.1177/223386590901200206 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 111-124

Author(s):

Chulwon Lee

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Energy Policy ◽

Policy Making ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Policy Debate ◽

Wide Range ◽

Policy Decision Making ◽

Future Direction ◽

The Impact

The future direction of China's approach to energy policy making is, of course, difficult to predict. This is due not only to the opaque and fragmented nature of Chinese energy policy decision-making, but also to the fact that energy policy is a new topic for China's leaders and the individuals they rely on for advice to master that impinges on the interests of actors throughout the Chinese bureaucracy. The wide range of participants in the energy policy debate indicates that more diversified views on it probably reach the top leadership. The impact of the multiplicity of opinions is two-fold. It can result in more informed decision-making, but it can also delay the process as decision makers must assess a larger number of competing and sometimes contradictory views.

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Consumer Welfare Effects of Quantity Changes in Demand

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics ◽

10.1017/s1074070800004703 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 45 (2) ◽

pp. 217-227

Author(s):

Kuo S. Huang

Keyword(s):

Food Policy ◽

Malmquist Index ◽

Commodity Prices ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Consumer Welfare ◽

Welfare Effects ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Demand System ◽

Policy Options ◽

Food Groups

Information about consumer welfare effects associated with quantity changes in demand is important for agricultural and food policy decision-makers because many policy options are directly related to controlling supplies as a means to stabilize or raise commodity prices and farmers' income. A new method is developed to measure the consumer welfare effects by using the estimates of an inverse demand system and a modified quantity-adjusted Malmquist index to represent the efficiency in quantity metric welfare. The methodology is validated by applying it to a U.S. inverse food demand system consisting of 13 food groups and a nonfood sector.

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Papers please: Predictive factors for the uptake of national and international COVID-19 immunity and vaccination passports

10.31234/osf.io/fxemq ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Michael Garrett ◽

Joshua Paul White ◽

Simon Dennis ◽

Stephan Lewandowsky ◽

Cheng-Ta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Predictive Factors ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Policy Makers ◽

The Public ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Effective Policy ◽

Generalized Linear Mixed Effects ◽

The Uk ◽

Representative Samples

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries are introducing digital passports that allow citizens to return to normal activities if they were previously infected with (immunity passport) or vaccinated against (vaccination passport) SARS-CoV-2. To be effective, policy decision makers must know whether immunity and vaccination passports will be widely accepted by the public, and under what conditions? We collected representative samples across six countries – Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom – during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to assess attitudes towards the introduction of immunity passports. Immunity passport support was moderate-to-low, ranging from 51% in the UK and Germany, down to 22% in Japan. Bayesian generalized linear mixed effects modelling controlling for each country showed neoliberal world views, personal concern and perceived virus severity, the fairness of immunity passports, and willingness to become infected to gain an immunity passport, were all predictive factors of immunity passport support. By contrast, gender (woman), immunity passport concern, and risk of harm to society predicted a decrease in support for immunity passports. Minor differences in predictive factors were found between countries. These findings will help policy makers introduce effective immunity passport policies in these six countries and around the world.

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Which Lessons Matter?: American Foreign Policy Decision Making in the Middle East, 1979–1987. By Christopher R. Hemmer. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000. 217p. $17.95 cloth, $55.50 paper.

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055402990362 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 96 (3) ◽

pp. 686-687

Author(s):

William B. Quandt

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

American Foreign Policy ◽

World Trade Center ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

World Trade Center Attack ◽

The Past ◽

The World ◽

Trade Center ◽

Policy Decision Making

At least since Ernest May's influential (1973) ‘Lessons’ of the Past, students of American foreign policy have been conscious of the powerful hold that some analogies seem to have on the minds of decision makers. All of us can think of “Munich” and “Vietnam” as shorthand for a whole series of judgments that we rely on to work through the maze of foreign policy calculus. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack in September 2001, we heard reference to “Pearl Harbor.” And we can now anticipate that “9-11” will take its place as a marker for a set of lessons concerning the struggle against terrorism.

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Understanding China's Energy Security

World Political Science ◽

10.2202/1935-6226.1026 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Christian Constantin

Keyword(s):

Energy Policy ◽

Energy Security ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Scientific Development ◽

Decision Making Process ◽

Security Issues ◽

Strategic Vision ◽

Policy Decision Making ◽

Market Approach

This paper seeks to offer a different perspective on China's energy policy and of the role played by security issues in its definition. Hence, it will impart particular attention to conceptions and ideas held by the actors involved in the energy policy decision-making process. It will demonstrate that the different measures that make up Chinese energy policy are the result of a debate among proponents of three frames a strategic vision, a market approach, and a conception of "scientific development" simultaneously exhibited within China's energy policy community. Each one of these frames sheds light in a unique fashion on the objective conditions confronting Chinese decision-makers by identifying some of them as problematic while leaving others in the shadows, and, at the same time, they offer solutions articulated in their own terms.

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Theory, practice, and politics - Policy decision-making process based on epidemiology and public health evidence proved to be feasible in multistage research on blood-borne infections in Poland.

10.21203/rs.3.rs-15708/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

ANITA GĘBSKA-KUCZEROWSKA ◽

Robert Gajda

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Service Providers ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Public Healthcare ◽

Decision Making Process ◽

Multi Stage ◽

Third Stage ◽

Policy Decision Making ◽

Epidemiology And Public Health

Abstract Background That it is necessary to involve several stakeholders in a decision-making process. This study presented a research methodology used to prepare the proposal of assumptions regarding the strategy for preventing blood-borne diseases in Poland. Methods The project was carried out from 18th July to 30th November 2016. The tasks under that project were assigned to an outsourcing company to avoid the tendency in respondents’ answers. The research was divided into three stages. The first stage diagnosed the problem from the perspectives of service providers, practitioners, and epidemiologists – persons who encounter problems related to blood-derivative infections at work. The second stage involved analysis at the level of local and country health policy – the institution of supervision, authorities, and administration through the engagement of experts, and public healthcare specialists. In the third stage, decision makers were interviewed (key representatives– that is, the opinions of leaders were sought) and asked to summarize and define priorities regarding conclusions determined in the earlier phases of the project, i.e., during the first and second stages. Results The final output of the entire project is a list of key problems/challenges and solution proposals associated with medical and nonmedical services that are connected to the breakage of tissue continuity. Conclusions Results composed from the multi-stage survey regarded proposed assumptions for the strategy for the prevention of blood-borne infections in Poland. Statistical data allowed the assessment of the health effects, while the methodology applied also allowed diagnosis of the processes leading to these effects.

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The Current Capacity and Future Development of Economic Evaluation for Policy Decision-Making: A Survey among Researchers and Decision-Makers in Thailand

Value in Health ◽

10.1111/j.1524-4733.2009.00624.x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

pp. S31-S35 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Usa Chaikledkaew ◽

Chanida Lertpitakpong ◽

Yot Teerawattananon ◽

Montarat Thavorncharoensap ◽

Viroj Tangcharoensathien

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Economic Evaluation ◽

Future Development ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Policy Decision Making

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U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis. By David Patrick Houghton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 270p. $64.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s000305540224037x ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 96 (3) ◽

pp. 690-691

Author(s):

Marc Lynch

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

New York ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

Analogical Reasoning ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Cambridge University ◽

Hostage Crisis ◽

Historical Analogy ◽

Policy Decision Making

David Patrick Houghton's U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis explores the power of historical analogies in foreign policy decision making, offering along the way an engaging, thought-provoking account of decision making during the Iranian hostage crisis. Posing the question “How do decision makers reason when confronted by a problem which seems almost entirely novel in character and therefore without precedent?” (p. 19), Houghton follows Khong's Analogies at War in arguing for the centrality of analogical reasoning. The seizure of the American embassy by Iranian student radicals presented a genuinely perplexing problem for decision makers on all sides, and Houghton captures their uncertainty well. Since decision makers can rely on different historical analogies, and even the same historical analogy can offer competing lessons or be subject to divergent interpretations, Houghton focuses attention upon the interpretive interplay of analogies. As the crisis unfolded, decision makers deliberated, directly and indirectly, over the most relevant and useful analogy. These analogies, according to Houghton, are not merely justifications for strategies chosen for other reasons but directly affect individual policy preferences by shaping beliefs about the nature of the problem. Houghton convincingly establishes the prevalence and power of historical analogies in shaping the response of policymakers to unfamiliar situations. His efforts to construct generalizable theoretical propositions about their relative causal weight are somewhat less successful but are consistently thought-provoking.

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