Decision-Making, Policy Choices and Community Rebuilding after the Tohoku Disaster

A considerable body of work in political science is built upon the assumption that politicians are more purposive, strategic decision makers than the citizens who elect them. At the same time, other work suggests that the personality profiles of office seekers and the environment they operate in systematically amplifies certain choice anomalies. These contrasting perspectives persist absent direct evidence on the reasoning characteristics of representatives. We address this gap by administering experimental decision tasks to incumbents in Belgium, Canada, and Israel. We demonstrate that politicians are as or more subject to common choice anomalies when compared to nonpoliticians: they exhibit a stronger tendency to escalate commitment when facing sunk costs, they adhere more to policy choices that are presented as the status-quo, their risk calculus is strongly subject to framing effects, and they exhibit distinct future time discounting preferences. This has obvious implications for our understanding of decision making by elected politicians.

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Big Data, Semantics, and Policy-Making

Big Data Governance and Perspectives in Knowledge Management - Advances in Knowledge Acquisition, Transfer, and Management ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-7077-6.ch007 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 154-178

Author(s):

Lamyaa El Bassiti

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Big Data ◽

Policy Making ◽

Policy Design ◽

Semantic Technologies ◽

Design And Implementation ◽

Policy Choices ◽

Data Semantics ◽

Policy Argument

At the heart of all policy design and implementation, there is a need to understand how well decisions are made. It is evidently known that the quality of decision making depends significantly on the quality of the analyses and advice provided to the associated actors. Over decades, organizations were highly diligent in gathering and processing vast amounts of data, but they have given less emphasis on how these data can be used in policy argument. With the arrival of big data, attention has been focused on whether it could be used to inform policy-making. This chapter aims to bridge this gap, to understand variations in how big data could yield usable evidence, and how policymakers can make better use of those evidence in policy choices. An integrated and holistic look at how solving complex problems could be conducted on the basis of semantic technologies and big data is presented in this chapter.

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Election Administration, Resource Allocation, and Turnout: Evidence From Kenya

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414020938083 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 001041402093808

Author(s):

J. Andrew Harris

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Resource Allocation ◽

Political Behavior ◽

Large Scale ◽

Regression Discontinuity ◽

Regression Discontinuity Design ◽

Middle Income ◽

Election Administration ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

Policy Choices

Decisions about how to organize and run an election can shape political participation. Policy choices may distribute election resources unequally, skewing voting outcomes. In low- and middle-income countries where electoral capacity and resources are scarce and decision-making highly centralized, election administration has the potential to shape results on a large scale. In the context of Kenya’s August 2017 elections, I study the consequences of a legislated threshold that determines the capacity of polling centers to quickly serve voters by reducing election-day lines. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that turnout is 2.4% lower in congested polling places just below the threshold relative to polling places above the threshold. Relative to other hypothetical thresholds, the chosen threshold benefits the incumbent president, as incumbent strongholds receive more polling resources than opposition areas. The results demonstrate how electoral resource allocation shapes political behavior and election outcomes.

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Policy analysis in political parties

Policy Analysis in Mexico ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781447329152.003.0010 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Irma Mendez de Hoyos

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Decision Making ◽

Political Parties ◽

Policy Analysis ◽

Think Tanks ◽

Policy Options ◽

Main Argument ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

Policy Choices ◽

Party Manifestos

This chapter analyses the extent to which Mexican political parties have evolved and developed competence for policy analysis, offer policy options to party candidates during campaigns and carry out research on public policy to support the decision making process once in government. The main argument is that Mexican political parties are seldom accountable and transparent, and it is not clear which are the incentives to develop policy analysis and research capabilities to compete on the basis of policy choices, given the extended clientelistic network used to gain votes. The analysis is based on three basic sources of information: political parties’ official documents regarding their policy analysis centers (think tanks), party manifestos for the 2006 and 2012 presidential elections and some interviews.

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Why Does Planning Matter in Microclimate Management and Urban Heat Mitigation?

Journal of Planning Education and Research ◽

10.1177/0739456x19883000 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 0739456X1988300 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mehdi P. Heris ◽

Brian Muller ◽

Alana M. Wilson

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Decision Making ◽

The United States ◽

Design Guidelines ◽

Policy Choices ◽

Mixed Use ◽

Decision Making Processes ◽

Key Variables ◽

Urban Heat ◽

Main Factors

In this paper, we examine two mixed-use redevelopment projects in the United States, including both regulatory and procedural contexts, to assess how decision-making processes affected microclimate outcomes. We investigate Belmar in Lakewood, CO and 29th Street Mall in Boulder, CO. Measurements and simulations of microclimate show that Belmar mitigates urban heat more effectively. Policies including building height, street patterns, and landscaping standards were key variables in this outcome. Through interviews and content analysis, we found five main factors shaping those policy choices: (1) urban vision, (2) land use and form controls, (3) design guidelines, (4) public financing, and (5) ownership/condemnation factors.

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Weight of Evidence

10.1093/oso/9780198859307.003.0010 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 123-136

Author(s):

Dale A. Nance

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

The Other ◽

Relative Degree ◽

Weight Of Evidence ◽

Decision Making Under Uncertainty ◽

John Maynard Keynes ◽

Policy Choices

This chapter analyzes and operationalizes a concept of “weight” as denoting the relative degree to which evidence has been developed on the basis of which to determine disputed claims. This concept was coined by John Maynard Keynes and later applied in the context of judicial proof by a number of scholars. The author distinguishes weight from the degree to which evidence favors one side over the other, and then assays the different ways this concept of weight can be operationalized. He identifies the strengths and weaknesses of various theories, and advocates a conception of weight that emphasizes its connection to fundamental policy choices about the importance of accuracy in litigation and, perhaps, the allocation of the risk of error. He argues that a common failure to appreciate the differences between ordinary decision-making under uncertainty and formal adjudication is responsible for confusion about the role of weight in the latter.

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Cooperation theory and the Northern Ireland peace process

Theories of International Relations and Northern Ireland ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781784995287.003.0012 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Timothy J. White

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Northern Ireland ◽

Theoretical Approach ◽

Policy Making ◽

Peace Process ◽

Competing Interests ◽

Policy Choices ◽

Emergence Of Cooperation ◽

State Behaviour

The eleventh chapter assesses the utility of cooperation theory to explain the peace process in Northern Ireland. This theory stresses the interconnectedness of leaders’ decision-making and the complexity associated with the emergence of cooperation. This theoretical approach stresses the possibility of actors learning to cooperate with others who have differing or competing interests, thus, emphasizing adaptive rather than rational policy-making. Negotiators representing different states and groups in Northern Ireland came to their decisions and policy choices based on the expected reaction of others. The complexity of this interaction came to be appreciated by the actors themselves. While historically cooperation theory explained state behaviour, the cooperation that led to the signing and implementation of the Agreement required a pattern of coordinated cooperation among numerous actors, including historic rivals.

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11. Foreign Policymaking in the Middle East: Complex Realism

International Relations of the Middle East ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198708742.003.0012 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Raymond Hinnebusch ◽

Anoushiravan Ehteshami

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

Saudi Arabia ◽

Middle East ◽

Relative Weight ◽

Islamic State ◽

Realist Approach ◽

Policy Choices ◽

Key Events

This chapter examines the process of foreign policymaking by regional states based on a ‘complex realist’ approach, which acknowledges the weight of realist (or power based) arguments but takes into account other factors such as the role of leadership in informing states’ foreign policy choices. The chapter first provides an overview of complex realism and the framework of analysis by considering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) environment. It then illustrates the complex realist approach with an an assessment of decision-making by four leading states — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt — in relation to the key events and crises of the last decade: the 2003 Iraq War, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the post-2014 war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relative weight of the various policymaking determinants in the 2000s.

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