scholarly journals L'enquête publique préalable à la décision comme modèle alternatif

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-926
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Colson

This paper surveys the present state of French law concerning local inquiries on works projects in the energy sector, such as dams, power plants, transmission lines, etc. This is done in the light of the Democratization of Inquiries Bill, which received first reading in the French National Assembly in April, 1983. The subject is treated from three points of view : the scope of application of the inquiry procedure ; the inquiry process itself ; and its effectiveness as a means towards citizens's involvement in public decisionmaking. As regards the scope of the procedure, the Bill would extend it somewhat beyond the cumulative scope of the several existing types of inquiry. Any project affecting the environment would normally be subjected to be the inquiry procedure. As regards the inquiry process itself the Bill would strengthen the independence of inquiry commissioners in that it gives them broader investigative powers, allows them to hold contradictory public hearings upon request albeit with the agreement of the decision-making authority, and requires them to publish reports, with reasons of each inquiry. As regards the effectiveness of the procedure, the Bill would make it easier for dissatisfied parties to obtain a injunction restraining the implementation of a project if the commissioner had reported against it. On the whole, the Bill seems to promise significant improvements in the inquiry process, particularly as it provides for contradictory debate, including the consideration of alternative proposals. However, it leaves open a number of questions about the real purpose served by the procedure and about the proper timing of the inquiry in the total decision-making process.

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-373
Author(s):  
Anna Khakee

The suspense-filled attempted partial privatization of the Narva Power Plants in the neo-liberal darling Estonia involved a rich cast, from trade unions and local scientists, via Estonian courts and ombudsmen to international consulting firms, major global banks and the US government. More important, a detailed single case study on the democratic decision-making process in this privatization case makes it possible to go beyond common generalizations regarding the consequences of neo-liberalism for democratic processes. It shows that purported proponents of economic neo-liberalism such as the US government sometimes use their arguments to advance the narrow business interests of politically well-connected firms. Established private firms can behave in a more rent-seeking manner than publicly owned, ex-communist companies. Liberal economic principles of open competition and a level playing-field are at times used by actors in the democratic process to question top-down, opaque economic decisions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1020 ◽  
pp. 765-768
Author(s):  
Eva Berankova ◽  
František Kuda ◽  
Stanislav Endel

The subject of this paper is to evaluate criteria in the decision-making process for choosing new usable office facilities in light of a big company or public service seeking for new usable office facilities. The criteria defining the requirements for individual selection variants enter into this decision-making process. These criteria have qualitative and quantitative characters. In order to model the criteria, it is desirable that their values are standardized. The method of standardization of these criteria is given in this paper. In this paper, attention is paid to the decision-making process in the course of choosing new usable facilities in administration objects. This decision-making process is based on input data analyses and on conclusions for a certain selection variant resulting from them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaclyn Carroll ◽  
Pete Bsumek

The field of Environmental Communication has often critiqued the shortcomings of public hearings, noting their limitations in bringing about effective and equitable public decision making. While this work has been significant, it has tended to limit the deliberative field to public hearings themselves, sometimes going so far as to assume that public hearings are the only spaces in which significant deliberations occur. Using a field analysis of the “No Coal Plant” campaign in Surry County, Virginia (2008–2013), the authors illuminate some limitations of existing literature. Their analysis suggests that while public hearings can be extremely limiting, even “failed” public hearings can play a critical role in constituting, organizing, and pacing formal and informal deliberative spaces, which are necessary for communities as they manage the stresses and strains of the decision-making process.


Author(s):  
Philippe D’Iribarne ◽  
Sylvie Chevrier ◽  
Alain Henry ◽  
Jean-Pierre Segal ◽  
Geneviève Tréguer-Felten

Making decisions involves many risks such as ignoring relevant points of view; angering those who are frustrated, inducing them, once the decision has been made, to hinder its implementation. One way to limit these risks is to frame decisions with rituals. However, for a ritual to work, it must appear respectable; and this relies on an eminently cultural interpretation. To understand what is at stake, two aspects of the decision-making process are explored successively. First, a Franco-Dutch case demonstrates how social interactions intervene in the idea selection. Second, examples from Cameroon and Jordan show the suspicions and resentment that any decision is likely to generate among those who suffer from it. However, appropriate procedures are likely to overcome suspicions and to give a sense of fairness.


Author(s):  
Arnold Gad-Briggs ◽  
Pericles Pilidis ◽  
Theoklis Nikolaidis

A framework – NuTERA (Nuclear Techno-Economic and Risk Assessment) has been developed to set out the requirements for evaluating Generation IV (Gen IV) Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) at the design conceptual stage. The purpose of the framework is to provide guidelines for future tools that are required to support the decision-making process on the choice of Gen IV concepts and cycle configurations. In this paper, the underpinning of the framework has been demonstrated to enable the creation of an analyses tool, which evaluates the design of an NPP that utilises helium closed Brayton gas turbine cycles. The tool at the broad spectrum focuses on the component and cycle design, Design Point (DP) and Off-Design Point (ODP) performance, part power and load following operations. Specifically, the design model has been created to provide functionalities that look at the in-depth sensitivities of the design factors and operation that affect the efficiency of an NPP such as temperature and pressure ratios, inlet cycle temperatures, component efficiencies, pressure losses. The ODP performance capabilities include newly derived component maps for the reactor, intercooler and recuperator for long term Off-Design (OD) operation. With regard to short term OD, which is typically driven by changes in ambient conditions, the ability to analyse the cycle load following capabilities are possible. An economic model has also been created, which calculates the component costs and the baseline economic evaluation. An incorporated risk model quantifies the performance, operational, financial and design impact risks. However, the tool is able to optimise the NPP cycle configuration based on the best economics using the Levelised Unit Electricity Cost (LUEC) as a measure. The tool has been used to demonstrate a typical decision-making process on 2 Gen IV helium closed gas turbine cycles, which apply to the Gas-cooled Fast Reactors (GFRs) and Very-High Temperature Reactors (VHTRs). The cycles are the Simple Cycle Recuperator (SCR) and Intercooled Cycle Recuperator (ICR). The tool was able to derive the most efficient cycle configurations for the ICR (53% cycle efficiency) and SCR (50% cycle efficiency). Based on these efficiency figures, the baseline LUEC ($/MWh) for the year 2020 is $62.13 for the ICR and $61.84 for the SCR. However, the inclusion of the cost of contingencies due to risks and the subsequent economic optimisation resulted in a cost of $69.70 and $69.80 for the ICR and SCR respectively.


Legal Studies ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Wheeler

The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA) instituted, inter alia, a mechanism whereby directors of failed companies can be disqualified from holding office in the future as the result of an application to the court by the Secretary of State, or in the case of compulsory liquidators, the official receive and a subsequent finding by the court that the director is unfit. The operation and effect of the CDDA has been the subject of speculation in the national press, other media and comment from insolvency practitioners since its inception. Most of this comment has focused on the role of the DTI and on its perceived failure to take steps to disqualify directors in sufficient numbers.


Author(s):  
Kyungwon Kang ◽  
Hesham A. Rakha

Drivers of merging vehicles decide when to merge by considering surrounding vehicles in adjacent lanes in their deliberation process. Conflicts between drivers of the subject vehicles (i.e., merging vehicles) in an auxiliary lane and lag vehicles in the adjacent lane are typical near freeway on-ramps. This paper models a decision-making process for merging maneuvers that uses a game theoretical approach. The proposed model is based on the noncooperative decision making of two players, that is, drivers of the subject and lag vehicles, without consideration of advanced communication technologies. In the decision-making process, the drivers of the subject vehicles elect to accept gaps, and drivers of lag vehicles either yield or block the action of the subject vehicle. Corresponding payoff functions for two players were formulated to describe their respective maneuvers. To estimate model parameters, a bi-level optimization approach was used. The next generation simulation data set was used for model calibration and validation. The data set defined the moment the game started and was modeled as a continuous sequence of games until a decision is made. The defined merging decision-making model was then validated with an independent data set. The validation results reveal that the proposed model provides considerable prediction accuracy with correct predictions 84% of the time.


1950 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-87
Author(s):  
Janet Besse ◽  
Harold D. Lasswell

Opinion differs about the role of syndicated columnists in the forming of national opinion and in the decision-making process in the United States. Our columnists have been the subject of pioneering studies, but we have a long way to go before the picture can be called historically complete, scientifically precise, or fully satisfactory for policy-making purposes. What the columnists say is an important chapter in the history of the American public, and history is most useful for critical purposes when written close to the event. The general theory of communication and politics can be refined as the details of the opinion process are more fully known.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3(16)) ◽  
pp. 323-350
Author(s):  
Dženeta Omerdić

Before the socio-political communities are posted, a very demanding task of defining the subject on whose name will behalf political power is implemented over a given state territory. However, the question about the subject of sovereignty should in no case be misunderstood as an issue of simply theoretical approach. The level of a state’s democracy, as well as its ability to realize internal and external sovereignty, depends entirely on fact: does the power belong to the People and whether it derives from the People. In other words, the issue of popular sovereignty is a substantial, constitutive element of modern democratic states. When we speak about contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina, the functionality of the entire state government is often hindered by the complex decision-making processes at all state levels which lead to obstruction of the entire decision-making process. Such a dysfunctional decision-making process on the state level poses a threat and disables the Bosnian plural society to respond to the modern challenges of a democratic functioning state. The legal nature of Bosnian society is determined by the existence of constituent people who have “usurped” the entire decision-making process. There is still no end in sight to the struggle that leads to an oligarchy of the ruling elites; furthermore, there is still no appropriate socio-political mechanism that will enhance the accountability of the representatives to their voters; it is still inconceivable that decisions of state authorities are effectively and consistently implemented throughout the national territory. In other words, there is still no appropriate mechanism that will enhance the principle of popular sovereignty. It is necessary to “offer” Bosnia and Herzegovina’s pluralism and its political tradition a form of democratic authority which in no way should be a cliché. Furthermore, it may not be one of the “copy-paste” models of democratic authority. Currently, citizens of B&H are completely suspended (de facto, there are only citizens of entities). In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Serbs are suspended, while in the Republika Srpska, Bosniacs and Croats cannot equally participate in the decision-making process. An unfinished process of implementation of the Dayton Agreement and, in particular, Annex 4 (the Constitution of B&H), whose provisions permit discrimination against the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the impossibility of the realization of the principle of equality in the exercise of universal suffrage), as well as the non-application of the Decision of the European Court of Human Rights contributes and is conducive to further segmentation of Bosnian society.


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