scholarly journals Behavioral Public Economics: Welfare and Policy Analysis with Non-Standard Decision-Makers

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Douglas Bernheim ◽  
Antonio Rangel
Keyword(s):  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Public Economics ◽  
Decision Makers

Public Policy Making and Public Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee S. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Policy Analysis ◽  
Professional Class ◽  
The Many

This chapter reviews the development and growth of the policy-analytic profession. Historically, government decision makers have often called upon those with expertise to assist them in reaching their decisions. This chapter, however, concerns a new professional class of advisors that began developing during the 1950s in the United States. This new profession assists policy makers in understanding better their alternatives and relevant considerations for choosing among them. From here, the chapter offers some perspective on the research to date that has attempted to assess the effects of the profession—a perspective that emphasizes some important differences across the many types of governmental settings that utilize policy analysis, and the methodological difficulties that assessment efforts confront.

Culture and Development Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-166
Author(s):  
Robert Klitgaard
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Analysis And Evaluation ◽  
Share Data ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
Culture And Development

This book shows how we can look at the intersections among cultural settings, local choices, and development outcomes. A success story from Nepal serves as a prototype. Data, examples of success, and frameworks for analysis were developed locally and internationally and then shared in ways that elicited local creativity and respected cultural differences. This story serves as a springboard for reconsidering how to generate and apply cultural knowledge. The guiding metaphor might be “soil science” rather than “social science.” The culture and development manifesto calls for more science and more listening, for boldness and humility. It recommends a new paradigm for policy analysis and evaluation, as well as for the application of anthropological wisdom, where the goal is not to provide a set of answers that decision-makers or citizens should adopt and bureaucrats should implement, but to share data, examples, and frameworks in ways that helps locals enrich their creativity and expand their sovereignty.

Realism in Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Wivel
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
International System ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
External Action ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Action Space ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Foreign Policies

Realists explain foreign policy in terms of power politics. They disagree on the exact meaning of power and on how and to what extent politics is likely to influence policy. But they all find that power has a strong materialist component and that the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy is likely to vary with security challenges stemming from the external environment. The relative size of a state’s material resources is likely to influence its ability to set agendas and influence specific decisions and outcomes in international affairs. And the nature of the strategic environment, most importantly whether the security and survival of the state is under immediate threat, is likely to influence the relative weight of domestic influences on foreign policy. In sum, great powers enjoy a bigger external action space in their foreign policies than weaker states, and secure states enjoy a bigger external action space in their foreign policies than insecure states. Realism is a top-down approach to explaining foreign policy. Realists begin from the anarchic structure of the international system. They argue that the absence of a legitimate monopoly of power in the international system create a strong incentive for states to focus on survival as their primary goal and self-help as the most important means to achieving this goal. However, “survival” and “self-help” may take many forms. These forms are shaped by mechanisms of socialization and competition in the international system and systemic incentives are filtered through the perceptions of foreign policy decision makers and domestic institutions enabling and restraining the ability of decision makers to respond to external incentives. Neoclassical realists combine these factors in order to explain specific foreign policies. Offensive realists and defensive realists focus on the effects of structure on foreign policy, but with contrasting assumptions about the typical behavior of states: defensive realists expect states to pursue balancing policies, whereas offensive realists argue that only by creating an imbalance of power in its own favor will a state be able to maximize its security. In addition to being an analytical approach for explaining foreign policy, realists often serve as foreign policy advisors or act in the function of public intellectuals problematizing and criticizing foreign policy. This illustrates the potential for realism as an analytical, problem-solving and critical approach to foreign policy analysis. However, it also shows the strains within realism between ambitions of creating general theories, explaining particular foreign policies, and advising on how to make prudent foreign policy decisions.

scholarly journals “Economic Correctness” and Agricultural Economics

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph D. Christy
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Agricultural Economics ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Competitive Markets ◽  
Imperfectly Competitive ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Public Decision

AbstractThis address is directed toward applied economists as they provide information to private and public decision makers. Central to this discussion is the role of markets as institutions in achieving society's desired ends. Current “economic correctness”–the view that unfettered markets are superior in achieving efficiency, growth, and welfare-has attempted to return a larger role to the private sector, but the relative roles of market-oriented versus government-oriented solutions to problems are often not well appraised. Views presented herein calls for agricultural economists to move simultaneously toward an understanding of the strategic behavior of firms in imperfectly competitive markets and toward an adoption of policy analysis consistent with a socially complex and globally integrated economy.

Pedagogy and Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijke Breuning
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Active Learning ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Excellent Teaching

Pedagogical objectives and educational outcomes play a significant role in foreign policy analysis. The actor-centered approach of foreign policy analysis gives students the unique opportunity to place themselves in the shoes of decision makers and to understand the different constraints, both domestic and international, that influence the policies adopted by decision makers. In other words, foreign policy analysis can have two functions: to teach students about the processes by which foreign policy is made, or the substance of the foreign policies of various countries, and to enhance students’ ability to imagine the perspectives of others. Whether foreign policy analysis does, in fact, manage to develop this ability is an empirical question that also depends on the course emphasis and pedagogies employed. In this sense, pedagogy does not only mean excellent teaching, but also systematic investigation of teaching methods and techniques, student learning outcomes, educational assessment, and curriculum development. The literature on foreign policy analysis, pedagogy, and curriculum emphasizes active learning strategies and the need for clearly articulated learning objectives for the curriculum as a whole and the place of specific courses within it. Examples of active learning pedagogies are case teaching, simulations, and problem-based learning. Despite some very worthwhile research that has been done, there are still some gaps that need to be addressed. One is the lack of empirical work that helps evaluate the merits of the various teaching strategies in foreign policy analysis, and another is the inconsistent findings produced by the empirical studies that do exist.

Advancing foreign policy analysis by studying leaders from the global South

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 405-421
Author(s):  
Klaus Brummer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Global South ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Individual Decision

Abstract Using the concept of ‘context sensitivity’ as organizing theme, this article explores different avenues of advancing foreign policy analysis (FPA) scholarship based on insights from the global South. Since foreign policy decision-makers in the global South operate in (at times very) different political environments than their western counterparts, the applicability of FPA approaches cannot be taken as a given, which is why their context sensitivity (i.e., the extent to which core concepts and indicators contained in those approaches travel to non-western settings) needs to be explored. This article suggests that our understanding of the motives and behaviours of individual decision-makers can be advanced in three distinct ways based on insights from the global South. First, several of the FPA constructs that focus on individual decision makers have seen hardly any applications to non-western cases, which is why the latter contributes to ascertaining the analytical scope of those constructs. Second, taking more fully into account the differences in decision-making environments within which leaders from the global South operate can advance leader-oriented FPA approaches by helping to specify certain theoretical assumptions proposed by them. Finally, the aspiration to analyse leaders from the global South can advance FPA in terms of method by, for instance, developing non-English language coding schemes for profiling leaders based on speech acts that are cognizant of the specificities of individual languages, while at the same time allowing for measurement equivalence across different languages.

Final Report for CNA Study on Answering Decision-Makers Questions: Organizing Training Information for Policy Analysis

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aline O. Quester ◽  
Martha E. Maclivaine ◽  
Lisa C. Barfield ◽  
Laura J. Parker ◽  
David L. Reese
Keyword(s):  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Final Report

Translating Science into Policy and Legislation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Gallo
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Differential Outcomes ◽  
Heterogeneous Variables

Evidence-informed policy is a deliberate process that features analysis of evidence as a necessary step to reaching a public policy decision. Risk is inherent in policy decisions, and decision-makers must often balance consideration of costs; social, economic, and environmental impacts; differential outcomes for various stakeholders; and political considerations. Policymakers rely on evidence to help reduce uncertainty and mitigate these risks. This chapter considers the policymaking process as infrastructure and takes a constructivist approach to the development of evidence. It highlights the reflexivity between the demand for, and supply of, evidence and issues of power, authority, expertise, and inclusion. Finally, the chapter addresses the challenges of applying evidence to complex problems where multiple, heterogeneous variables affect outcomes and concludes with a call for further research to examine the decisions, values, and norms embedded in the design and development of the technical architectures and processes used in policy analysis and decision support.

The argumentative turn in public policy inquiry: deliberative policy analysis for usable advice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Policy Science ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Usable Knowledge ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Policy Inquiry ◽  
Policy Argumentation

The argumentation turn in policy analysis emerged in the late 1980s as a response to questions concerning social relevance and usable knowledge. Toward this end, it focused on an apparent gap between policy inquiry and real-world policymaking. Basic to the approach was a challenge to the ‘value free’ positivist orientation that has shaped the field of policy analysis, underscoring in particular the limits of the technocratic practices to which it gave rise. After tracing the political and academic debates that surrounded the uses of policy analysis, the chapter presents the alternative argumentative orientation and its post-positivist methodological perspective. The discussion emphasizes its language-based foundations and outlines the logic of a deliberative-analytic framework for the assessment of policy argumentation. It illustrates the ways that policy analysis needs to integrate empirical and normative inquiry. Policy findings and practical policy argumentation are interpreted by decision-makers and citizens in terms of their relations to the larger framework of norms and values that imbue them with social and political meanings. Moving beyond a narrow empirical assignment, the argumentative turn seeks to assist these actors by also drawing out these normative connections. It is, as such, an effort to make good on Harold Lasswell's call for a 'policy science' of democracy.

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