Transcript Slide 1

Decisions
Chapter 10
Tom Miller
Shannon Harr
Camille Pane, MD
Chris Maher
Lauren O’Connor
Agenda
• Overview of Decisions
• Rational Decision Models
– Cost Benefit
– Risk Benefit
– Decision Analysis
• Polis Method
• Significance of Language
Decisions
• Decisions are made every second of every
minute of every day
• Some ways decisions are made:
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Habit
Custom
Impulse
Intuition
Procrastination
Consensus
Delegation
Etc.
Decisions
• Rational Decision Making
– “Problems cast as alternative means for
achieving a goal” – the rational choice is
choosing the best means to attain that
goal
• This model defines policy problems as
decisions – most common:
– Cost-benefit analysis
– Risk-benefit analysis
– Decision analysis
Rational Decision Model
1. Define Goals
2. Imagine alternative means for
attaining them
3. Evaluate the consequences of taking
each course of action
4. Choose the alternative most likely to
attain the goal
Maximum Total Welfare
• “The decision maker should choose the
alternative that maximizes overall
welfare.”
– Individual
– Organizational
• Moral principles & duties
– Benefits outweigh costs - ***easy
– Costs outweigh benefits
• People often value the way decisions are
made more than the decision’s outcome
Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Measure – usually dollars
• Used to measure the “worth” of an
initiative
– All items given a dollar value and a
likelihood of the event occuring
– Automobile example
Risk Analysis
• “The technique builds in an assumption
that a bad result is less bad if it is not
certain to occur.”
• Risk analysis helps to quantify risk
• “I don’t know”
– 50/50 is most risky – you truly do not know
Decision Analysis
• A framework for structuring a visual
map of how to reach the best decision
when there is a great deal of
uncertainty involved and different
alternative courses of action.
Setting up an Example
• A mayor is considering 2 transit programs to
support
– (1) Improve the current bus system at a moderate
but known cost that could be recovered
– (2) Develop a new subway system if federal
funding can be obtained, but the plan might get
stalled permanently in federal budget politics
• Subway system would be far superior, but
without federal funding the plan might get
stalled permanently
• Should the mayor gamble with the uncertain,
but better, system or go for a certain one with
less exciting results?
Interpreting the Model
• Tree is read from left to right
Individual’s Decision
Alternative courses of action
Final consequences to be evaluated
Uncertain event (federal funding
might come through, or it might not)
Decision Analysis Example
Point of indifference (worth
“.65” to the mayor)
1 is assigned
to the best
outcome
(getting the
subway)
0 is assigned the worst
outcome (getting nothing
at all)
Downfalls to the Rational
Decision Model
• Model is individualist in its presentation of
policy and calculus of a single mind
• Good decisions are portrayed as the result of
cogitation, not bargaining, voting, or
logrolling
• Model depicts that decision maker has the
capacity and authority to make a single
decision
• Many times the power to make a decision is
dispersed over a number of people
Rational Decision Models
• Rational decision models come close to
promising that politics will become
unnecessary
• Is this realistic?
Making Decisions in the
Polis
Making Decisions in the
Polis
To understand the function of the
decision model in the polis, we can
compare the steps and their functions
with the basic theoretical model.
Step 1
• In the rational
decision model,
stated objectives
are the standard by
which possible
actions evaluated.
• In the polis,
statements of goals
are a means of
gathering political
support.
Ambiguity
• By labeling goals ambiguously, leaders can
unite groups who might benefit from the
same policy but for different reasons, or who
might disagree on specifics but might support
the basic goal.
• “If I say something which you fully
understand in this regard, I probably made a
mistake.”--Alan Greenspan
Example of Ambiguity
• The “Wage Enhancement and Job Creation
Act” did neither. It was a regulatory reform
bill which diminished occupational health and
safety regulations. By using a deceptive
name, support could be garnered from labor
groups that would otherwise oppose such
action.
Step 2
• In the rational
decision model,
selecting
alternatives is
limited only by the
imagination (and
scarce resources).
• In the polis,
controlling the
number and types
of alternatives is a
vitally important part
of the political
process.
Hobson’s Choice
• To make one’s preferred outcome
appear to be the only possible
alternative.
• By surrounding one’s preferred
alternative with less palatable choices
makes it seem like the only recourse,
so constructing the list of alternatives is
critically important.
Conceptions of Causation
• Construction of alternatives for a
decision depend on conceptions of
causation
– Political beings try to locate the blame
somewhere else
– Since causal chains are virtually infinite,
there is a wide range of choices to locate
blame and how to correct it
Drunk Driving Problem
• The problem can be seen as caused by such
things as:
Drunk drivers, uncrashworthy cars, poorly
designed roads, beverage industries, etc…
• However, cultural assumptions, along with
promotional activities of the beverage and
auto industries, put the driver as the source
of the problem
– The list of solutions (e.g. safe driver course, stiff
penalties, etc.) excludes the alternatives directed
at other conceptions of cause.
Issue Framing
• Definition: the process of focusing
attention on a particular slice of an
extended causal chain.
– This cuts off parts of our vision
– Forces us to see only what is wanted for
us to see
– Forming a list of alternatives is one of the
most important ways of framing a policy
problem and constructing a Hobson’s
choice
Labeling of Alternatives
• Is a very important technique in issue
framing
– A kind of loaded writing or verbal trickery
– Rational analysis model tries to eliminate
this kind of labeling
• Verbal labels attached to different alternatives
should not affect their evaluation
• In polis, language does matter
Mental Experiment
• Serious flu epidemic expected to kill
600 people
– Two possible vaccination programs:
A) Conventional vaccine, saves 200 people
B) Experimental vaccine, 1/3 chance 600 saved
but 2/3 chance none saved
You are the surgeon general of the
United States. Which would you
choose?
Mental Experiment, cont’d
• Now suppose there were two other
programs to choose from:
C) Conventional vaccine, past experience
says will result in 400 deaths
D) Experimental vaccine, 1/3 chance no one
will die and 2/3 chance 600 will die
Which of these would you choose?
Risk Averse or Risk
Seeker
• Most people are risk averse, however:
– Choose certain outcomes when
alternatives are labeled “lives saved”
– Gamble on outcomes when alternatives
are labeled “deaths”
• The rational decision model says this
switch is thoroughly irrational
So why do we do it?
Evaluating Alternatives
• Psychologists believe the labels create
different points of references against
which people evaluate alternatives.
• This shows that the way we think about
problems is extremely sensitive to the
language used to describe them.
– May seem obvious to you but users of the
rational decision model either ignore it or
deny it
Significance of Language
• In the polis, the way language affects
people is undeniably a valid part of
human experience.
• In politics, there are important
differences between the rational
decision model and decisions in the
polis
Three Mile Island
Nuclear Power Plant
• Leak in cooling system discovered
• Governor has two options:
– Evacuate or not evacuate
• Evacuate
– will be certain injuries and deaths (traffic, chaos,
etc)
• Not evacuate
– No core meltdown, virtually no one harmed
– Core meltdown, millions will be injured
Which did he do?
• Neither--he “recommended” that pregnant
women and children under 5 leave the area
– Though his official message was that it was safe,
the unofficial message was that it was unsafe
• If it’s not safe for them is it safe for me?
• The word “recommended” symbolically puts
responsibility on the individuals
– This will cause more people to leave on their own
causing the blame for any misfortune to be put on
them instead of the governor
Step 3
• Evaluating Consequences of Actions
Disproving Newton’s Third Law of Motion
POLIS
• Big Question: What consequences to
include in the analysis?
• Presentation of positive or negative
consequences can alter public
perspective entirely
• Result= Hobson’s Choice
Consequences
• “Finding the consequences of an action
is like finding the causes in reverse.”
– Every action has infinite consequences
– Selection of consequences is arbitrary and
strategic
– With no way to draw the line, how do we
honestly evaluate?
Example: Child Vaccination
Highly Cost Effective
• Count # of lives
saved and value
each life at one’s
earning potential
Economic Burden
•
Factor in future medical
expenses of saved lives
• Future generations’
schooling and medical
expenses
Costs and Benefits
-Rational Model
• Abstract
-Politics
• Real losses and gains to real people
• Only stand as cost/benefit if cultural framework
and organized political interests to express it
exist.
Step 4
• The Choice Among Alternatives
Words and images used to portray costs
and benefits very important in ultimate
decision
Political Reality
• Rational Analysts
Decision:
– Sole Criterion= max.
total welfare
– Analysts neutral and
omniscient
– Decision at end of
analysis
• Political Decision
– Pretends to be
responsive to all but
actually aligned to
organized constituencies
(costuming)
– Logrolling decides much
policy choice
– Decision made before
process began
Evaluation
• Beware of Hobson’s Choices
• Either/Or Choices are a trap
• Solution:
– Imagine alternatives not presented
– Give new attributes to alternatives
presented (adjective bag)
– Expand range of consequences
Decision Analysis Strategies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Rational-Analytic Model
Goals explicit and precise
Stick with Objective
Imagine & Consider many
alternatives
Distinct Course of Action
for each alternative
Accurate Cost/Benefit of
each course of action
Max.Total Welfare
Determines Course
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Polis Model
Ambiguous/Hidden Goals
Shift & Redefine as needed
Skew alternatives
Blend alternatives /
indecisive
Select consequences
whose cost/benefit favor
agenda
Choose course that favors
powerful constituents under
guise of max social/public
good