Public Decision-making Processes Research Articles

Procurements (Purchase or R&D) for Ballistic Missile Defense Systems

We perform cost analysis for evaluating alternatives to effectively defend the threat of North Korean ballistic missiles. As alternatives, THAAD, SM-3, and L-SAM are considered, and we analyze the factors affecting to the cost of acquiring alternatives depending on the way to procure them, e.g., by purchasing, or research & development (R&D). Assuming that each alternative can be operated for 30 years, the total cost, which consists of acquiring cost, operation/maintenance cost, and R&D cost, is compared using net present value. Furthermore, we perform sensitivity analysis for maintenance rate, terrain cost and increase rate of R&D cost that involve uncertainty for the future. Cost analysis results show that THAAD incurs the highest cost and SM-3 is the most economic alternative. However, sensitivity analysis shows that priority can be changed depending on uncertainty parameters. Although our results do not directly support decision-making on the best alternative due to its various uncertainties, these can provide a guideline on economic evaluation required for public policy decision-making process, especially under the situation that all the three alternatives cannot be acquired at the same time due to the limitation of defense budget.

Evidence-informed vaccine decision making: The introduction of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination in the Netherlands

Little is known about the role of (economic) information or evidence in the different stages of the decision-making process on vaccine introduction. By conducting a document analysis on the public decision-making process of introducing human Papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine into the national vaccination program (NVP) in the Netherlands, we aim to gain insight into which information plays a role during the introduction of a vaccination programme.A document analysis was performed on the public decision-making process regarding the introduction of HPV vaccine into the NVP in the Netherlands. Information used or asked for by various stakeholders during different stages of the policymaking process was identified. In total, 42 documents were found, analyzed and synthesized, for the period between August 2006 and September 2009. Documents were analyzed using directed content analysis based on eight broad categories of criteria used in decision-making frameworks for introducing a vaccine.Our analysis demonstrates that a wide variety of stakeholders is involved in the process. Financial or economic issues were stipulated in 64.3% of the documents and information on vaccine characteristics were discussed in 59.5%. Economic information from economic evaluations was discussed most (47.6%). Based on our analysis, it can be concluded that economic information, in particular information from economic evaluations, played an important role in the decision-making process regarding the introduction of HPV-vaccination.

Private Actors, Public Authorities and the Relevance of Public Law in the Process of European Standardization

The reliance on private parties is a global tendency in modern regulation. One peculiar regulatory technique which foresees a core role for private parties is that of European standardization. The employment of standards for regulatory purposes delivers enormous benefits for the harmonization process and is today a key factor in the EU’s trade policy; however, the process of European standardization raises a number of concerns from a rule of law perspective, which are linked to ‘hybrid nature’ of the process, which foresees an intertwined public and private decision-making process. The aim of this contribution is to discuss the role of public law in the process of European standardization. After discussing the legal nature of European harmonized standards, the current application and potential applicability of general principles of administrative law is discussed and the necessity and availability of judicial control is examined.

Health Impact Assessment of the construction of hydroelectric dams in Brazil

Background: Brazil´s dam-building plans in Amazonia imply substantial environmental and social impacts. This study evaluates the relationship between social, environmental, and economic aspects and impacts on the health status of the population of Rondônia, Brazil, due to the implementation of the Jirau and Santo Antônio hydroelectric dams. Methods: A qualitative and retrospective Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is used to focus the study objectives. The information is arranged in a structured diagram that enables an outside reviewer to assess the aspects/impacts relationship derived from the construction of the dams. This comes with outline recommendations for health risk management that can orient national health authorities. We selected a narrative review synthesis as the most appropriate approach for the study. Results: The diagram network was built making it possible to analyse the impact changes caused by this enterprise in the health sector. Additionally, the model will serve in the implementation of a complete HIA approach in an attempt to quantitatively map the impacts and to propose recommendations. Conclusion: This effort is very important for highlighting the priorities in the public policy decision-making process, serving as a basis for the Brazilian Health System.

The political economy of labeling

Labeling arrangements are introduced to provide information and affect market outcomes. Mandatory labeling of products like genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) is subject to controversy and political debate. The exact outcome depends on the specific public decision-making process (direct vote by the public vs. voting by representatives), the political power distribution among groups, and the workings of legislative and regulatory processes. This paper presents a conceptual framework to assess the welfare implications of labeling decisions that are decided by political processes. We identify conditions under which there are gains from mandatory labeling compared to no labeling, and find that the gain from passing a mandatory labeling proposition is larger if the voluntary labeling option is not available. The conclusions suggest that when mandatory labeling is not feasible politically, promoters of labeling will introduce voluntary labeling. The paper uses the results of this conceptual framework to analyze different case studies of labeling propositions, including Proposition 37 that was voted on in California in 2012. The findings suggest that labeling decisions may evolve with new scientific knowledge, new information technologies, and changing attitudes.

How Participatory Should Environmental Governance Be? Testing the Applicability of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model in Public Environmental Decision-Making.

Public participation is potentially useful to improve public environmental decision-making and management processes. In corporate management, the Vroom-Yetton-Jago normative decision-making model has served as a tool to help managers choose appropriate degrees of subordinate participation for effective decision-making given varying decision-making contexts. But does the model recommend participatory mechanisms that would actually benefit environmental management? This study empirically tests the improved Vroom-Jago version of the model in the public environmental decision-making context. To this end, the key variables of the Vroom-Jago model are operationalized and adapted to a public environmental governance context. The model is tested using data from a meta-analysis of 241 published cases of public environmental decision-making, yielding three main sets of findings: (1) The Vroom-Jago model proves limited in its applicability to public environmental governance due to limited variance in its recommendations. We show that adjustments to key model equations make it more likely to produce meaningful recommendations. (2) We find that in most of the studied cases, public environmental managers (implicitly) employ levels of participation close to those that would have been recommended by the model. (3) An ANOVA revealed that such cases, which conform to model recommendations, generally perform better on stakeholder acceptance and environmental standards of outputs than those that diverge from the model. Public environmental management thus benefits from carefully selected and context-sensitive modes of participation.

Co-designing the solution space for rural regeneration in a new World Heritage site: A Choice Experiments approach

This study develops a participatory multi-methodology intervention designed and deployed to support planning and management of a new World Heritage site, the vineyard landscape of Langhe, Roero and Monferrato, in Northern Italy. The purpose of the study was to support community involvement in the design phase of urban regeneration alternatives. The ultimate objective was to propose practical recommendations for a sustainable regeneration strategy to the Municipal Authority of La Morra, one of the villages located within the core area of the World Heritage site.The analysis context represents a complex territorial system and a challenging decision-making environment due to the presence of: (i) conflicting needs co-existing in the same geographical area, i.e., preservation needs of the World Heritage on one side, and new development needs on the other, (ii) many stakeholders (i.e., residents, tourists, territorial authorities, tourism associations and environmental advocates), and (iii) presence of marginalized communities that are at risk due to the strong trend towards the abandonment of rural areas for big cities. Within this context, the authors propose the use of Stakeholders’ Analysis and Choice Experiments to co-design, together with stakeholders and the local community, feasible strategies for the regeneration of the abandoned rural buildings scattered across the core World Heritage Site. Indeed, the community issue of abandoned rural heritage emerged as both an important weakness of the territorial system under analysis and as an interesting opportunity for rural regeneration.The results obtained illustrate the importance of integrated approaches for the development of accountable public decision processes and consensus policy alternatives.

Changing schooling, changing shadow: shapes and functions of juku in Japan

Private supplementary tutoring became a widespread phenomenon in Japan during the 1960s. Since then, institutions providing tutoring known as juku have provided a wide range of services to supplement mainstream education. During decades of development, the shapes and functions of juku have changed in response to changes in schooling. Government attitudes towards juku have also shifted from rejection to collaboration, partly because juku have become so entrenched in Japanese society and can no longer be excluded from public decision-making processes. Collaboration between schools and juku is becoming increasingly evident in a series of neoliberal policy choices and socio-demographic changes. Patterns underline a government move to mobilize profit-driven juku to serve the public good. The inclusion of juku in public schooling necessitates reconceptualization of the roles of juku in the educational landscape. This article presents a conceptual framework based on an overview of the changing relationships between juku and schooling. It also identifies challenges in the collaboration, and explores implications for future relationships between mainstream and shadow education.

Climate services for health: predicting the evolution of the 2016 dengue season in Machala, Ecuador

El Niño and its effect on local meteorological conditions potentially influences interannual variability in dengue transmission in southern coastal Ecuador. El Oro province is a key dengue surveillance site, due to the high burden of dengue, seasonal transmission, co-circulation of all four dengue serotypes, and the recent introduction of chikungunya and Zika. In this study, we used climate forecasts to predict the evolution of the 2016 dengue season in the city of Machala, following one of the strongest El Niño events on record. We incorporated precipitation, minimum temperature, and Niño3·4 index forecasts in a Bayesian hierarchical mixed model to predict dengue incidence. The model was initiated on Jan 1, 2016, producing monthly dengue forecasts until November, 2016. We accounted for misreporting of dengue due to the introduction of chikungunya in 2015, by using active surveillance data to correct reported dengue case data from passive surveillance records. We then evaluated the forecast retrospectively with available epidemiological information. The predictions correctly forecast an early peak in dengue incidence in March, 2016, with a 90% chance of exceeding the mean dengue incidence for the previous 5 years. Accounting for the proportion of chikungunya cases that had been incorrectly recorded as dengue in 2015 improved the prediction of the magnitude of dengue incidence in 2016. This dengue prediction framework, which uses seasonal climate and El Niño forecasts, allows a prediction to be made at the start of the year for the entire dengue season. Combining active surveillance data with routine dengue reports improved not only model fit and performance, but also the accuracy of benchmark estimates based on historical seasonal averages. This study advances the state-of-the-art of climate services for the health sector, by showing the potential value of incorporating climate information in the public health decision-making process in Ecuador. European Union FP7, Royal Society, and National Science Foundation.

A Weighted Euclidean Distance based TOPSIS Method for Modeling Public Subjective Judgments

Public involvement in transportation planning and decision-making process is a key component for ensuring that decisions are made with consideration of public needs and preferences. In this paper, a weighted Euclidean distance based TOPSIS method (WEDTOPSIS) is developed for modeling such a public decision-making process. The Weber–Fechner psycho-physical law is adopted for behavioral modeling of human judgments. Distances to the positive-ideal and negative-ideal solutions of TOPSIS are converted to value measurement models using the Weber–Fechner law. The proposed method is applied on a case where public approval of two different types of public bus operation systems considering six criteria is sought. A numerical illustration is also provided to demonstrate the applicability of the approach. The method provides plausible results in terms of preferences, and shows a high agreement with the ordinary TOPSIS in terms of rankings. Another example showing disagreement on ranking is further analyzed to outline the discrepancies between the TOPSIS and WEDTOPSIS and to indicate the proposed model’s consistency with the behavioral theory. The results are also compared with the results of the additive multi-attribute value (MAVT) method for assessing the performance of the model. Based on the findings, using the proposed method as a decision support tool can be useful, particularly where public input is needed.

Certification ISO 9001 des Directions de la recherche clinique et de l’innovation : vers une extension du périmètre aux évaluations économiques

BackgroundThe International organization for standardization (ISO) is the world leader in providing industrial and commercial standards and certifications. Beyond medical devices, four French clinical research and innovation departments have received an ISO 9001 certification (the standard for quality management). Simultaneously, medico-economic studies have become increasingly important in the public decision process. Using the clinical research and innovation department from the Léon-Bérard Cancer Center as an example, the purpose of this article is to show how the scope of the ISO 9001 certification has been extended to cover medico-economic studies. MethodAll of the processes, procedures, operating modes, documents, and indicators used by the clinical research and innovation department of the Léon-Bérard center were investigated. Literature searches were conducted using Medline keywords. The recommendations from the French national authority for health and other organizations, such as the International society for pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research (ISPOR), were also considered, as well as the recommendations of the General inspectorate of social affairs. ResultsIn accordance with the national and international recommendations, two procedures were created and four procedures were revised at this center. Five indicators of quality and an evaluation chart were developed. ConclusionBy adopting the ISO 9001 certification into its medico-economic studies, the clinical research and innovation department of the Léon-Bérard center has used an innovative approach in the context of the growing importance of economic studies in decision-making.

PP130 Nudging In Public Health: Accountability For Practical Wisdom

INTRODUCTION:Nudging is the application of behavioural sciences aimed at influencing behaviour in a non-prescriptive way. It is a tool of public health decision makers to produce health gain. Just like decisions in the field of Health Technology Assessment (HTA), nudging decisions are inevitably value laden. The current European Network for HTA (EUnetHTA) approach to evaluate ethical aspects encompasses mainly utilitarian and principlistic approaches. The aim of this project is to incorporate the virtue ethics approach in public health decision-making processes based on the example of nudging.METHODS:The narrative analysis of nudging is based on a systematic literature search conducted from 28 October to 13 November 2015 in the following databases: Medline via Ovid, Embase, and TRIP Database. A total of sixty-two articles were listed as relevant as a result of searches and, in addition, twenty-five more articles were found through hand searching.RESULTS:Regardless of the potential issues related to nudging (manipulation or coercion), nudging is considered cost-effective and inevitable because of the malleability of human psychology for example, alcoholic drinks served in smaller glasses nudge people to drink less alcohol.No policy intervention, nudging or HTA, is value neutral and hence it requires an ethical evaluation. It takes traits of character, virtues, to discern which principle to apply in what circumstances and phronesis, practical wisdom, is the key virtue of a decision maker. Phronesis is not a moral judgement deduced from principles, but it is context specific, bottom-up, action orientated, and framed through dialogues. It focuses on the agent, the decision maker, who, via the use public scrutiny, should be held accountable for phronetic decisions made.CONCLUSIONS:Nudging is a cost-effective tool that can improve the populations health in a non-prescriptive way. Transparent reporting open to public scrutiny is necessary for the sake of evaluating whether the decisions made were phronetic for it takes traits of character, virtues, to decide between competing moral principles.

Uncovering Urban Temporal Patterns from Geo-Tagged Photography.

We live in a world where digital trails of different forms of human activities compose big urban data, allowing us to detect many aspects of how people experience the city in which they live or come to visit. In this study we propose to enhance urban planning by taking into a consideration individual preferences using information from an unconventional big data source: dataset of geo-tagged photographs that people take in cities which we then use as a measure of urban attractiveness. We discover and compare a temporal behavior of residents and visitors in ten most photographed cities in the world. Looking at the periodicity in urban attractiveness, the results show that the strongest periodic patterns for visitors are usually weekly or monthly. Moreover, by dividing cities into two groups based on which continent they belong to (i.e., North America or Europe), it can be concluded that unlike European cities, behavior of visitors in the US cities in general is similar to the behavior of their residents. Finally, we apply two indices, called “dilatation attractiveness index” and “dilatation index”, to our dataset which tell us the spatial and temporal attractiveness pulsations in the city. The proposed methodology is not only important for urban planning, but also does support various business and public stakeholder decision processes, concentrated for example around the question how to attract more visitors to the city or estimate the impact of special events organized there.

Understanding the role of equity in active transportation planning in the United States

ABSTRACTActive transportation modes are increasingly being acknowledged for their individual and societal benefits. As a result, funding for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in the United States has increased substantially in recent years. However, pedestrian and bicycle equity impacts often go overlooked, which has resulted in an inequitable distribution of active transportation costs and benefits. The paper contributes to this small but growing field by developing an enhanced understanding of active transportation equity, identifying limitations in research and in practice, and providing a set of recommendations for planners and researchers. These recommendations include considering other transportation-disadvantaged groups beyond low-income and minority populations in equity analysis, adopting new performance measures, increasing inter-agency coordination, the need for stronger guidance from the federal government, and more representation from transportation-disadvantaged groups in the public participation and decision-making process. If the costs and benefits of active transportation are to be fairly shared among all users, equity will need to be meaningfully addressed in the planning process.

Between Politics and Expertise: An Italian Perspective on Constitutional Law and Scientific Legitimacy

The dialectic between the technically (or scientifically) possible and the legally possible, which is implied in decision-making in conditions of uncertainty, raises crucial issues from a constitutional perspective. In particular, the emergence of a new factor of legitimacy – which could be envisaged as a form of “scientific legitimacy” – can be detected and needs to be integrated within the constitutional discourse.Through an overview of the case law of the Italian Constitutional court, the paper aims at highlighting the possible approaches to the need of a deeper integration of technical and scientific knowledge within the public decision-making processes, in an attempt to strike a balance capable of avoiding the two extremes of scientifically weak decisions on one hand, and of “technical deference” to experts on the other.

Basic sanitation policy in Brazil: discussion of a path.

This article demonstrates that the position of dominance enjoyed by state sanitation companies dictates the public policy decision-making process for sanitation in Brazil. These companies' hegemony is explained here through the analysis of a path that generated political and economic incentives that have permitted its consolidation over time. Through the content analysis of the legislation proposed for the sector and the material produced by the stakeholders involved in the approval of new regulations for the sector in 2007, the study identifies the main sources of incentive introduced by the adoption of the National Sanitation Plan, which explain certain structural features of the current sanitation policy and its strong capacity to withstand the innovations proposed under democratic rule.

Stability analysis and efficiency determinants: empirical evidence

ABSTRACTEfficiency determinants analysis is a main contemporary component in the productive efficiency literature. Two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) procedure supposed a turning point in the methodology as the significance of a certain exogenous factor can provide policymakers with accurate information for future strategic decisions, but a deeper scrutiny into the importance of each factor remains unsettled. This article provides a novelty theoretical extension and empirical application for the two-stage DEA bootstrap procedure. We define the stability coefficient (SC) whose magnitude reveals the effect of each exogenous factor in the efficiency estimates. We present empirical evidence to examine the hypothesis that the efficiency of the 17 Spanish tourism regions for the average period data 2005–2013 is determined by a group of contextual variables, illustrating how the SCs strengthen knowledge concerning the significance of each potential attractor. The results help us to classify the significant attractors into strong and weak, accordingly enhancing the public or private decision process, and henceforth avoiding the wastefulness of decision-making units spending.

Fiscal decentralization and spillover effects of local government public spending: the case of Italy

ABSTRACT Fiscal decentralization and spillover effects of local government public spending: the case of Italy. Regional Studies. This paper investigates the presence of spatial interdependencies in the regional public expenditure decision process and the impact of fiscal decentralization on its determinants. The analysis refers to the constitutional reform concluded in Italy in 2001 that redefined the legislative powers of the regions and their sectoral competence. The results highlight the opportunistic behaviour of regional governments in sectors where they can benefit from neighbours’ public expenditure spillovers. Other findings comprise the presence of congestion and mobility effects, a shift in demand to the private sector, except for education, and the mobility of individuals towards richer regions.

Making sense to decreasing citizen eParticipation through a social representation lens

This paper investigates the development of an electronic platform by a local government with the goal of increasing citizens' participation in public decision-making process, particularly the modality known as participatory budgeting. The local government of Belo Horizonte, a Brazilian municipality, decided to use web-based technologies to create a project called digital participatory budgeting (DPB), whose purpose was to include new segments of the population –particularly the middle class and youth – in the process of prioritizing the allocation of investments in the city's public works. The project was launched in 2006 and repeated in 2008 and 2011. Intriguingly, however, citizen participation decreased significantly. This study seeks to understand why citizens' participation decreased over time, despite the availability of a cutting-edge, user-friendly and iterative web-based platform to help connect citizens to the process. The theoretical approach is based on social representation theory (SRT) and the methodology of critical discourse analysis (CDA) of 101 documents and 19 interviews. This combination of SRT and CDA helps in understanding how people gave meaning to a new social object - the digital participatory budgeting – through their voices. Simultaneously, this approach represents a skillful approach to uncovering power imbalances signaled by "silences". The results suggest that deviations in the social representation process, namely, trivialization and reification, help us to understand the process through which citizen participation decreases. Therefore, governments seeking to improve eParticipation should, without neglecting the technical aspects, pay more attention to the social representational processes that characterize their web-based initiatives.

What does the future hold for assessment science?

This opening session of EFSA's 2nd Scientific Conference Shaping the Future of Food Safety, Together provided an opportunity to reflect on societal information needs in public decision-making processes and how scientific advice can most usefully contribute to this goal. Around 2003 when EFSA became operational, several researchers were already calling for a reflection on the relationships between decision-makers, scientific experts and citizens. Some commentators called for contextualisation as the key to producing science to meet public needs. They argued that science that draws strength from its socially-detached position is too frail to meet the pressures placed upon it. They imagined forms of knowledge that would gain robustness from their embeddedness in society. Others argued that the credibility of regulatory science ultimately rests upon factors that have more to do with accountability in terms of democratic politics than with the quality of science as assessed exclusively by scientific peers. More than 10 years on, there is merit to reflecting again on how much progress has been made in the world of assessment science to address these challenges and what lessons can be learned from the experience gained thus far. The objective of this plenary session was to reflect on general developments that affect the work of assessment science. These themes provided a basis for further discussion in subsequent breakout sessions.