Public Admin Quiz 2 Public Decision Making

NASA's Challenger disaster (1986)

External goods: - cost savings - scheduling maintenance - high costs and time delays - profit Internal goods: - safety - reliability - redundancy - prudence at NASA

How does loyalty to the hierarchy interfere with ethical administrative behavior? How do we develop normative administrative ethics?

Focus on practices and their virtues (and norms) instead of professions

Game Theory - Prisoner's dilemma

Game between 2 criminals suspected of committing a crime - The sentence that each receives depends both: - On his/her decision whether to confess/remain silent, and; - On the decision made by the other - If one confesses and other doesn't, one who remains silent is put in jail for longer time (the other gets off) - If both confess, medium sentences - If both silent, short sentences

Virtues

Generally considered inclinations or dispositions to act; character traits - For example, (1) if beneficence for the citizenry is one of the internal goods of public administration, benevolence on the part of public administrators is an essential virtue. - (2) If justice is also an important internal good for public administration practice, then fair mindedness is a necessary attribute for administrators. - Not innate; can be cultivated and cognitively considered, not merely habitual

Kingdon's Streams Model

John Kingdon (2003) claims that the decision making process is neither systematic nor neatly defined within the context of politics; decision making in the public sector is chaotic. - Decision-making processes involves three separate, independent streams: problem, political, and policy streams.

Satisficing and Incrementalism

Lindblom (1959) argued that individuals do not follow the rational model when making decisions. Instead, they avoid "rational" decision making through satisficing and incrementalism. - They use "satisficing," which entails "lowering the bar" in terms of goal attainment. - Incrementalism holds that only a few policy alternatives can be considered at a time, and that policies do not differ radically from existing ones; change is thus incremental. - Criticized for maintaining the status quo; to avoid this problem, use "sunset" provisions, allowing laws to expire following a specified period unless otherwise reenacted.

USA PATRIOT

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001

Groupthink

a specialized form of conformity that occurs only in highly cohesive groups that operate in an environment where there is a feeling of security

Identifying causes

"What are the causes for the deviation between the actual and desired condition?" -Has all the available information been gathered? - Are there specific barriers to be faced in the process? - Do strong individual member attitudes exist toward the situation? - Are there important points of view not yet represented?

Seven steps in making decisions

(1) Pinpointing the problem (2) Identifying causes (3) Setting objectives (4) Formulating alternative courses of actions (5) Evaluating alternatives against organizational objectives (6) Choosing the best course of actions (7)) Implementing and evaluating the decision

External goods

- Achieved in many ways other than engaging in particular practice. - For example, money, prestige, status, position, power, etc.; not shared by the community - External goods are often objects of competition in which there are winners and losers. This is essentially different from the value accrued through the achievement of internal goods, where the value is shared by the community of practice and the larger community as well. - These should not take priority over internal goods in public organizations.

Internal goods

- Achieved through practice and dedication to excellence; shared by the community - These goods which are internal to practices cannot be purchased, stolen, or acquired through persuasion. Public administrators commonly strive to achieve public interest, accountability, social order and justice, citizenship development, equality, efficiency, liberty, ect. Need a consensus on what achieving these goods mean

Game theory

- Game theory is the study of how people behave in strategic situations - A number of participants' decisions influencing other participants - Each participant within the game seeks to maximize his or her interests - Encompasses conflict and co-operation among several participants whose actions are interdependent - Important in determining behavior in political negotiation

Rational model

- Grounded in economic principles: scarcity of resources, perfect information, full knowledge of alternatives, and opportunity cost - Opportunity costs arise in all situations in which there are alternatives; it is the cost of an opportunity forgone in order to pursue a course of action - Diminishing marginal returns: as you acquire additional units of anything, the added unit has decreasing value - Cost-benefit analysis (CBA): Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Expressed in ratio terms (benefits divided by costs); performed on an ex-ante or ex-post basis

Bounded rational model

- Herbert Simon argued that the rational model is unrealistic because decision makers have cognitive limitations and incomplete information - Thus, decision makers are "bounded," leading to "satisficing" behavior i.e., choosing the first alternative that satisfies the problem; this alternative is essentially "good enough" - Short decision making time and asymmetrical information lead to satisficing behavior - Simple search rules (i.e., repeated step-by-step procedures that acquire information) - Simple stopping rules (i.e., searching is stopped at the first identified solution that satisfies an aspiration level) - Simple decision rules (i.e., choosing the solution that is favored by the most important reason)

Pinpointing the problem

- It is important to have a clear definition of a problem before looking for its solution. - The decision maker compares an expected standard of performance to the actual standard of performance. What is happening, and what should be happening?

Avoiding groupthink

- Leader should avoid stating preferences - Leader should designate a "devil's advocate" - Outside experts can also serve as devil's advocates - Leader should allow group members to vote anonymously - Leader should create and foster a culture where debate, criticism, and creativity are encouraged

Public choice theory

- Originates from microeconomics theory (Economist James McGill Buchanan) - Assumes that self-interest determines how decisions are made; bureaucrats will make decisions that minimize risks and maximize rewards - This is related to William Niskanen's theory of budget maximization; bureaucrats will tend to increase budgets for power and prestige - Overall, these models tend to suggest for the need to privatize and contract out

Implications

- Policy makers have "pet solutions" to problems and, sometimes, wait for such problems to occur and apply their solution - When these problems occur, it is suggested that a "policy window" opens or widens for policy makers to apply their solution - These three streams converge at critical times (e.g., the passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11)

Dysfunctions in Decision Making

- The poorest decisions are made when members of the decision-making team are engaged in a power struggle. - Groupthink - Irving Janis (1972) suggested that "groupthink" is a specialized form of conformity that occurs only in highly cohesive groups that operate in an environment where there is a feeling of security - Groupthink maintains power and cohesiveness; loyalty is paramount and dissent undermines loyalty in such circumstances - Leads to poor decision making and lack of innovation - Example: Pearl Harbor attacks - U.S. intelligence knew that Japanese carriers were in the Pacific but no one dared to suggest that Pearl Harbor was impenetrable

Participatory model

- When diverse groups of individuals act in a consultative capacity (e.g., public meetings or hearings, advisory boards, and citizen advocacy groups) - Used when regulatory agencies rewrite rules; federal agencies rely on private individuals and business owners to craft rules; another example would be PTAs advising school boards or superintendents - Model is predicated on useful information provided by interest groups to decision makers; however, such groups have a tendency to sway decisions in their favor

Formulating alternative courses of actions

A decision maker should ask whether the problem has existed before. If so, What was done and what was the outcome? Has a related problem occurred? If so, What elements were similar? How were they handled and to what effect? Brainstorming Creativity Blocks to Creativity Fear of mistakes Fear of risking self-esteem Perfectionism Cost of creativity?

Setting objectives

After the problem and its causes have been identified, the decision makers must set objectives that the decision must achieve. Be specific, be measurable, indicate who, what, when, and where - Ineffective objectives: Each respondent will receive an appropriate financial evaluation interview. - Effective objective: To decide the respondents' support payments, the caseworker will interview him or her to determine his or her: age, marital status, employment status, number of other children, financial resources, and eligibility for assistance.

Garbage can model

Cohen, March and Olsen 1972 - Randomness in decision making process - Solution before the problem - Problems are subject to interpretations

Evaluating alternatives against organizational objectives

The best course of action is the one that meets all of the "must" objectives. - Using a balance sheet is a good way of visually representing the benefits and burdens of one course of action versus another. - The balance sheet helps individuals to make more comprehensive appraisals of competing courses of action, as decision makers are better able to think about possible trade-offs, concentrate on the major differences between the choices, and think about the degree of importance of each pro and cons.

Practices

forms of activity which possess the following characteristics. Ex. the game of football and farming 1. They exhibit coherence and complexity 2. They are socially established 3. They are carried out through human cooperation

Policy stream

how administrators, researchers, and political staffs formulate policy proposals (Tax)

Problem Stream

how and why one set of problems rather than another has captured the attention of public officials (ex. Patients' Right)

Profession

may connote self protection and self aggrandizement and produce image of paternalistic expertise which are not appropriate for public administration in a democratic society.

Political Stream

the "pulse of the nation" as conveyed through public opinion, election results, or ideological shifts (Political ideology)