Author: Michiel S. De Vries
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349148008
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
This is a book about making choices based on the evaluation of alternatives. The outcomes of choices are often worse than people expect. This book discusses the major problems in evaluating courses of action and examines the political contexts in which decisions are made. The subject matter of this book is at the crossroads of policy and research methodology. How can information derived from empirical research benefit a policy-maker or decision maker, and how should this information be incorporated in the decision-making process?
Calculated Choices in Policy-Making
Author: Michiel S. De Vries
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349148008
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
This is a book about making choices based on the evaluation of alternatives. The outcomes of choices are often worse than people expect. This book discusses the major problems in evaluating courses of action and examines the political contexts in which decisions are made. The subject matter of this book is at the crossroads of policy and research methodology. How can information derived from empirical research benefit a policy-maker or decision maker, and how should this information be incorporated in the decision-making process?
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349148008
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
This is a book about making choices based on the evaluation of alternatives. The outcomes of choices are often worse than people expect. This book discusses the major problems in evaluating courses of action and examines the political contexts in which decisions are made. The subject matter of this book is at the crossroads of policy and research methodology. How can information derived from empirical research benefit a policy-maker or decision maker, and how should this information be incorporated in the decision-making process?
The Paradox of Choice
Author: Barry Schwartz
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061748994
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061748994
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning
Author: Carl Patton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317350006
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
Updated in its 3rd edition, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning presents quickly applied methods for analyzing and resolving planning and policy issues at state, regional, and urban levels. Divided into two parts, Methods which presents quick methods in nine chapters and is organized around the steps in the policy analysis process, and Cases which presents seven policy cases, ranging in degree of complexity, the text provides readers with the resources they need for effective policy planning and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically combined to address policy dilemmas and urban planning problems. Readers and analysts utilizing this text gain comprehensive skills and background needed to impact public policy.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317350006
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
Updated in its 3rd edition, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning presents quickly applied methods for analyzing and resolving planning and policy issues at state, regional, and urban levels. Divided into two parts, Methods which presents quick methods in nine chapters and is organized around the steps in the policy analysis process, and Cases which presents seven policy cases, ranging in degree of complexity, the text provides readers with the resources they need for effective policy planning and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically combined to address policy dilemmas and urban planning problems. Readers and analysts utilizing this text gain comprehensive skills and background needed to impact public policy.
Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation
Author: Kenneth Train
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521766559
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
This book describes the new generation of discrete choice methods, focusing on the many advances that are made possible by simulation. Researchers use these statistical methods to examine the choices that consumers, households, firms, and other agents make. Each of the major models is covered: logit, generalized extreme value, or GEV (including nested and cross-nested logits), probit, and mixed logit, plus a variety of specifications that build on these basics. Simulation-assisted estimation procedures are investigated and compared, including maximum stimulated likelihood, method of simulated moments, and method of simulated scores. Procedures for drawing from densities are described, including variance reduction techniques such as anithetics and Halton draws. Recent advances in Bayesian procedures are explored, including the use of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and its variant Gibbs sampling. The second edition adds chapters on endogeneity and expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms. No other book incorporates all these fields, which have arisen in the past 25 years. The procedures are applicable in many fields, including energy, transportation, environmental studies, health, labor, and marketing.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521766559
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
This book describes the new generation of discrete choice methods, focusing on the many advances that are made possible by simulation. Researchers use these statistical methods to examine the choices that consumers, households, firms, and other agents make. Each of the major models is covered: logit, generalized extreme value, or GEV (including nested and cross-nested logits), probit, and mixed logit, plus a variety of specifications that build on these basics. Simulation-assisted estimation procedures are investigated and compared, including maximum stimulated likelihood, method of simulated moments, and method of simulated scores. Procedures for drawing from densities are described, including variance reduction techniques such as anithetics and Halton draws. Recent advances in Bayesian procedures are explored, including the use of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and its variant Gibbs sampling. The second edition adds chapters on endogeneity and expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms. No other book incorporates all these fields, which have arisen in the past 25 years. The procedures are applicable in many fields, including energy, transportation, environmental studies, health, labor, and marketing.
Policy Problems and Policy Design
Author: B. Guy Peters
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786431351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
Public policy can be considered a design science. It involves identifying relevant problems, selecting instruments to address the problem, developing institutions for managing the intervention, and creating means of assessing the design. Policy design has become an increasingly challenging task, given the emergence of numerous ‘wicked’ and complex problems. Much of policy design has adopted a technocratic and engineering approach, but there is an emerging literature that builds on a more collaborative and prospective approach to design. This book will discuss these issues in policy design and present alternative approaches to design.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786431351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
Public policy can be considered a design science. It involves identifying relevant problems, selecting instruments to address the problem, developing institutions for managing the intervention, and creating means of assessing the design. Policy design has become an increasingly challenging task, given the emergence of numerous ‘wicked’ and complex problems. Much of policy design has adopted a technocratic and engineering approach, but there is an emerging literature that builds on a more collaborative and prospective approach to design. This book will discuss these issues in policy design and present alternative approaches to design.
Maneuver and Exploit
Author: Andrea K. Grove
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1666925381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177
Book Description
Why do leaders make foreign policy decisions that often appear irrational or engage in major reversals of previous policy to the extent that observers wonder at their intentions? How are leaders in the Global South (GS), the majority of which should lack much influence in international politics, sometimes are able to defy external pressure or even get powerful states to do their bidding? While some analysts focus on domestic politics or on external factors to explain shifts in foreign policy, the GS decision model emphasizes that observers forgo useful insights in applying these categories to occurrences that are in fact transnational—when the domestic and foreign cannot be disentangled. Drawing on the poliheuristic decision making model, which makes political survival paramount, Andrea K. Grove argues that leaders weigh political considerations and eliminate options that do not fit with the most pressing concerns for these leaders: legitimacy and regime security. Application of this model to the cases of Uganda, Kenya, Qatar, and Turkey not only improves understanding of foreign policy pathways but reveals ways in which leaders of developing states can manipulate their tough environments to serve their interests. They can sometimes exploit more powerful countries to raise their state’s profile beyond what is warranted by objective measures.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1666925381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177
Book Description
Why do leaders make foreign policy decisions that often appear irrational or engage in major reversals of previous policy to the extent that observers wonder at their intentions? How are leaders in the Global South (GS), the majority of which should lack much influence in international politics, sometimes are able to defy external pressure or even get powerful states to do their bidding? While some analysts focus on domestic politics or on external factors to explain shifts in foreign policy, the GS decision model emphasizes that observers forgo useful insights in applying these categories to occurrences that are in fact transnational—when the domestic and foreign cannot be disentangled. Drawing on the poliheuristic decision making model, which makes political survival paramount, Andrea K. Grove argues that leaders weigh political considerations and eliminate options that do not fit with the most pressing concerns for these leaders: legitimacy and regime security. Application of this model to the cases of Uganda, Kenya, Qatar, and Turkey not only improves understanding of foreign policy pathways but reveals ways in which leaders of developing states can manipulate their tough environments to serve their interests. They can sometimes exploit more powerful countries to raise their state’s profile beyond what is warranted by objective measures.
Future Survey Annual 1992
Author: Michael Marien
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780930242435
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780930242435
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Political Choice in Britain
Author: Harold D. Clarke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191639257
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Why do people vote as they do? Indeed, why do they vote at all? What do they think about elections, political parties, and democracy? This important book by four leading scholars addresses these questions. Using a wealth of data from the 1964-2001 British election studies, monthly Gallup polls, and numerous other national surveys conducted over the past four decades, the authors test the explanatory power of rival sociological and individual rationality models of turnout and party choice. Analyses of party choice endorse a valence politics model that challenges the long-dominant social class model. British voters make their political choices by evaluating the performance of parties and party leaders in economic and other important policy areas. Although these evaluations may be products of events and conditions that occur long before an election campaign officially begins, parties' national and local campaign activities are also influential. Consistent with the valence politics model, partisan attachments display individual- and aggregate-level dynamics that reflect ongoing judgements about the managerial abilities of parties and their leaders. A general incentives model provides the best explanation of turnout. Calculations of the costs and influence-discounted benefits of voting and sense of civic duty are key variables in this model. Significantly, the decline in turnout in recent elections does not reflect more general negative trends in public attitudes about the political system. Voters judge the performance of British democracy in much the same way as they evaluate its parties and politicians. Support at all levels of the system is a renewable resource, but one that must be renewed. A command of theory, data, models, and method ensure that Political Choice in Britain will be a major resource for all those interested in elections, voting, and democracy.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191639257
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Why do people vote as they do? Indeed, why do they vote at all? What do they think about elections, political parties, and democracy? This important book by four leading scholars addresses these questions. Using a wealth of data from the 1964-2001 British election studies, monthly Gallup polls, and numerous other national surveys conducted over the past four decades, the authors test the explanatory power of rival sociological and individual rationality models of turnout and party choice. Analyses of party choice endorse a valence politics model that challenges the long-dominant social class model. British voters make their political choices by evaluating the performance of parties and party leaders in economic and other important policy areas. Although these evaluations may be products of events and conditions that occur long before an election campaign officially begins, parties' national and local campaign activities are also influential. Consistent with the valence politics model, partisan attachments display individual- and aggregate-level dynamics that reflect ongoing judgements about the managerial abilities of parties and their leaders. A general incentives model provides the best explanation of turnout. Calculations of the costs and influence-discounted benefits of voting and sense of civic duty are key variables in this model. Significantly, the decline in turnout in recent elections does not reflect more general negative trends in public attitudes about the political system. Voters judge the performance of British democracy in much the same way as they evaluate its parties and politicians. Support at all levels of the system is a renewable resource, but one that must be renewed. A command of theory, data, models, and method ensure that Political Choice in Britain will be a major resource for all those interested in elections, voting, and democracy.
Heroic Diplomacy
Author: Kenneth W. Stein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135962510
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
From the prelude of the October 1973 Middle East war through the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in March 1979, Kenneth W. Stein grippingly traces American involvement in the Arab-Israeli negotiations. He provides an extraordinary range of first-hand accounts, recollections and anecdotes from over eighty bureaucrats, diplomats and military leaders who participated in Arab-Israeli peace talks in the 1970's and since. Since the official public record remains unavailable for reasons of national security, these interviews provide unequaled insight into the internal divisions, political intrigue and untold stories of the peace process. Charting the complex and often contradictory goals of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, the US and the USSR, Stein chronicles the evolution of these negotiations and analyzes the key roles of Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, and Begin. An introduction and epilogue place this period in context of Arab-Israeli history since 1948 and the current status of the peace process.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135962510
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
From the prelude of the October 1973 Middle East war through the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in March 1979, Kenneth W. Stein grippingly traces American involvement in the Arab-Israeli negotiations. He provides an extraordinary range of first-hand accounts, recollections and anecdotes from over eighty bureaucrats, diplomats and military leaders who participated in Arab-Israeli peace talks in the 1970's and since. Since the official public record remains unavailable for reasons of national security, these interviews provide unequaled insight into the internal divisions, political intrigue and untold stories of the peace process. Charting the complex and often contradictory goals of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, the US and the USSR, Stein chronicles the evolution of these negotiations and analyzes the key roles of Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, and Begin. An introduction and epilogue place this period in context of Arab-Israeli history since 1948 and the current status of the peace process.
OECD Pensions Outlook 2020
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264680160
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
The 2020 edition of the OECD Pensions Outlook examines a series of policy options to help governments improve the sustainability and resilience of pension systems.
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264680160
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
The 2020 edition of the OECD Pensions Outlook examines a series of policy options to help governments improve the sustainability and resilience of pension systems.