Political Behaviour/Sociology

F14 - Public Policy and Decision-making

Date: May 31 | Time: 03:45pm to 05:15pm | Location: Classroom - CL 317 Room ID:15759

Chair/Président/Présidente : Randy Besco (University of Toronto)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Randy Besco (University of Toronto)

Enhancing Leaders’ Decision-Making Practices in Uncertain Times: Simon Brightman (Non-Academic)
Abstract: Decision-making is at the core of leaders’ abilities to successfully navigate ongoing mandates, challenges and crises, locally, nationally and internationally. In ‘uncertain times’, which methods can better support and predict strategic decision-making by senior leaders of corporations, governments, NGOs and IOs (international organizations) focused on commercial, security, humanitarian or other strategic objectives? This study examines senior leader decision-making practices influenced externally and within their organizations. A comprehensive review and analysis of decision-making theories, framework and practices and the results of case studies informed the development of a Strategic Decision-Making Assessment Tool (SDMAT, ©Simon Brightman, Cambridge, MSt 2017). The SDMAT assesses current practices of an organization, highlights resulting inclinations and identifies areas for improvement. The SDMAT was field-tested with three independent IOs for its utility. This research indicates that existing decision-making frameworks and methodologies are synthesized by leaders and organizations to create preferred decision practices. These hybrid traditional-heuristic practices are often developed without explicit awareness of their implications or risks, but rather through unstructured, intuitive actions that draw on past experience and organizational consensus. Results indicate that SDMAT screening and subsequent refinements can yield optimized organizational practices. These refinements include faster, more accurate decisions due to reduced biases, expanded solution set, faster processes, improved team-member selection and more accurate use of information sources. Particularly in ‘uncertain times’ there is an opportunity to further enhance, influence and improve leaders’ decision-making practices through the introduction of select changes to the process in which key, strategic decisions are made.

Life-cycle Effects on Preferences Towards Public Policies in Canada: Florence Vallée-Dubois (Université de Montréal)
Abstract: This research is part of my doctoral project, which focuses on the impact of population ageing on representation in Canada. A first step in my project is to measure the political preferences of Canadians as a function of their age, to verify if older citizens have different preferences than their younger counterparts. Past research have shown that certain generations of Canadians had different values (Gidengil et al. 2005). Theories of political socialisation would tell us that this is due to the ‘pattern of persistence’, i.e. values developed during youth have a tendency to remain throughout an individual’s lifetime (Sears and Brown 2003). However, other scholars have raised the possibility that preferences regarding certain public policies are likely to change throughout the life-course, particularly in current times when older citizens might feel that public resources are becoming more scarce (Busemeyer et al. 2009). To test if this is the case, I analyse the evolution of preferences regarding different public policies during the last 40 years in Canada. I do so using public opinion survey data available from the Canadian Opinion Research Archive: by looking at survey questions that ask respondents if they are in favour of specific public policies, I am able to verify if support for certain categories of policies is more likely within certain age-groups. The statistical analysis that I perform takes the form of a multilevel regression model. This type of model allows me to disentangle generational effects from life-cycle effects, which are of interest to this research.

977.Vallee-Dubois.pdf