Decision Making in Politics

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This chapter explores the science of decision making in politics. What values, what understanding of political phenomena, and what grasp of public policy alternatives actually influence decision making? How adequate is the machinery available to decision makers? What are the consequences of our public policy decisions? How is power wielded, and how are political conflicts resolved?

To answer these questions we present the following models: (1) the rational actor, (2) the political actor, (3) the organizational actor, (4) the elitist actor, and (5) the idiosyncratic actor. While these models are not mutually exclusive, they emphasize different factors in, and different approaches to, decision making.

In the rational actor model of decision making, decision makers seek to accomplish four tasks: accurately identify the problem that confronts them; take into account the key factors that bear on the problem; critically examine alternative courses of action; and make a choice that will wisely maximize benefits and minimize costs.

In the political actor model, decision making is not essentially rational deliberation. Rather, it is characterized by decision makers involved in a struggle for power, and decisions emerge from that struggle. This kind of decision making necessitates bargaining, accommodation, and consensus, as well as controversy, conflict, bluff, threat, and even deceit. The bottom line is that key decisions are most often the result of bargaining among diverse political interests.

The organizational actor model affirms the organization’s crucial role in decision making, and it stresses the importance of the organization’s vital interests, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and capabilities. It emphasizes how the organization sees problems, obtains information, shapes alternatives, assesses costs and benefits, and makes choices.

The elitist actor model of decision making asserts that very powerful individuals or limited groups of influential people, known as elites, make the really significant decisions in politics, and they do so to protect their own self-interest and power.

Finally, the idiosyncratic actor model of decision making recognizes the role of personality in politics. Factors such as the personal intuition, communication skills, charisma, compassion, demagoguery, ruthlessness, or dogmatism of a leader become important to understanding his or her decisions. A decision maker’s role may be destructive, as in the case of leaders like Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein, or it may be creative, as in the case of Winston Churchill, Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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