THEORY AND ANALYSIS OF DECISION-MAKING
(BESLUTSTEORI OCH BESLUTSANALYS), 7.5 CR
AIM
The objective of this course is to provide knowledge necessary for the analysis and
understanding of decision making in theory and practice. The course aims to reveal and
discuss different approaches to decision-making. Also, the course addresses issues concerning
ethics and impacts of decision-making, as well as the relation between the individual and
society. Further, the course focuses on the interplay between different actors.
After the course students should:
- have a basic understanding of decision theory and different rules for decision making
- have a general understanding of theories on decision making on the individual level, in
partnerships and in policy-making.
- be able to analyse and discuss trade-offs between values included in the decisionmaking process e.g. efficiency, democracy, public and private interests, and citizen
participation.
- be able to analyse their own research in a context of decision making perspectives and
theories brought up during the course
SYLLABUS
The course consists of 12 seminars presenting different analytical perspectives and theories on
decision making. The seminars range from more descriptive, how decision making is and has
been done in different contexts, to more normative, how decision making should be done.
Examples from different decision making contexts will be introduced during the seminars,
both from the individual level and the collective decision making level. Also, the course
addresses issues concerning ethics and impacts of decision-making and the interplay between
different actors.
EXAMINATION REQUIREMENTS
Students are to write an essay, including a review of the literature and an analysis of the
course content related to their own research area. In the final seminar participants are to
present their essays. The essay could be a draft version of the theoretical chapter for
their doctoral thesis (monograph) or umbrella (paper based thesis), 4 cr.
.
For some session students are to submit a paper reflecting on the literature read as a
preparation for the session (1 cr). Attendance of seminars is compulsory. Absence from more
than one seminar will result in compensation tasks covering the contents of both the seminar
and the literature (2.5 cr).
COURSE PROGRAMME
Seminar 1
An introduction to the theory and analysis of decision-making
Monday August 29, 9.00 – 12.00
Göran Cars, Ulrika Gunnarsson Östling, Sven-Ove Hansson and Kristina Grange
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
The introductory seminar has three distinctive parts:
A) The seminar starts by raising the question. “What is decision-making and what does it take
to be a decision-maker?” The question will responded to by three different persons holding
different perspectives; A rational perspective on decision-making, Sven-Ove Hansson,
Communication and negotiations as methods for decision-making, Göran Cars, A discursive
perspective on decision-making, Kristina Grange
B) The second part of the seminar is devoted to a traditional course introduction.
C) In the third part of the seminar we turn our interest to how modes for decision-making
have changed. In the decades following the WWII public bodies played a dominant role in
decision-making concerning service provision, housing and physical planning. This has
changed. Today many of these functions are taken over, either by private actors or by
collaborative partnerships including private and public actors. The seminar will illustrate and
discuss shifts that have taken place in urban decision-making, e.g. in terms of roles and
responsibilities of various actors and the interplay between the actors. We will address the
issues by focusing on partnerships to illustrate contemporary mechanism for decision-making.
Seminar 2
Stakeholders and partnerships – interaction and power
Friday September 16, 9.00-12.00
Göran Cars and Ulrika Gunnarsson Östling
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
Many fields of society are characterised by new modes for decision-making, e.g. public
services, infrastructure, health care and physical planning. Partnership has become a catchword to describe this change. Partnerships can be organised and composed differently, and
their mandates and function can vary substantially. However, common to all are that
preparation and planning processes prior to decision-making are carried out in collaboration
between various stakeholders, often public and private actors.
Issues explicitly addressed in the seminar are:
- why are partnerships formed?
- how are traditional roles and power relations changed in partnerships?
- how can partnerships be analysed in terms of power?
- can partnerships be criticized for rejecting ideological divisions?
- how can partnerships be analysed in terms of power, participation and outcome?
- in what ways can partnerships contribute to value creation and in what ways can they be
criticized for contributing to the post-political conditions?
Literature:
Dryzek, J. S. (2000) Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestation.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1 (22 pages) and 7 (23 pages)
Hajer, M. A. & Wagenaar, H. (2003) Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding
Governance in the Network Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1 (59
pages) and 2 (27 pages)
Mouffe, C. (2005) On the Political: Thinking in Action. New York: Routledge.
Seminar 3
Decision-making and change
Friday September 30, 9.00 – 12.00
Göran Cars
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
Often the objective of decision-making is to achieve change. However, not seldom is real and
sustainable change difficult to implement and maintain, business remains as usual, and
reluctance and obstructions to change are frequent. In theory this is often described as a
phenomenon of path-dependence, i.e. we are willing to make small amendment and marginal
adjustments, but at the same time reluctant to adopt radically new approaches. However, also
recognised in theory, at times current policies and practices come to an impasse which opens
up for a new path for development and action. In this seminar focus is placed the relation
between forces advocating change and forces combating change.
Issues explicitly addressed in the seminar are:
- Why are initiatives to make change often met with, overt or unspoken, resistance?
- What are the mechanisms that complicate or obstruct change?
- How can effective strategies for change be developed and implemented?
Literature:
Pierson, Paul (2000). Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.
American Political Science Review, June.
Schon, Donald A (1971) Beyond the Stable State – Public and Private learning in a
changing society. London: Temple Smith.
Seminar 4
Negotiations and joint decision-making with examples from infrastructure investments
Tuesday October 11, 9.00-12.00
Göran Cars
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
In this Seminar focus will be placed on the interplay between stakeholders in a decisionmaking situation characterised by mutual dependence and potential to joint gains.
Infrastructure investments will be used as an example to illustrate the relation between
stakeholders. In Sweden, as in most other countries, financing of surface infrastructure has for
the last decades been regarded as a responsibility for central government. In the contemporary
policy debate, and practice, constellations for decision-making and financing are realized as
an alternative. These constellations can include national government agencies, municipalities,
land-owners, investors and private companies. Issues addressed concerns incentives for
participating in negotiations and decision-making, and modes for reaching consensus and
agreements.
Thus, decisions, traditionally taken by political boards, have to large extent been replaced by
negotiations in which affected parties reach an agreement, which later on is formally
confirmed by political decisions. Issues addressed are techniques and methods in negotiations,
and presentation of potential pros and cons when negotiations are used a method for decisionmaking.
Issues explicitly addressed in the seminar are:
- Which are the basic concepts and techniques in negotiation theory?
- How can parties create value by collaborating?
- What are the potentials and problems associated with negotiations as a method for
decision-making?
Literature:
Raiffa, Howard, with John Richardson and David Metcalfe (2002) Negotiation Analysis. USA
Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pages 1-306
Seminar 5
Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis.
Wednesday October 26, 9.00-12.00
Love Ekenberg, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, DSV
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
Decision makers are often facing situations in which different interests are in conflict, it could
e.g. be a proposed infrastructure investment which would meet economic and social
objectives, but at the same time cause negative environmental impacts. In addition the
decision-maker often is faced with situations involving a large number of issues of different
weight which have to be addressed. In this seminar focus is directed to multi-criteria analysis
as a method in decision-making in complex projects, involving several stakeholders, including
the public, and several conflicting issues of different weight.
Issues explicitly addressed in the seminar are:
- How multi-criteria analysis supporting decision makers faced with making numerous
and sometimes conflicting evaluations.
- How can this process be organised to involve different actors, e.g. resident with an
interest at stake
- How can the process be made transparent.
Literature: Borking, Kjell, Danielson, Mats, Davies, Guy, Ekenberg, Love, Idefeldt, Jim and
Larsson, Aron (2011). Sine Metu Productions.
(The book can be bought via Göran Cars for 50 SEK)
Lecture 6
Decision-making and rationality
Monday October 31, 9.00-12.00
Sven-Ove Hansson
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
What is decision theory? The idealizations made in decision theory.
The normative and the descriptive perspectives on decisions. Decisions and values. Different
ways to describe values (numerically, relationally, categorically).
Different concepts of rationality. Rationality in decision-making. The instrumentalist
assumption and its problems. The relationship between ethics and decision theory. The
common conditions for rational preferences: Completeness and transitivity. Common
arguments for and against the requirement of transitivity.
Literature: Hansson, Sven Ove: Decision theory. A brief introduction
Lecture 7
Rules for decision-making
Monday November 14, 9.00 – 12.00
Sven-Ove Hansson
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
Decision matrices and their components: alternatives, outcomes, states of nature. Risk and
uncertainty, different types of uncertainty.
Probabilistic approaches to decision-making: expected utility, probability estimates,
Baysianism. Variants of expected utility maximization. Process utilities.
Decision-making without probabilistic information: maximin, leximin, regret, etc. Decisionmaking with partial probabilistic information.
Literature: Hansson, Sven Ove: Decision theory. A brief introduction
Lecture 8
Aggregation and instability
Monday November 28, 9.00 – 12.00
Sven-Ove Hansson
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
Collective decision theory. Paradoxes of social choice.
Decision instability in one-person problems. Causal decision theory, Newcomb’s paradox and
related problems.
Multi-dimensionality and its reductions..
Science-policy problems from a decision-theoretic viewpoint (environmental examples).
Literature: Hansson, Sven Ove: Decision theory. A brief introduction
Lecture 9
Decision theory, ethics, and the environment
Tuesday December 13, 9.00 – 12.00
Sven-Ove Hansson
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
Different ethical approaches. Ethical theories and their practical implications.
Cost-benefit analysis as a tool for environmental decision-making. Its advantages, drawbacks,
and alternatives.
Ethics and economics as applied to environmental problems.
Literature: Hansson, Sven Ove: Decision theory. A brief introduction
Seminar 10
Analysis of choices and decisions in everyday life
Tuesday January 10, 9.00 – 12.00
Greger Henriksson
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
In this seminar sociological and cultural perspectives on choices will be presented. In most
cases choices and decisions are integrated with the social practices of everyday life as a
whole. This has a number of implications that will all be touched upon in the seminar:
• Social (and societal) organisation and power relations are crucial for what choices can
actually be made in every specific context of choice.
• Certain conditions for choices are material and technological (including conditions in terms
of physical structures).
• Other conditions still are cultural, which means that different, often competing or clashing,
meanings of practices and choices need to be studied.
• Many choices and decisions are routinized, which means that they could be “automatic”,
unreflected, sequenced and related to other choices. Habit theory will therefore be presented
in the seminar.
• Choices are affected by how information is available and used
Literature:
1) Hargreaves, T. Making Pro-Environmental Behaviour Work. An Ethnographic Case Study
of Practice, Process and Power in the Workplace. Doctor of Philosophy; University of East
Anglia – School of Environmental Sciences, 2008. Pages 241-260.
2) Jelsma, J. Innovating for Sustainability: Involving Users, Politics and Technology.
Innovation 2003, 16, 103-116.
3) Sennett, R. The corrosion of character : the personal consequences of work in the new
capitalism. W.W. Norton, cop: New York, 1998. (Roughly 10 pages from this publication)
Seminar 11
Analyzing decision-making at the policy level
Tuesday January 24, 9.00 – 12.00
Måns Nilsson
Venue: Drottning Kristinas väg 30, room 4055
This seminar of 3 hours (incl. break) introduces and discusses different analytical perspectives
on policy making. The purpose is to develop a basic understanding of how we as policy
analysts can explain the process by which policies are made and implemented. It includes
question such as: How do problems get the attention of policy makers? How are policies made
and implemented? How are policies maintained, changed, or terminated? What factors are the
most important determinants of policy change? It discusses the role of ideas, interests and
institutions as central variables. Perspectives and theories covered include rationality and
bounded rationality, incrementalism, institutionalism, interest-political perspectives, and the
garbage-can approach.
Literature:
Paul Sabatier (ed): Theories of the policy process. Westview Press.
Seminar 12
Presentation of student essays
This seminar will tentatively be held in the latter part of February. Separate seminars will be
organised by the three divisions responsible for the course. Dates will be decided in December.