Political and societal elites are increasingly confronted with complex environments in which they need to take collective decisions. Decision-makers are faced with policy issues situated at different intertwined levels which need to be negotiated with different actors. The negotiation and decision-making processes raise issues of legitimacy, leadership and communication. Modern societal systems are not only affected by horizontal specialization and diversity but also by a vertical expansion of governance layers. The national level is no longer the sole, or even the most important, level of governance. In these complex environments, cognitive abilities and personalities of political and societal elites have gained importance. This book addresses the impact of an increasingly complex environment on the legitimacy and transparency of polities, on the role of leadership and political personality and on motivated images, rhetoric and communication. Examining how these issues interact at the macro and theoretical level, the types of problems decision-makers face and how they communicate ideas with their audiences, it brings together leading experts in political psychology, law and political science to bridge the gap in the way these disciplines explore the issue of complex decision-making.

"Human Nature in Politics" by Graham Wallas. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Rush to Policy explores the appropriate role of technical analysis in policy formation. The authors ask when and how the use of sophisticated analytic techniques in decision making benefits the nation. They argue that these techniques are too often used in situations where they may not be needed or understood by the decision maker; where they may not be able to answer the questions raised but are nonetheless required by the law. House and Shull provide an excellent empirical base for describing the impact of politics on policies, policy analysis, and policy analysts. They examine cost benefit analysis, risk analysis, and decision analysis, and assess their ability to substitute for the current decision making process in the public sector. They examine the political basis of public sector decision making, how individuals and organizations make decisions, and the ways decisions are made in the federal sector. Also they discuss the mandate to use these methods in the policy formulation process. The book is written by two practicing federal policy analysts who, in a decade of service as policy researchers, developed sophisticated quantitative analytic and decision-making techniques. They then spent several years trying to use them in the real world. Successes and failures are described in illuminating detail, providing insight not commonly found in such critiques. The authors delineate the interaction of politics and technical issues. Their book describes policy analysis as it is, not how it ought to be. Peter W. House is director of policy research and analysis, National Science Foundation. He is the author of ten books on multidisciplinary science and technology policy research and analyses in government, private, and university sectors including The Art of Public Policy, and with Roger D. Shull, Regulatory Reform: Politics and the Environment, and Regulations and Science: Management of Research on Demand. Roger D. Shull is senior analyst Division of Policy and Analysis, National Science Foundation.

Rush to Policy explores the appropriate role of technical analysis in policy formulation. The authors ask when and how the use of sophisticated analytic techniques in decision-making benefits the nation. They argues that these techniques are too often used in situations where they may not be needed or understood by the decision maker, where they may not be to answer the questions raised but are nonetheless required by law. House and Shull provide an excellent empirical base for describing the impact of politics on policies, policy analysis, and policy analysts. They examine cost-benefit analysis, risk analysis, and decision analysis and assess their ability to substitute for the current decision-making process in the public sector. They examine the political basis of public sector decision-making, how individuals and organizations make decisions, and the ways decisions are made in the federal sector. Also, they discuss the mandate to use these methods in the policy formulation process. The book is written by two practicing federal policy analysts who, in a decade of service as policy researchers, developed sophisticated quantitative analytic and decision-making techniques. They then spent several years trying to use them in the real world. Success and failures are described in illuminating detail, providing insight not commonly found in such critiques. The authors delineate the interaction of politics and technical issues. Their book describes policy analysis as it is, not how it ought to be. Peter W. House is the director of policy research and analysis at the National Science Foundation. He is the author of ten books on multidisciplinary science and technology policy research and analyses in government, private, and university sectors, including The Art of Public Policy Analysis and with Roger D. Shull, Regulatory Reform: Politics and the Environment and Regulations and Science: Management of Research on Demand. Roger D. Shull is a senior analyst at the Division of Policy Research and Analysis, National Science Foundation.

The first section explores the epistemological similarities between postmodern and conservative thought. I attempt to show the underlying similarities between the assumptions made by each school of thought. The primary focus is on similarities in how each school of thought views the role and limits of reason. Each school of thought is highly conscious of how complex our environment is relative to our cognitive capacities. The next section is an overview of political science literature that addresses the decision making process and the role of various sorts of expertise (policy, political, and cultural) within situations of great complexity. The focus is primarily on foreign policy decision making, especially the Vietnam War. The themes raised are tentatively applied to the current situations in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the general themes discussed and the questions raised are applicable to domestic politics (on the local, state, and federal levels). In both of these sections, I raise practical and theoretical questions and I argue that an interdisciplinary approach, borrowing much from social and cognitive psychology, would be useful in furthering this research. In addition to helping us achieve a greater understanding of past events, this interdisciplinary approach would be of modest (but significant) prescriptive value by offering policy makers advice on how to best avoid major policy mistakes. The final section examines the Mt. Laurel housing cases and how the judicial branch was assisted by land use experts who were appointed as special masters to the courts. This section gives an example of decision makers (in this case, judges) in a complex situation and how the New Jersey political system has seen fit to supplement the judges' legal expertise through the advice of experts in housing and land use policy. As in the previous sections, questions are raised about how to best calibrate the roles of the educated generalists and the policy experts to achieve more satisfactory policy outcomes.