The influence of SEA: the psychology and sociology of political decision making IAIA’05 – Prague...

The influence of SEA: the psychology and sociology of political decision making

IAIA’05 – Prague 2005Marc Van Dyck, Resource Analysis

27/09/05IAIA’05 SEA PraguePolitical decision making and the influence of en SEA-process - Marc Van Dyck

In search of effective SEA processes

• Starting point :We agree that the quality of the final political decision determines the effectiveness of the SEA research, evaluation and presentation !

• Boston : analysis of the psychology of politicians making decisions – explanation why they can feel uncomfortable with SEA

• Today : analysis of institutional / societal influences on politicians – explanations for differences in acceptance of SEA-output in political decisions in different countries


Overview

Decision making process

Scientific experts

Public and organisations

Administrative departments – policy makers

Politicians c.q. the Minister

SEATechnical

Institutional

Societal; psychological


The psychology of a politicians decision making – conclusions in Boston

Politicians

Scientists

Policy-makers

Public

• Current situation : Decisions not under umbrella of SEA and political world not adjusted to SEA

• Analysis of decision making process by politicians : ‘risk-factors’• Major plans and controversial• Uncertainties about dose-impact relationships• ‘Change of things’ = not popular

• Politicians prefer decisions with high impact (many involved potential voters) and low risk (broadly acceptable)

• Trust and communication are very influencial factors in the decision making process => create new relationships.

27/09/05IAIA’05 SEA PraguePolitical decision making and the influence of en SEA-process - Marc Van Dyck • Things politicians do not like about an SEA

• New unforeseen alternatives• Uncertainty of research results• Strict procedural steps / clear value frames /

clear communication• High impact, high risk !

• Conclusions :• SEA-procedures : Formal procedures will

never prohibit political forces to come into action and influence the decision making : accept this !

• Non-technical factors like power, communication, risk perception and personal feelings influence the impact of an SEA outcome on the decision making process : do not ignore them !

The psychology of a politicians decision making – conclusions in Boston (2)


Comments in Boston : Non-technical solutions to strenghten the influence of SEA in decision-making

• Formal requirements to conduct effective SEA-research will support the separation between the scientific and the political process

• Clear value frames : though opposed by politicians, to make the evaluation of alternatives more acceptable to politicians and public.

• Changing traditional decision making processes : it will take at least a generation to change this. Politicians should not see SEA as the ‘enemy’, but as their support in an upward spiral.

• A clear focus : difficult to combine with participative processes. The public and policy makers abuse participative processes for the purpose of their agenda.

• Clear and effective communication and involvement will be allowed as long as it fits within the political agenda.

• Acknowledging and dealing with uncertainties is the major problem for politicians and the public. Tiering decisions is a difficult one to accept by these two parties.

• Clear competences and willingness to co-operate : difficult to realise in the pluralist democracy with hidden agenda’s…Adequate

research

Correct decision making

Useful information

Wide acceptance of output

Full future involvement


But politicians are the same everywhere ??? – Not exactly….

Institu-tional context and organisa-tion

Acceptance of participation as an influence

SEA as a policy preparation tool

Political decision

Decision making process


Let’s compare two most different cases !

The Netherlands Belgium

Policy processescumbersome and slow; scrupulous; consistent decisions

no scrutiny to decisions and inconsistency; inscrupulous

Policy structuresHigh degree of interdependence and interwoveness complex and opaque decision structures

Policy design and implementation

large and pluriform decision arena's; interactive polcy making

serenity of debate' = not involving public opinion, diplomacy politics

Openness to new policy (eg. Gender quality, integration policy of immigrants, envrionmental protection High; innovatory policy instruments Low; short term and particularist policy planningInstitutional reorganisations early; flexible

late; pillarization; neocorporatism that leads to learning processes but also to immobilism

State organisation

parliamentary monarchies; no direct democracy; elections on proportionality; unitary state

same as The Netherlands except federation => fragile institutional arrangements

Pillarization (societal segmentation with political co-operation at the elite level

the consocial democracy changed in the 60ties; affected political party organisation; change led to more open democracy; parliament is strong; administrations are strong

it changed as well but did not affect political parties; changed into a 'partitocracy' (strong power exercised by political parties); state institutions are weak; gains for groups and regions prevail over gains for society as a whole

Ex-ante and ex-post evaluations of policy processes

routinized and supported by a tradition of policy research; long term incremental adaptation

incident dependent reactive policy making; electoral driven deals;

Consensus democracy

interactive consensus democracy; open input structure (open access rules in policy communities); incremental policy innovation and organisational reform

elitist consensus democracy; input from stronger distributive logic (parties, strong sectoral interests)

Source: M. Brans, R. Maes, Institute for the government – University of Leuven, Belgium


Model comparison

Political decision

Belgium The Netherlands

Political parties; election driven; pillarization

Interactive policy planning; strong parliament

Political parties; election driven;

pillarization

Interactive policy planning;

strong parliament


Recent evolutions : Need for convergence

• EU law and programmes put pressure on Belgian’s classic distributive policy - partitocracy

• Policy problems internationalize as do policy solutions…

• A legitimacy crisis of the partitocracy is read in electoral volatity and the rise of new parties…

• The gap between politicians and citizens forces Belgium to move in the direction of the Dutch polity

• Critique of the ‘clientelist’ politics : need to sever politicians particular links with the population…


Relationship between societal and institutional factors and acceptance of SEA(-outcome) in Belgium• In SEA (New) open and (old) closed decision making arena’s

need to be combined : • input must come from both institutionalized societal actors (advisory

bodies) as from smaller civil movements or groups and individuals.• Animation of policy processes is mainly done by members of ministerial

cabinets; new policy making structures like open planning processes do not match with existing policy making cultures and traditions

• Civil servants do not always have the experience in developing a new policy making process and are not always able to match it with the political decision making process.

• Formal character of the procedures for SEA guarantees involvement but not an open decision making process; • if the political decision making process is more formalized as well,

acceptance of involvement in SEA by societal actors is stronger


Enhancement of the influence of SEA-outcome on decision-making

Quality of SEA-research and presentation of results

Set of scientific criteria and set of adapted societal value frames

Appropriate input from both formalized advisory bodies and other input processes

Acknowledgement of the psychology of political decision making in a partitocracy

Analysis of the politicians promise to its voters


How to streamline SEA with the decision making culture ? – case partitocracy• Quality-satisfaction-trust – model : Quality of SEA in contents

and communicative value creates satisfaction for those who have to decide and will make them trust the output of the SEA.

• Make clear two separate evaluations : the scientific evaluation and the societal evaluation : two sets of criteria might help. The final evaluation should include both sets of criteria.

• To have the ultimate decision support, including the political level (ministerial cabinets) in the preparation of an SEA might be helpful; the distinction between scientific input and societal issues remains important.

• Including the institutionalized advisory bodies (societal ‘pillar organisations’) in the informal discussion process might be interesting but hard to realize : most of these parties will keep their opinion to themselves until formally asked for.

• Give a clear (process) risk evaluation : what is the risk when one or the other solution is chosen ?

• Keep in mind what politicians have promised to their voters : how does the plan or programme fit into the politician’s promises : include information from political documents. Prepare answers for the questions of the individual citizen.


Conclusion

If you want the SEA-outcome to have an effective influence on the decision-making process, you will have to cope with :

•existing planning culture•institutionalized processes•interactive forms of policy making•political decision making ethics

The influence of SEA: the psychology and sociology of political decision making IAIA’05 – Prague...

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