The paper aims at addressing the problem of what makes specific aiding to decide within public policy making problem situations. Under such a perspective it analyses some basic concepts such as “public policy”, “deliberation”, “legitimation”, “accountability” and shows the necessity to expand the concept of rationality which is expected to be behind the acceptability of a public policy. We then...

A theoretical framework for DSS research is developed in terms of the key elements of theory: domain boundaries, constructs, and relationships among constructs. Eight broad DSS constructs (environment, task, implementation strategy, DSS capability, DSS configuration, user, user behaviour, and performance) are identified. Based on a review of the literature, 17 relationships among these construc...

concerns regarding the trans-pacific partnership (tpp) have raised awareness about the negative public health impacts of trade and investment agreements. in the past decade, we have learned much about the implications of trade agreements for public health: reduced equity in access to health services; increased flows of unhealthy commodities; limits on access to medicines; and constrained policy...

The objectives of this research are i) to examine the psychometric properties of the constructs of social-support, work-family enrichment and life satisfaction, ii) to validate the hypothesized interrelationships among the constructs of social support, work-family enrichment and life satisfaction among nurses of public hospitals in Malaysia and iii) to examine the likely mediation effect of wor...

This article reviews the literature on public support for ‘soft’ versus ‘hard’ policy instruments behaviour change, and factors that drive such preferences. Soft policies typically include ‘moral suasion’ educational campaigns, more recently behavioural approaches like nudges. Hard instruments, as laws taxes, restrict choices alter financial incentives. In contrast to evidenced hard during COVI...

Decision support often focuses on substantive rationality (what to choose). The procedural rationality (how to choose) of the process of long-term strategic decision making is then often neglected. In strategic decision making, supporting the decision process is more important than supporting the search for an ‘‘optimal’’ solution to the problem, especially since for most policy problems a well...

Citizens are increasingly looking for more direct involvement in the decisions that affect their collective well-being. Political representatives, official entities and experts are no longer considered to be the only ones responsible to make decisions regarding local policy issues. The challenge is to allow thousands of potential participants (citizens) to engage in the discussion of those issu...

State cooperation with international institutions requires support from subnational constituencies. We argue that citizens often approve of abstract, foreign actions by institutions, yet disapprove of specific, local actions. We argue this aversion is greatest for citizens in closest “proximity” to institutional actions. We assess these arguments with a survey experiment about the International...

OBJECTIVE This research examined how public perceptions of the relationship between poverty and health predict support for poverty-related policies. METHODS A random sample of 1,203 Albertans were interviewed by telephone to determine their perceptions of the relationship between poverty and health (myth, drift, behavioural, structural), and their support for government spending in six povert...