Search

Many local councils aim to (re)connect citizens to public planning. This article presents the Collaborative Communities through Coproduction (3C) method as a way to establish cooperation between residents and professionals in improving neighborhood livabiliy. The authors describe common challenges to citizen participation and identify the dilemma of sustainable cooperation as an additional challenge for citizen participation efforts that aim to establish coproduction. To deal with this dilemma, the 3C method was designed as a continuous, circular process of plan making, plan implementation, and plan evaluation. The authors describe the implementation of the 3C method in two neighborhoods in the Netherlands. Findings from the two case studies demonstrate workable solutions to the dilemmas of citizen participation. Nonetheless, the study findings show that shifting council priorities pose an additional risk to the sustained continuation of coproduction efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The reasoning underlying the attitude of stakeholders towards the implementation of a means can be captured in causal cognitive maps about the effects of the means on relevant goals. For acyclic cognitive maps with weighted-directed signed links we propose quantitative measures for the weight of the paths between means and goals and a measure for the total result of the means on all goals. In data concerning the cognitive maps of 94 employees about their perceived consequences of a merger, the latter measure correlates strongly with their attitude towards the merger. Finally we propose a method to detect for which links in the map the cognitive differences between individuals contribute most to their differences in attitudes towards the means, in the sense that agreement on these links would decrease the variance in the attitudes most. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many real-life social dilemmas contain third parties who cannot make decisions in the dilemma, but are affected by its outcome (receive externalities) nonetheless. Dilemmas with identical payoffs for decision-making actors may greatly vary in their externalities for third parties. If actors value the welfare of thirds, externalities will affect actors’ decisions. We test behavioral predictions from three leading ideas on social preferences (altruism, inequality aversion, competition) in two studies that employ four one-shot, 2-person prisoner’s dilemmas (PDs) that differ only in their externalities. The PDs respectively include a third party that (i) is indifferent, (ii) prefers defection, (iii) prefers cooperation. Our results show that while aggregate behavior is not affected by externalities, individual behavior is. Compared to a PD without externalities, prosocial individuals cooperate more when a third benefits from cooperation, but do not defect more when a third benefits from defection. The opposite pattern is found for competitive individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In collective decision making bilateral deals can increase or decrease the likelihood of finding compromises, depending on whether such deals have externalities. Positive externalities mean third actors profit from bilateral deals, whereas negative externalities mean bilateral deals hurt third actors. We develop the first model of collective decision making that takes externalities into account. The model computes the expected outcomes of the issues to be decided and construes four coalitions of actors on each pair of issues. Then it searches for a set of alternative expected outcomes, such that no coalition can further increase the payoffs of one of its members, either (i) without decreasing the payoffs of one of its members, or (ii) without decreasing the payoffs of any actor. The Generalized Nash Bargaining Solution is used to pick a single outcome. The model is tested on data from decisions in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates two competing dynamic policy-network models and one static network model by applying them to local politics in Amsterdam. In the dynamic models an influence relation results from the acceptance of an influence request. The first model, Control Maximization, represents the view that politics are primarily power driven, and the second, Policy Maximization, policy driven. In the static model (the Two-Stage), network relations are empirically investigated as in other policy-network models and used as a benchmark for evaluating the dynamic models. Policy Maximization is shown to be the most accurate predictor of decision outcomes, better even than the static model, and to generate richer networks. However, both dynamic models generate networks that are too hierarchical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]