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Studying the generation of alternatives in public policy making processes

Ferretti, V; Pluchinotta, I; Tsoukiàs, A; (2019) Studying the generation of alternatives in public policy making processes. European Journal of Operational Research , 273 (1) pp. 353-363. 10.1016/j.ejor.2018.07.054. Green open access

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Abstract

The design of alternatives is an essential part of decision making that has been less studied in theory and practice compared to alternatives’ evaluation. This topic is particularly relevant in the context of public policy making, where policy design represents a crucial step of the policy cycle since it determines the quality of the alternative policies being considered. This paper attempts to formalise the decision aiding process in two real interventions dealing with alternatives’ generation for territorial policy making in Italy. The aim of this research is to understand what generates novelty within the alternatives’ design phase of a decision aiding process, i.e. what allows to expand the solution space and discover new alternatives to solve the problem under consideration. It demonstrates ways in which novelty in decision processes can be supported by Operational Research/Multicriteria Decision Aiding tools. The two case studies are used to answer the following questions: (i) Why have new alternatives arose during the policy making process? (ii) How have they been generated? (iii) Which consequences did they lead to? and (iv) What generated novelty in the process? The results highlight two main reasons that can expand the solution space within a decision aiding process: (i) dissatisfaction (of the client, of the analyst or of the relevant stakeholders, especially when dealing with public policies) with respect to the solutions currently proposed to the decision making problem and (ii) opportunity for a change in one of the variables/constraints.

Type: Article
Title: Studying the generation of alternatives in public policy making processes
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2018.07.054
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2018.07.054
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Decision processes, Policy analytics, Decision analysis, Policy design
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10099514
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