A prevalent and pervasive view of designing is that it can be modeled using variables and decisions made about what values should be taken by these variables. The activity of designing is carried out with the expectation that the designed artifact will operate in the natural world and the social world. These worlds impose constraints on the variables and their values; so, design could be described as a goal-oriented, constrained, decision- making activity. However, design distinguish- es itself from other similarly described activities not only by its domain but also by additional necessary features. Designing involves exploration, exploring what variables might be appropriate. The process of explo- ration involves both goal variables and deci- sion variables. In addition, designing involves learning: Part of the exploration activity is learning about emerging features as a design proceeds. Finally, design activity occurs within two contexts: the context within which the designer operates and the context produced by the developing design itself. The designer’s perception of what the context is affects the implication of the context on the design. The context shifts as the designer’s perceptions change. Design activity can be now characterized as a goal-oriented, con- strained, decision-making, exploration, and learning activity that operates within a con- text that depends on the designer’s percep- tion of the context.

Design Prototypes: A Knowledge Representation Schema for Design

Governing the Commons

The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.

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Democracy and Its Critics

Author Ray Pawson presents a devastating critique of the dominant approach to systematic review namely the 'meta-analytic' approach as sponsored by the Cochrane and Campbell collaborations. In its place is commended an approach that he terms 'realist synthesis'. On this vision, the real purpose of systematic review is better to understand program theory, so that policies Author Ray Pawson presents a devastating critique of the dominant approach to systematic review namely the 'meta-analytic' approach as sponsored by the Cochrane and Campbell collaborations. In its place is commended an approach that he terms 'realist synthesis'. On this vision, the real purpose of systematic review is better to understand program theory, so that policies can be properly targeted and developed to counter an ever-changing landscape of social problems. The book will be essential reading for all those who loved (or loathed) the arguments developed in Realistic Evaluation (Sage, 1997). It offers a complete blueprint for research synthesis, supported by detailed illustrations and worked examples from across the policy waterfront.

Evidence-based Policy: A Realist Perspective

Land-use planners often make complex decisions within a short period of time when they must take into account sustainable development and economic competitiveness. A set of land-use suitability maps would be very useful in this respect. Ideally, these maps should incorporate complex criteria integrating several stakeholders' points of view. To illustrate the feasibility of this approach, a land suitability map for housing was realised for a small region of Switzerland. Geographical Information System technology was used to assess the criteria requested to define the suitability of land for housing. An example dealing with the evaluation of noise levels illustrates the initial steps of this procedure. Because the required criteria are heterogeneous and measured on various scales, an outranking multicriteria analysis method called ELECTRE-TRI was used. However, using it to assess the suitability of any point in a territory was impractical due to computational limitations. Therefore, a mathematical function ...

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Using GIS and outranking multicriteria analysis for land-use suitability assessment

The point of departure of the analysis is the recognition that major policy change is extremely difficult However from time to time this actually happens and therefore it seems necessary to understand when and how this is possible After a short excursus on the special characteristics of contemporary public policies, four different theoretical models of how decisions are taken are presented and discussed The conclusion is the definition of a conceptual framework specifying which are the variables that influence policy outcomes and in particular the possibility to adopt non-marginal policy change

https://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/productFlyer/productFlyer-WEST_978-3-319-02519-3.pdf?SGWID=0-0-1297-175487484-bookseller

Understanding Policy Decisions

In its rational, organisational, historical and discursive varieties, the new institutionalism research agenda is arguably the most successful paradigm in comparative politics and public policy analysis. However, neo-institutional practice applied to comparative policy analysis reveals four pitfalls, that is, ‘institutional determinism’, ‘drop in the box’, ‘second best residual explanations’ and ‘theoretical conjectures without foundational mechanisms’. We illustrate and examine the pitfalls and consider the conceptual and methodological implications for the comparative analysis of policies. In the conclusion, we present options for rescuing institutional analysis from bad practice.

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Recasting Institutionalism: Institutional Analysis and Public Policy

Western democracies have retained political legitimacy since 1945 by a continuous process of adaptation to changing socio-political circumstances. Most states have changed their institutional arrangements, and reorganized their systems of local government to some degree. This book explains local government change within the wider context of institutional change. It links theories of legitimacy and institutional change to the extensive empirical and historical literature on local government reorganization. It also differentiates between institutional change and reform. Structural or historical variables are shown to play a major role in explaining why and how both reform and change take place. In particular, the rise and decline of the welfare state - and the political and policy changes associated with this - is one of the most important points of departure in the analysis. The ideas shared by the policy community explain the roles played by actors involved in shaping local government change and reform. This provides the link between the macro (structural) dimension and empirical observation.

The dynamics of institutional change : local government reorganization in western democracies

Introduction: The Globalisation of Environmental Policy and the Search for New Instruments B. Dente. 1: A Classification of Instruments for Environmental Policy P.J. Klok. 2: Political (Un)Feasibility of Environmental Economic Instruments C. Larrue. 3: Arguments, Assumptions and the Choice of Policy Instruments A. Liberatore. 4: Courts and Citizen Action N. Pain. 5: Addressing Uncertainty: Law, Policy and the Development of the Precautionary Principle J. Cameron. 6: Policy Instruments, Public Deliberation and Evaluation Processes J. Subirats. 7: Mediation as a Policy Instrument for Resolving Environmental Disputes - with Special Reference to Germany H. Weidner. 8: New Institutional Arrangements for a New Generation of Environmental Policy Instruments: Intra and Interpolicy Cooperation P. Knoepfel.

Environmental policy in search of new instruments

This analysis examines how the territorial dimension in Italian politics has changed since the fall of the Socialist regimes in eastern Europe in 1989 and the beginning of the corruption scandals in the early 1990s. Institutional changes and trends at the regional and local levels are outlined, before a study is made of the current distribution of power and resources between centre and locality. This analysis allows a more realistic assessment, than current political debate offers, of the likelihood, and possible nature, of constitutional (federalist) reform which many hope to see during the 13th legislature of the Republic.

Bruno Dente

Papers

Understanding Policy Decisions

Recasting Institutionalism: Institutional Analysis and Public Policy

The dynamics of institutional change : local government reorganization in western democracies

Environmental policy in search of new instruments

Sub‐national governments in the long Italian transition