Cass R. Sunstein

Bio: Cass R. Sunstein is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supreme court & Constitution. The author has an hindex of 117, co-authored 787 publications receiving 57639 citations. Previous affiliations of Cass R. Sunstein include Brigham Young University & Indiana University.

Deliberative Democracy in the Trenches

Abstract: In the last decades, many political theorists have explored the idea of “deliberative democracy.” The basic claim is that well-functioning democracies combine accountability with a commitment to reflection, information acquisition, multiple perspectives, and reason-giving. Does that claim illuminate actual practices? Much of the time, the executive branch in the United States combines both democracy and deliberation, not least because it places a high premium on reason-giving and the acquisition of necessary information. It also contains a high degree of internal diversity, encouraging debate and disagreement, not least through the public comment process. These claims are illustrated with concrete, if somewhat stylized, discussions of how the executive branch often operates.

Moneyball for State Regulators

Abstract: For over thirty years, Republican and Democratic presidents have required executive agencies to assess the costs and benefits of significant regulations, and to proceed only if the benefits justify the costs (to the extent permitted by law). The goals of the resulting processes have been to constrain unjustified regulation, to promote interagency coordination, and to allow a degree of centralized management of what can be a cumbersome bureaucratic apparatus. Unfortunately, state and local governments sometimes impose costly requirements, undisciplined by careful analysis of their likely consequences. New institutions at the state level, producing such analysis, could be highly beneficial, replacing processes sometimes driven by anecdotes, dogmas, emotions, and interest-group pressures with a form of Regulatory Moneyball.

Clear Statement Principles and National Security: Hamdan and Beyond

Abstract: In resolving conflicts between individual rights and national security, the Supreme Court has often said that Congress must unambiguously authorize presidential action; the Court has also attempted to ensure that defendants are not deprived of their liberty except pursuant to fair trials. These decisions, a form of liberty-promoting minimalism, reject claims of unilateral or exclusive presidential authority. The Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld reflects a distinctive clear statement principle, one that bans the President from convening a military commission, or otherwise departing from the standard adjudicative forms, unless Congress explicitly authorizes him to do so. The Court's conclusion diverges sharply from a plausible alternative view, which is that in view of the President's role as Commander-in-Chief, he should be permitted to construe ambiguous enactments as he see fits. The Court's approach has implications for numerous other problems involved in the war on terror. Most generally, it suggests the need for clear congressional authorization for presidential action that intrudes on liberty or departs from well-established historical practices. More specifically, it significantly weakens the President's argument on behalf of the legality of warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Abstract: Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions.

Abstract: Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their limitations. A systematic search of electronic databases and consultation with behaviour change experts were used to identify frameworks of behaviour change interventions. These were evaluated according to three criteria: comprehensiveness, coherence, and a clear link to an overarching model of behaviour. A new framework was developed to meet these criteria. The reliability with which it could be applied was examined in two domains of behaviour change: tobacco control and obesity. Nineteen frameworks were identified covering nine intervention functions and seven policy categories that could enable those interventions. None of the frameworks reviewed covered the full range of intervention functions or policies, and only a minority met the criteria of coherence or linkage to a model of behaviour. At the centre of a proposed new framework is a 'behaviour system' involving three essential conditions: capability, opportunity, and motivation (what we term the 'COM-B system'). This forms the hub of a 'behaviour change wheel' (BCW) around which are positioned the nine intervention functions aimed at addressing deficits in one or more of these conditions; around this are placed seven categories of policy that could enable those interventions to occur. The BCW was used reliably to characterise interventions within the English Department of Health's 2010 tobacco control strategy and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence's guidance on reducing obesity. Interventions and policies to change behaviour can be usefully characterised by means of a BCW comprising: a 'behaviour system' at the hub, encircled by intervention functions and then by policy categories. Research is needed to establish how far the BCW can lead to more efficient design of effective interventions.

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Abstract: Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

Risk as Feelings

Abstract: Virtually all current theories of choice under risk or uncertainty are cognitive and consequentialist. They assume that people assess the desirability and likelihood of possible outcomes of choice alternatives and integrate this information through some type of expectation-based calculus to arrive at decision. The authors propose an alternative theoretical perspective, the risk-as-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experienced at the moment of decision making. Drawing on research from clinical, physiological, and other subfield of psychology, they show that emotional reactions to risky situations often drive behavior. The risk-as-feelings hypothesis is shown to explain a wide range of phenomena that have resisted interpretation in cognitive-consequentialist terms.

A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality.

Abstract: Early studies of intuitive judgment and decision making conducted with the late Amos Tversky are reviewed in the context of two related concepts: an analysis of accessibility, the ease with which thoughts come to mind; a distinction between effortless intuition and deliberate reasoning. Intuitive thoughts, like percepts, are highly accessible. Determinants and consequences of accessibility help explain the central results of prospect theory, framing effects, the heuristic process of attribute substitution, and the characteristic biases that result from the substitution of nonextensional for extensional attributes. Variations in the accessibility of rules explain the occasional corrections of intuitive judgments. The study of biases is compatible with a view of intuitive thinking and decision making as generally skilled and successful.