Dissonance and decision-making mistakes in the age of risk
Abstract
Scholars of public and foreign policy have emphasized the role of decision processes in the creation of policy failures and fiascos and have demonstrated the importance that psychological factors play in policy mistakes. Using Ulrich Beck's notion of world risk society and drawing on advances in our understanding of a key psychological factor central to decision-making pathologies – cognitive dissonance – this contribution explores the ways in which features of the risk era could alter important decision dynamics and increase decision-making mistakes. In combination with the catastrophic potential of world risk society, this would suggest an increase in the frequency of policy-making fiascos. Bridging the gap between the ‘macro’ conditions of globalization and the ‘micro’ processes of decision-making also challenges our conception of both the nature and sources of policy-making mistakes and suggests that our scholarly understanding of ‘decision-making mistakes’ may need rethinking.
Citation
Beasley , R 2016 , ' Dissonance and decision-making mistakes in the age of risk ' , Journal of European Public Policy , vol. 23 , no. 5 , pp. 771-787 . https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2015.1127276
Publication
Journal of European Public Policy
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1350-1763Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright 2016 Taylor and Francis. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2015.1127276
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