Analytics and Beliefs: Competing Explanations for Defining Problems and Choosing Allies and Opponents in Collaborative Environmental Management

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Weible, Christopher M.; Moore, Richard H.
• 署名单位: University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Denver; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Children's Hospital Colorado; University System of Georgia; Georgia Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02203.x
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 756-766
• 关键词: biased assimilation; attitude polarization; institutions; KNOWLEDGE; science

摘要

The rationale for collaborative environmental management often hinges on two factors: first, specialized training creates biased analytics that require multidisciplinary approaches to solve policy problems; second, normative beliefs among competing actors must be included in policy making to give the process legitimacy and to decide trans-scientific problems. These two factors are tested as drivers of conflict in an analysis of 76 watershed partnerships. The authors find that analytical bias is a secondary factor to normative beliefs; that depicting the primary driver of conflict in collaborative environmental management as between experts and nonexperts is inaccurate; that compared to the life and physical sciences, the social sciences and liberal arts have a stronger impact on beliefs and choice of allies and opponents; and that multiple measures are needed to capture the effect of analytical biases. The essay offers lessons for public administrators and highlights the limitations and generalizations of other governing approaches.