Structural and Institutional Determinants of Influence Reputation: A Comparison of Collaborative and Adversarial Policy Networks in Decision Making and Implementation

The central assumption in the literature on collaborative networks and policy networks is that political outcomes are affected by a variety of state and nonstate actors. Some of these actors are more powerful than others and can therefore have a considerable effect on decision making. In this article, we seek to provide a structural and institutional explanation for these power differentials in policy networks and support the explanation with empirical evidence. We use a dyadic measure of influence reputation as a proxy for power, and posit that influence reputation over the political outcome is related to vertical integration into the political system by means of formal decision-making authority, and to horizontal integration by means of being well embedded into the policy network. Hence, we argue that actors are perceived as influential because of two complementary factors: (a) their institutional roles and (b) their structural positions in the policy network. Based on temporal and cross-sectional exponential random graph models, we compare five cases about climate, telecommunications, flood prevention, and toxic chemicals politics in Switzerland and Germany. The five networks cover national and local networks at different stages of the policy cycle. The results confirm that institutional and structural drivers seem to have a crucial impact on how an actor is perceived in decision making and implementation and, therefore, their ability to significantly shape outputs and service delivery.

Contrast-enhanced 3-D MRA in decision making for carotid endarterectomy: a 6-year experience

BACKGROUND: Systematic need for angiography in diagnosis of carotid artery stenosis and indication of surgical therapy is still debated. Noninvasive imaging techniques such as MR angiography (MRA) or CT angiography (CTA) offer an alternative to digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and are increasingly used in clinical practice. In this study, we present the radiological characteristics and clinical results of a series of patients operated on the basis of combined ultrasonography (US)/MRA. METHODS: This observational study included all the patients consecutively operated for a carotid stenosis in our Department from October 1998 to December 2004. The applied MRA protocol had previously been established in a large correlation study with DSA. DSA was used only in case of discordance between US and MRA. The preoperative radiological information furnished by MRA was compared with intraoperative findings. The outcome of the operation was assessed according to ECST criteria. RESULTS: Among 327 patients, preoperative MRA was performed in 278 (85%), DSA in 44 (13.5%) and CT angiography in 5 (1.5%). Most of DSA studies were performed as emergency for preparation of endovascular therapy or for reasons other than carotid stenosis. Eleven additional DSA (3.3%) complemented US/MRA, mostly because diverging diagnosis of subocclusion of ICA. No direct morbidity or intraoperative difficulty was related to preoperative MRA. Combined mortality/major morbidity rate was 0.9% (3 patients) and minor morbidity rate 5.5% (18 patients). CONCLUSIONS: This observational study describes a well-established practice of carotid surgery and supports the exclusive use of non invasive diagnostic imaging for indicating and deciding the operation.

Decision-making dysregulation in first-episode schizophrenia

Studies with chronic schizophrenia patients have demonstrated that patients fluctuate between rigid and unpredictable responses in decision-making situations, a phenomenon which has been called dysregulation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether schizophrenia patients already display dysregulated behavior at the beginning of their illness. Thirty-two first-episode schizophrenia or schizophreniform patients and 30 healthy controls performed the two-choice prediction task. The decision-making behavior of first-episode patients was shown to be characterized by a high degree of dysregulation accompanied by low metric entropy and a tendency towards increased mutual information. These results indicate that behavioral abnormalities during the two-choice prediction task are already present during the early stages of the illness.

Looking beneath the Surface: Differences in Decision-Making Structures across Processes

The previous chapter presented the overall decision-making structure in Swiss politics at the beginning of the 21st century. This provides us with a general picture and allows for a comparison over time with the decision-making structure in the 1970s. However, the analysis of the overall decision-making structure potentially neglects important differences between policy domains (Atkinson and Coleman 1989; Knoke et al. 1996; Kriesi et al. 2006a; Sabatier 1987). Policy issues vary across policy domains, as do the political actors involved. In addition, actors may hold different policy preferences from one policy domain to the next, and they may also collaborate with other partners depending on the policy domain at stake. Examining differences between policy domains is particularly appropriate in Switzerland. Because no fixed coalitions of government and opposition exist, actors create different coalitions in each policy domain (Linder and Schwarz 2008). Whereas important parts of the institutional setting are similar across policy domains, decision-making structures might still vary. As was the case with the cross-time analysis conducted in the two previous chapters, a stability of 'rules-in-form' might hide important variations in 'rules-in-use' also across different policy domains.