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Decision by Interpretation: A New Concept for an Often Overlooked Decision Mode

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Jürg Steiner  and
Robert H. Dorff
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Extract

This paper deals with political decision making in face-to-face groups. We begin by considering the range of decision modes available in group situations. It may seem that there is a choice between only two: a group may resolve a conflict either in a competitive way through the application of the majority principle or in a co-operative way in the sense of accommodation and amicable agreement. However, there is a third decision mode which is often overlooked in the literature: decision by interpretation. We have coined this term in a recent study of intra-party decision making in the Swiss Free Democratic party. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the main properties of the new concept and to demonstrate that its application goes far beyond intra-party decision making and the cultural context of Switzerland. In a broader project about political decision modes in general we have put the concept of decision by interpretation into a theoretical context, examining both its causes and consequences. Here, we shall limit ourselves to a few considerations about the direction in which we have developed the theory.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 This distinction is made in consociational theory. See, for example, Lijphart, Arend, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

2 Steiner, Jürg and Dorff, Robert H., A Theory of Political Decision Modes: Intra-Party Decision-Making in Switzerland (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).Google Scholar

3 Eight additional meetings were not observed because of illness, military service and professional conferences on the part of the observer.

4 By latent conflicts we mean disagreements among the actors of a group that do not appear on the formal agenda of a meeting. We have also tried to explore these latent conflicts by observing interactions outside the formal meetings.

5 Proposals belong to the same conflict if the acceptance of one proposal necessarily excludes the acceptance of all other proposals.

6 In a much broader sense, the concept of non-decision was introduced into the literature by Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., ‘Two Faces of Power’, American Political Science Review, LVI (1962), 947–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Crossman, Richard, inside View (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972), pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

8 Crossman, , Inside View, p. 50.Google Scholar

9 Walker, Patrick Gordon, The Cabinet (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 151.Google Scholar

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11 El-Hakim, Sherif, ‘The Structure and Dynamics of Consensus Decision-Making’, Man, xiii (1978), 55–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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15 Personal communication by James W. White, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

16 Personal communication by Kay Lawson, San Francisco State University.

17 Based on unsystematic observation.

18 Meeting of 7 September 1970.

19 The importance of ‘decision-drafting technique’ for the British cabinet is underscored by Grossman, , inside View, p. 48.Google Scholar

20 Meeting of 7 September 1970.

21 For majority decisions the implementation rate is 97 per cent, for amicable agreement 89 per cent.

22 To measure political status in the party we used the three ‘classical’ indicators of position, participation and reputation.

23 See for example, Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962).Google Scholar