Acceptable Input: Using Decision Analysis to Guide Public Policy Deliberations

Multiparty deliberative processes have become a popular way to increase public participation in public policy choices. Their legitimacy depends on participants' ability, first, to understand the issues facing them and, then, to form and express their own positions on them. These tasks pose significant cognitive and emotional challenges. This paper argues that decision analysis, informed by behavioral decision research, offers procedures and standards for creating responsible deliberative processes. These involve (a) formal analysis of decisions, identifying the kernel of most relevant information, (b) communication procedures, recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of lay understanding, and (c) interactive elicitation methods, helping individuals to articulate the implications of their values for specific settings. A construct validity criterion assesses the extent to which the resulting valuations are properly sensitive to decision features. Feasible extensions of traditional decision analysis create opportunities to formalize the aspirations of participants and ensure that the intellectual content of deliberative processes is worthy of the political hopes vested in them.