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This study addressed some of the research gaps in the area of organizational politics by examining politics as a group-level construct, directly testing for the cross-level effects of various predictors, and providing insight into the nature of conflict processes involved in the development of politics. Data from 69 academic departments in six prominent Canadian universities provided support for the precursory role of conflict processes. Both intradepartmental task and relationship conflict were associated with political climate perceptions. Using the climate etiology literature, several multi-level antecedents (individual, departmental, disciplinary) of department-level politics were examined, but only individual-level role conflict emerged as a predictor. The non-significant effects of macro-level paradigm development and department rank heterogeneity are discussed in light of substantive and methodological factors.

The current state of relations between the Canadian government & aboriginal peoples in Canada is examined, focusing on psychological motivations behind Canadian people's behaviors toward the Native peoples. An overview of the legal impediments to indigenous persons' rights & the slow resolution of land disputes between Native peoples & the Canadian state is presented. Two cases illustrating the contentious state of Canadian-Native relations -- the state's use of the Canadian Armed Forces to overcome a Native blockade in Quebec & the Native lobbies against creating hydroelectric dams around James Bay -- are provided & subsequently used to document the psychological foundations of policies against Native peoples. It is contended that state policies attempt to dehumanize Native peoples in order to justify their disreputable treatment. J. Platt's (1973) notion of the social fence is recalled to explain bureaucrats' unwillingness to intervene on behalf of Canada's indigenous peoples. Several recommendations for eliminating the imposition of structural violence on Native peoples are offered, eg, establishing a higher authority. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 116 References. J. W. Parker

Policy makers constantly face uncertainty, which makes achieving their goals problematic. To overcome this uncertainty, they employ tools to drive down uncertainty and make probabilistic decisions. We provide a method for scholars to assess empirically how actors make probabilistic predictions. We focus on the interactions between the executive and judicial branches, analyzing the conditions under which justices force the United States to provide them with information. Our approach generates substantive knowledge about interbranch behavior as well as a methodological innovation available to scholars who study political decision making under conditions of limited information.

'Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis: A Study of Political Decision-Making' by Barbara Rearden Farnham is reviewed.

Building on a widely held account of transparency as integral to legitimate and successful governance, this article addresses the question of how transparency in decision-making can influence public perceptions of political decision-making. An original experiment with 1099 participants shows that people who perceive political decision-making to be transparent judge the degree of procedural fairness highly and are more willing to accept the final decision. Perceptions of transparency are, however, largely shaped by transparency cues (e.g. statements provided by external sources) rather than by the degree of actual transparency, and no direct effect of actual transparency can be found on decision acceptance. The implication is that it is difficult to influence people's acceptance of political decisions by means of transparency reforms, as people base their assessments of political decisions largely on considerations other than evalutations of actual decision-making procedures.

What impact does Virtual Reality (VR) have on political decision-making? By means of a 2 (format: VR vs. text) x 2 (argumentation: pro vs. con) between-subject factorial experiment, we assessed participants' voting outcomes on a fictitious initiative. Participants (N=175) first cast their vote with the traditional Swiss voting booklet. Next, participants were randomly assigned to either a VR or text stimulus (Swiss voting booklet) containing the same pro- or con-arguments. Finally, they could adjust their previously cast vote, if they wished. The presentation mode has an effect on participants' voting outcomes. For both, the pro and con VR scenarios, participants show an increase of YES votes, in favor of the presented initiative. These findings are reflected in the retrospective think aloud interviews conducted after the experiment. With this research, we hope to further shed light on how VR could be leveraged for the benefit of society in the political decisionmaking domain.

Openness and transparency, i.e. free and fair elections and the idea of enlightened citizens that can hold governments accountable, are cornerstones in modern democratic thinking. However, the aspirations of openness and transparency also inherit challenges, also in Sweden considered being one of the most open countries in the world. This is also the case in a regional context, characterized by collaborative planning, multi-level governance and network governance. In this qualitative empirical study based on interviews with political leaders from the Stockholm region, it is explored how openness and transparency is interpreted in regional political decision making. An institutional framework of four levels of social analysis (Williamson, 2000) and theories relating to democratic ideal, governance and the public sphere are used to understand and explain the mechanisms operating when dealing with openness and transparency in political decision making. ; QC 20170914