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Abstract
Behavioral theory states that decision-makers engage in search in response to a performance shortfall. However, public administration research has remained remarkably inattentive of decision-makers' attention. This study conceptually disentangles problem-defining and solution-generation as two distinct search objectives, in order to test theoretical expectations concerning individual decision-makers' search in response to negative performance. Using a survey experiment among 1,562 political and managerial public sector decision-makers across 263 local government organizations that links factual performance feedback about budgetary performance and citizen satisfaction to a behavioral measure of both search objectives, the study finds increased solution-generation search in response to negative budgetary performance feedback, but not in response to low citizen satisfaction. Search of politicians and managers is found to be highly similar. These findings contribute to a behavioral understanding of how performance information influences search by politicians and managers, and reveal novel research avenues about information-processing that are of particular relevance to public administration research and theory.

Content analysis of testimonies given by Alaskan natives at the congressional hearings held in 1968; some emphasis on land claims.

An ethnic minority's influence in agenda setting rests on the ability and the opportunity to construct and present an identity as a group of selfreflecting subjects. The process' significance is demonstrated through an analysis of the agenda that led to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. (SJK)

AbstractProblem definition is the most important phase of the system dynamics modeling process. In this paper, we propose an approach to enrich the problem definition process based on a continuous and conscious effort to elicit the hidden ambiguities of the dynamic hypothesis, and transform these ambiguities into questions. The answers to these questions would in turn sharpen the definition of the problem, and improve the dynamic hypothesis. We show how this approach can help in building models that are more suited to the real‐world dynamic problems and policy design. Finally, we proposed some guidelines for revealing ambiguities as a basis to problem definition and dynamic hypothesis in an iterative process. Copyright © 2012 System Dynamics Society.

AbstractIn the agenda-setting process, prior to the decision-making process, there is a predecisional process whereby some issues are systematically blocked by powerful actors from being placed on the formal agenda. These issues are termed "nondecisions". This article argues that the predecisional process exists not only at the issue level but also at the level of problem definitions. Because of the empirical challenge of studying problem definitions that are not on the formal agenda, the article suggests examining problem definitions that were on the formal agenda and then disappeared from it. Such problem definitions can be termed nondecisions when their disappearance is due to latent power mechanisms, such as anticipated reactions or information control. The article tests these arguments using two American policy cases: prescription drug prices and child care. In so doing, it sheds light on the predecisional process and expands our understanding of the politics of problem definitions.

This article examines the impacts of problem definition, defined as a social mechanism, in bringing about gradual institutional change. Focusing on a similar process of gradual institutional change in Canada and Australia, it shows that problem definition is one pathway by which actors' interests and behaviors are redefined inside an institutional regime. By tracing the process of federalization of Canada and Australia's immigration regime since the 1990, it demonstrates that problem definition contributed to the rise of subnational governments as legitimate actors in the management of immigration. In these two countries, the specificities of the operation of this mechanism, including the actors mobilized for change, and the content of the policy problem being put forward generated different processes of federalization that nonetheless resulted in inclusive immigration federalism. In dialogue with historical institutionalism, this points to the potential of the mechanismic approach for theory building regarding the consequences of the dynamics of problem definition.