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All the factors which influence political decision-making may (reasonably) be integrated into a model which combines operational concepts of power, influence, and authority. The problem-solving approach is applied to one class of decisions, defined here as those made for social situations involving both technical and political factors. Political power seems necessarily to be engaged in a twofold form of activity. On the one hand it formulates the content of decisions to be made and is thereby affected by both the technical and political definition of the problem to be resolved. On the other hand, power is both an agent and an object of influence at every stage of the decisional process. Political power appears, then, to be a more comprehensive concept than either authority or influence. Its basic constituents are found in a fusion of the function of influence with the function of defining issues authoritatively. Authority is but one kind of influence while influence itself is simply one of the two chief functions of power.Power, before it is influential, is creative, inventive of ideas, and of solutions. Incorporation of these different categories into a model provides us with a systematic representation of the decision-making process of formulation, adoption, and execution. Particular attention is devoted to differentiating those components of behaviour on which authority is based from those which make the assessment of authority possible. On the whole, authoritative decision-making seems to be circumscribed by the original definition of the problem and by the decision-maker's personal under-standing. Up to a certain point this permits us to distinguish the part played by the force of given circumstances from that attributable to the free choice of the actors in a democratic political system. ; SCOPUS: ar.j ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

International audience ; American Enterprise Institute (AEI), The Heritage Foundation, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Cato Institute, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), ces think tanks conservateurs ont, aux Etats-Unis, exercé une influence considérable dans le formatage de la décision politique mais également dans la transformation de la production scientifique et des rapports de la recherche avec le monde politique, celui des affaires et le journalisme.

International audience ; American Enterprise Institute (AEI), The Heritage Foundation, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Cato Institute, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), ces think tanks conservateurs ont, aux Etats-Unis, exercé une influence considérable dans le formatage de la décision politique mais également dans la transformation de la production scientifique et des rapports de la recherche avec le monde politique, celui des affaires et le journalisme.

While the creation of public policies usually requires a process of consultation of the stakeholders, foreign policy is an exception to this rule. The concentration of the decision-making competences at the peak of the institutional architecture of the State is a characteristic that has lead scholars to consider it as pertaining to high politics. Nevertheless, identifying the main actors of decision-making is a relevant issue when it comes to the attribution of responsibility for a State's external action. This issue is at the heart of this article, which tries to locate this kind of responsibility for the post-communist Romanian foreign policy. Thus, after outlining the main theoretical tools that can be used for such an endeavor, the author proceeds to examine the legal and institutional framework that circumscribes foreign policy decision-making in Romania. The third part of the article is dedicated to a deeper approach to the informal relations established between the persons holding the key positions in the decision-making apparatus, based on a methodology that triangulates official documents, interviews with Romanian officials, and autobiographic texts published by the latter.

Chez l'Homme, les décisions ne sont pas seulement déterminées par la rationalité, mais se trouvent également fortement influencées par les émotions. Les recherches en neurosciences ont montré que le cerveau attribue une valeur affective à chacune des alternatives d'un choix. Cette valeur affective est basée sur une expérience émotionnelle actuelle ou anticipée. Les circuits neuronaux liés aux réponses émotionnelles sont réactivés lors d'un choix, au moment où le cerveau anticipe les futures conséquences de ce choix. Ces patterns d'activations résultent de mécanismes d'apprentissage liés à l'accumulation d'expériences émotionnelles. Nous décrivons ici les bases théoriques de ces processus adaptatifs liés au regret ainsi que les mécanismes neuronaux associés.

The study focuses on the functioning of the post-Communist Romanian cabinets from the perspective of the behavior of high-level government actors: ministers and state secretaries. The study underlines the empowerment of the executive decision on vertical axis, as well as role of the institutional logic in the formation of the cohesion networks among political actors. The insertion of governmental actors in these networks, on the basis of a coincidence of the institutional trajectories, lessen the instability of the governmental personnel and ensures a continuity of the decision-making process forged on the principle of the accumulation of executive experience. The study thus employs a two-fold approach. In a first instance, the author investigates personnel reshuffles, as a measure of personnel instability; the study also performs a quantitative analysis on the reproduction of political actors in executive functions. The second part of the article scrutinizes the effects generated by the personnel's dynamics on the decision-making procedures and the strategies adopted in order to lessen the discontinuities produced by the governmental actors' fluidity.

Décisions éclairées? Le rôle des scientifiques dans la gouvernance de l'UE Le rôle d'expertise technocratique et scientifique dans la gouvernance de l'UE est contesté. Cet article examine le degré de participation des scientifiques dans le processus décisionnel de l'UE et les conditions qui influent sur leur participation. L'étude utilise une base de données sur les groupes d'experts de la Commission européenne. Nous montrons que les scientifiques sont impliqués dans une grande partie des groupes d'experts organisés par la Commission européenne (un tiers), mais ils sont rarement les seuls participants. Nous montrons également que l'accès des scientifiques est plus probable dans la phase d'élaboration de la politique et que leur participation dépend de certains cadres institutionnels.

What is the value of the accusations of irrationality & ineffectiveness leveled at the traditional pol'as structures? If we understand rationality as the sense in which it is used by the engineer in the construction of a bridge, it is clear that pol'al judgement seldom meets this standard. But is this a correct statement of the problem? For the bystander, it is a simple thing to discover in politics many examples of incoherence & ineffectiveness. The periodic attempts made in the direction of correcting such errors (admin've reforms) remain unsuccessful. New techniques (operational res) involve only a small segment of Gov operations. Is this state of affairs due to a continuing problem arising from the very nature of Gov or is it merely an example of lag? The 1st hypothesis seems to be the correct one. The choice of the fundamental criteria of pol'al life cannot be made through rational methods: they are rather derived from ideologies that are themselves a result of ethical preconceptions. The rational calculus can be used to determine the means suitable to achieve the ends. However, there are many obstacles to the exclusive use of rational methods. Moreover, the politician remains, & must remain, the final judge of whether or not to apply the solutions arrived at by the technicians & the experts. The determination of what should be demanded from the citizenry & what should be imposed on it remains the major task of those in charge of the machinery of Gov. It may be necessary to approach the problem from another direction & to attempt to establish a rational pol'al model having its own irreducible traits that could be measured solely in terms of mechanical efficiency. However, the creator of this model is not yet able to specify the criteria & the variables for its establishment. Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA.