POLI 357 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Satisficing, Seroconversion, Health Canada

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 357
• Professor: Chance Minnett

Document Summary

Poli 357 rationality and incrementalism september. Many models that we use in political science presume rationality, and actor rationality is one of the primary assumptions made in models. Charles li(cid:374)d(cid:271)lo(cid:373) said i(cid:374) (cid:862)the (cid:272)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)e of muddli(cid:374)g through(cid:863) that i(cid:374) rational-comprehensive models, actors: Comprehensive rationality treats this as unrealistic, but ideal. We (cid:272)a(cid:374)(cid:859)t possibly do all of these perfectly but it is an ideal type in which we wish we could. We expect policy makers to follow these steps and do them well. We understand ourselves to be boundedly rational we ha(cid:448)e li(cid:373)ited ti(cid:373)e to do resear(cid:272)h, or do(cid:374)(cid:859)t (cid:374)e(cid:272)essaril(cid:455) ha(cid:448)e the ti(cid:373)e. Preferences are actually hard to pin down, and shaped by a variety of factors (faith, upbringing, geography, class, gender, profession, etc. ) Olutio(cid:374)s are(cid:374)(cid:859)t readil(cid:455) a(cid:448)aila(cid:271)le due to the above. Combination of these two things makes policy-making difficult. Solution to this is satisficing which leads to incrementalism. Boundedly rational policy makers likely to make incremental changes.