A Participatory Multi-Criteria Decision Process in Public Administration

Abstract

In public administration, different methodological approaches can be adopted to facilitate interventions for different problem situations. Multi-criteria aid models (MCDA) are proposed to the solving problems which deal with several complexities and obstacles. Many facets must be considered to present a decision process for which an analyst’s intervention has been requested: to name the involved actors and to explain their roles, the decision aiding process and its orientation towards a specific aim in relation to the decision process, the evaluation model, the modelling process and its validation, the use of the adopted multi-criteria method, the results produced and their use. A first aim of the paper is to distinguish between different Public Administration problem situations and decision contexts in which MC applications are developed, taking in consideration that societal complexity calls for stakeholder participation, for facilitating communication between the government, citizens, stakeholders and interest groups, and businesses regarding a specific decision or problem. A second aim consists on pointing out how to build a participatory decision process and to apply it in a real case.