Publication

Issue prioritisation decisions by local politicians: the role of order effects and justification requirements

In this article, Amandine Lerusse, investigates how the order of performance information affects local politicians’ issue prioritisation decisions.

Author: Amandine Lerusse
Date: 08 July 2024
Links: Read the full article here

This study examines the extent to which order effects influence politicians’ issue prioritisation decisions and the extent to which potential cognitive biases can be reduced via a debiasing technique. Furthermore, this study aims to evualate the extent to which justification requirements can be implemented as a debiasing technique among politicians.

In this study, the author uses survey-experiment data and takes as takes a behavioural approach. This study finds that the order of the evidence does not influence politicians’ issue prioritisation decisions at the local level. In relation, this study finds that politicians who have to justify their issue prioritisation decisions spent, on average, 21.8% more time on the decision-making task. Yet, local politicians pay more attention to the evidence when asked to justify their issue prioritisation decisions. This study also discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the study findings.