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Legitimacy and quality of multi‐criteria environmental policy analysis: a meta analysis of five MCE studies in Norway
Author(s) -
Wenstøp Fred,
Seip Knut
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of multi‐criteria decision analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.462
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1099-1360
pISSN - 1057-9214
DOI - 10.1002/mcda.289
Subject(s) - legitimacy , multiple criteria decision analysis , valuation (finance) , quality (philosophy) , management science , environmental policy , public economics , environmental economics , economics , business , political science , operations research , engineering , accounting , law , epistemology , philosophy , politics
This paper argues for multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) as a tool in environmental policy analysis. From an ethical point of view, neither rule‐based methods, nor benefit–cost analyses (BCA) are sufficient. Multi‐criteria decision analysts need, however, to be concerned about the legitimacy and quality of their applications. Neuro‐physiological evidence indicates that a necessary, but not sufficient, criterion for quality is that the decision‐makers experience emotions in the valuation process. Without emotions, and in contrast to popular belief, its valuation part is liable to be out of proportion with the range of values held by reasonable selections of the society. This paper proposes criteria for evaluation of legitimacy and quality, reviews five applications in Norway of MCDA for environmental policy, but finds that there is no clear relationship between the legitimacy and quality of the studies and their significance for decision‐makers. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.