Panel Paper:
Does Simon’s (1947) Rational Decision-Making Model Really Exist?
Friday, March 29, 2019
Mary Graydon Center - Room 315 (American University)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
This paper discusses the limitations of Simon’s bounded rationality concept in resolving policy problems. While Simon (1947) presented the concept of bounded rationality as an alternative to the ideal policymaking model, I argue in this paper that bounded rationality is more practical in approaching policy problems because decision makers often act under the conditions of three constraining factors:1) it excludes political nature of policymaking, 2) problem settings, and 3) the role of people’s intentions, bias and group behavior in resolving policy problems. Therefore, the rational decision-making model is utopian, ideal and hard to implement or follow, particularly in the complex nature of policy problems in real settings for at least three reasons. First, Simon’s bounded rationality concept fails to consider the political nature of policymaking as an obstacle to achieving rational decisions. Second, bounded rationality excludes problem settings from the process of resolving a problem, resulting in a roadmap to resolving policy problems that is broad, hard to adopt and difficult to tailor to the specific institution or cultural context. Third, bounded rationality misrepresents the role of people’s intentions, bias and group behavior when Simon (1947) focused only on the limited knowledge of a policy maker as an obstacle to achieving rational decisions.
