Plan Design as Committee Decisionmaking

In this paper an approach is presented to the modeling of highly structured decision processes, such as those resembling formal committee decisionmaking in which plans and designs are produced. Two such models are developed and compared here. First, the model proposed by van den Bogaard and Verslius, in which an optimal plan for resource allocation is produced, is discussed, and then the framework developed by Coleman for resolving problems of collective action is outlined. The equivalence of these two models in terms of the way each model determines the importance or weight of individual decisionmakers in resource allocation is examined. In each model, these weights are related to the degree of symmetry between actors, through their losses and gains in the Bogaard-Verslius model and through the exchange of resources in the Coleman model. Roskamp and McMeekin's operationalisation of the Bogaard-Verslius model is then outlined and their data for resource allocation in a small West German town are used to fit the Coleman model. Comparisons and practical interpretations of the various equivalences between these two models are suggested as a way of generating more appropriate models and theories of the planning process in the manner introduced here.