“Social” Multicriteria Evaluation: Methodological Foundations and Operational Consequences

1. “Social” Multicriteria Evaluation: Methodological Foundations and Operational Consequences Giuseppe Munda Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Dept. of Economics and Economic History Ed. B 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain e_mail: giuseppe.munda@uab.es

2. Structure of the talk • Why Social Multicriteria Evaluation (SMCE)? • How such an approach should be developed? • Conclusions

3. addressed Complexity is an inherent property of natural and social systems ignored

4. COMPLEXITY COMPLEX SYSTEMS CANNOT BE CAPTURED BY A SINGLE DIMENTION/PERSPECTIVE

5. Complexity: the ontological dimension the existence of different levels and scales at which a hierarchical system can be analyzed implies the unavoidable existence of non-equivalent descriptions of it

7. Complexity: the epistemological dimension

8. Different dimensions hard and topologies soft EMERGENT COMPLEXITY Different values and perspectives

9. "The issue is not whether it is only the marketplace that can determine value, for economists have long debated other means of valuation; our concern is with the assumption that in any dialogue, all valuations or "numeraires" should be reducible to a single one-dimension standard". (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994, p. 198)

10. S. Funtowicz, J. Ravetz facts are uncertain values in dispute stakes high decisions urgent Decision Stakes Post Normal Science Professional Consultancy Academic Science Uncertainty

11. Strong comparability Weak commensurability Strong commensurability Weak comparability incommensurability

12. TECHNICAL INCOMMENSURABILITY • SOCIAL INCOMMENSURABILITY NAIADE 2 matrices

13. Multi-, inter-, trans-disciplinarity? • Multi-: each expert takes his part • Inter-: methodological choices are discussed across the disciplines • Informing the others about object matter • Criticism, reflexivity • Trans-: What is it? ....

14. Consequences: 1) MULTIDISCIPLINARITY

16. Consequence:2) PARTICIPATIVE TECHNIQUES • In-Depth Interviews • Focus Groups • Questionnaires • Institutional Analysis

17. VALSE: Structure of the Troina Case Study

18. Step 1: Evaluation of alternatives 1. Alternatives Generation Historical analysis Alternatives A1 A2 Citizen Participation An Institution. analysis 2. Information Structuring System Dimensions and Hierarchical Scales Environmental Economical Social International, National, Regional, Local Data Collection and Participation 3. MCE Algorithm Criteria Selection Citizen Participation Mixed Information Alternatives Evaluation Technical and Social Rankings Step 2: Diffusion of results • Existence of • multiple values 2. School visits 3. Citizens meetings 4. International Symposium Objectives and Methodology of DIAFANIS • Why a conflict exists? • Which alternatives exist? • Which system dimensions can be affected? • How alternatives can be evaluated? • What means transparency?

19. Consequences: 3) ETHICS MATTERS

20. Weights in a social framework Political Democracy Economic Democracy Sustainability Precautionary Principle

21. K. Arrow, H. Raynaud (1986): “Social choice and multicriterion decision making” Consequence: 4)THE AXIOMATIZATION ISSUE

22. Desirable Properties for SMCEAggregation Conventions

23. The idea of social incommensurability implies: • Multicriteria methods must be as simple as possible to guarantee transparency. • Weights in this framework are clearly meaningful only as importance coefficients and not as trade-off. As a consequence, complete compensability cannot be implemented. • Sensitivity and robustness analysis have to check the consequences on the final ranking of only some clear ethical positions and not of all the possible combinations of weights. • Conflict analysis procedures explicitly looking for social compromises should integrate a SMCE exercise. • In a policy framework, to have a ranking of all the alternatives is more useful than just to select one alternative only; this implies that dominated alternatives cannot be excluded a priori.

24. From the idea of technical incommensurability: • Partial or complete non-compensability is an essential consistency requirement. • Indifference and preference thresholds should be explicitly taken into account. • Mixed information of the widest type should be addressed in a consistent way. • Simplicity, meaning the use of as less parameters as possible, is a very desirable property. • The hierarchical dimension of a policy problem should be explicitly considered.

25. Table 1. Example of evaluation of some multicriteria methods according to proposed desirable properties for SMCE

26. Is SMCE relevant for the study of Sustainability?

27. Yang: ECONOMICS GDP

28. Yin: ECOLOGY

29. QUALITY OF PRODUCT CONSISTENCY PROCEDURAL RATIONALITY LEARNING HOLARCHIES ETHICS RESPONSIBILITY QUALITY OF “SOCIAL” PROCESS TRANSPARENCY PARTICIPATION MULTI/INTER-DISCIPLINARITY

30. Social Multicriteria Evaluation • MCDM (technocratic) • MCDA (technocratic) • non-algorithmic MCE (loss of the algorithmic component) • Participative MCE (loss of the algorithmic component) • Social MCE • (how to integrate mathematical • tools with social processes)

31. SMCE MCDM MCDA PMCE MCDM MCDA