ABSTRACT
The Fisheries Conservation and Management Act established a national management program to regulate fishing activities within the 200-mile fishery conservation zone. Moreover, the fishery management plans and fishing quotas result from bargaining within the councils and interactions between the councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Beyond informational requirements, the decision-making process of the councils is further complicated by the structure of the fisheries management councils and their relationship to the federal government. The chapter argues that the development of a positive model which recognizes the empirical conditions and constraints appropriate to the decision environment of the councils. Internal simplicity can be preserved under complexity if the number of decision makers concerned with the problem is increased. The chapter also argues that to understand how the structure and analytical requirements were interrelated in the decision process required an examination of two models of the decision-making process; namely, strategic and synoptic.
