ABSTRACT
The chapter seeks to help policymakers, managers and consultants with examining their complex decision-making in practice. The main arguments supporting and opposing a decision are often expressive and social rational. Instrumental argumentation is more dominant in the discussion of conditions and alternative policies that suggest new or additional means to reach the intended ends. The negative evaluation indicates the need to search for different means or better policies to realize intended effects, in order to increase alignment. The force of expressive-rational arguments in public debates depends partly on how many people want to oppose effects that result from instrumental-rational decisions due to their inconvenient, frustrating or upsetting nature, as illustrated for flex work. The impact of social rationality in the Gurkha debate is quite forceful, with its high degree of value alignment across all stakeholders. The value conflict between gender equality and freedom of expression makes it difficult to frame the niqab only as irrational on social grounds.
