ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the study of decision-making would gain by making explicit and systematic an analytic category—the contexts of the issues—specifying the situations in which issues occur and their impact on the decision-makers. The subject matter of the issue—the tariff, public versus private power, conservation—obviously helps determine the interests and the particular decision-makers who are concerned with the problem. The analysis of issue-contexts is merely one tool which must be used in conjunction with many others to explain what has happened. The chapter deals with a statement of how differences in issue-contexts affect the behavior of decision-makers. It demonstrates how the analysis of issue-contexts may be used to help account for behavior in two major cases—Dixon-Yates and Gotham in the Air Age. The chapter presents conclusions bearing on the analysis of issue-contexts for explanatory purposes and for assisting administrators. The possibility of using issue-contexts to make comparisons among the mass of case histories already accumulated is especially inviting.
