ABSTRACT
This chapter presents elements of a general decision-making process and examines what appear to be the main institutional features of marine policy-making and execution. With respect to the idea of a “life cycle” for the decision or policy process, several summary observations about marine and ocean policy are worth making. Any one of the individual phases of the decision-making process could be singled out for more detailed attention, especially such areas as the information, resources, demands, and institutions that are operating or that could be devised to improve current prevailing practice. Much decision-making activity in marine affairs during the last decade appears to have been conducted without benefit of suitable or adequate information and intelligence about the nature of the problems being confronted. The identification and assessment of actors and clients, both those who stand to benefit and those who inevitably lose, is an overtly political activity that continues throughout the entire decision process.
