ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an excellent overview of recent work in the area of individual-level expertise, and presents some important findings about the relationship between decision making and a number of cognitive concepts. The collection is underpinned by the basic assumption that to understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their roles and what drives or motivates them. Regardless of which frame of reference is adopted, the vast majority of scholarship on the making of public policy decisions downplays the role and influence of individual actors. The chapter explores by painting a richly descriptive picture of what the trajectory of skills development might look like for actors involved in the making of public policy decisions. Marcy listed a set of implications for the relationship between expertise, stress, affect, and emotional distance and public sector leadership and problem solving.
