We argued earlier that governance is about governing, and governing is primarily a matter of decision-making. The functionalist approach typically includes decision-making as a core function of government, and the definition of politics in systems theory as the “authoritative allocation of values” also identifies decision-making as the essence of governing (Easton, 1965). Unfortunately, much of the structuralfunctionalist and systems theoretical work of that period tended to treat decision-making in the passive voice. That is, saying “decisions are made” does not really provide a great deal of understanding of how decisions are made or who makes them.

Decision-making is action, not debate. It is about making final priorities and allocating public resources to various programs and purposes, but it is also about settling disputes, enforcing rules, and bringing closure to issues. Again, we need to consider how those decisions are made and the manner in which different types of actors are involved. Perhaps most importantly, there is no single answer about the who and how of decision-making, and our comparative analysis of governance becomes all the more important as a means of understanding the varieties of governance available.

We will argue that in order to understand the linkage between decision-making theory and governance theory, we need to think of decision-making not just as a formal or legal process designed to facilitate debate and formal decisions but also as a societal process where governing institutions set priorities for society and impose regulation and other authoritative measures to involve society in the pursuit of those collective priorities. Some time ago now, Riker (1962: 10–11), echoing Lasswell (1936), pointed out that “if, as Easton asserts, politics is the authoritative allocation of values and if … ‘allocation’ refers not to a physical process but to a social process of deciding how a physical process shall be carried out, then the subject studied by political scientists is decision making.” This perspective on decision-making emphasizes the centrality of decision-making, both in governance and in the study of politics. The focus on decision-making is not an artifact of the functionalist approach to governance; the argument is rather that decision-making is the critical, defining phase of the policy-making process and in governance more broadly.