One of the core complexities involved in evaluating decision alternatives in the area of public decision-making is to deal with conflicts. The stakeholders affected by and involved in the decision often have conflicting preferences regarding the actions under consideration. For an executive authority, these differences of opinion can be problematic, during both implementation and communication, even though the decision is rational with respect to an attribute set perceived to represent social welfare. It is therefore important to involve the stakeholders in the process and to get an understanding of their preferences. Otherwise, the stakeholder disagreement can lead to costly conflicts. One way of approaching this problem is to provide means for comprehensive, yet effective stakeholder preference elicitation methods, where the stakeholders can state their preferences with respect to actions part of the current agenda of a government. In this paper we contribute two supporting methods: (i) an application of the cardinal ranking (CAR) method for preference elicitation for conflict evaluations and (ii) two conflict indices for measuring stakeholder conflicts. The application of the CAR method utilizes a do nothing alternative to differentiate between positive and negative actions. The elicited preferences can then be used as input to the two conflict indices indicating the level of conflict within a stakeholder group or between two stakeholder groups. The contributed methods are demonstrated in a real-life example carried out in the municipality of Upplands Vasby, Sweden. We show how a questionnaire can be used to elicit preferences with CAR and how the indices can be used to semantically describe the level of consensus and conflict regarding a certain attribute. As such, we show how the methods can provide decision aid in the clarification of controversies.

中文翻译：

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使用基数排名衡量冲突：在决策分析冲突评估中的应用

在公共决策领域评估决策备选方案所涉及的核心复杂性之一是处理冲突。受决策影响并参与决策的利益相关者在所考虑的行动上往往有不同的偏好。对于行政机关来说，即使在决定被认为代表社会福利的属性方面是合理的，在执行和沟通期间，这些意见分歧也可能是有问题的。因此，重要的是要让利益相关者参与此过程并了解他们的偏好。否则，利益相关者的分歧会导致代价高昂的冲突。解决此问题的一种方法是为全面，有效的利益相关者偏好启发方法提供手段，利益相关者可以在政府当前议程中表达对行动的偏好。在本文中，我们提供了两种支持方法：（i）将基数排序（CAR）方法用于偏好评估以进行冲突评估，以及（ii）两种衡量利益相关者冲突的冲突指数。CAR方法的应用利用无奈选择来区分正面和负面行动。然后，所引起的偏好可以用作两个冲突指数的输入，以指示利益相关者组内部或两个利益相关者组之间的冲突级别。在瑞典的Upplands Vasby市进行的一个实际案例中证明了所提供的方法。我们展示了如何使用CAR来引发问卷调查，以及如何使用索引来语义描述关于特定属性的共识和冲突程度。这样，我们说明了这些方法如何在澄清争议中提供决策帮助。