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Choosing Inaction

The story of Flint and how the crisis was mishandled is about wanting problems to go away by wearing those down that complain about it. In this instance, the people prevailed but a huge and tragic cost. Back in Delhi, the people are resigned lot as they have never experienced a win - they simply don't believe its possible, so an outcome even remotely close to Flint is impossible. 

This paper about inaction in public policy breaks it down perfectly and distill it to a few root causes:

Unconflicted adherence to the status quo, by selective attention to information about past, present or future conditions and selective interpretation and forgetting of information that conflicts with their benign interpretation of the status quo;

Shifting responsibility (‘buck passing’) for taking a decision or acting on a signal to other people, departments or organisations;

Bolstering decisions already taken in the past by rationalising away the need to reconsider them;

Procrastination, i.e. continued indecision while searching for more information, engaging in further deliberation or determining to defer the making of a decision.







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