A Policy Impact Evaluation On The Three Gorges Dam Project Based On Bounded Rationality Theory

A viable globalization system requires not only an interconnectivity of nations, but also international integration free of orchestrated economic disparities, uncontrolled environmental destruction and tamed social deprivation. These global issues can be addressed if the politics used by the individual nation-state within the system respects and upholds the values of interdependence rather than dependence and win-win collaboration rather than exploitative dominance. Without these values, many countries are vulnerable to socio-economic losses, chronic poverty and marginalization. This, usually, is the case when a country’s macro-economic policies and decision-making for development projects are dictated by some outside actors or institutions of international influence that care about nothing but their own interests or the interests of the few. The same issues arise when the institutions and politics of a country are not strong enough to allow and support the leader and government to take control and make some independent policy decisions to shape the country’s development in accordance with its economic, environmental, cultural, and social characteristics and needs. The existence of the imbalance of power typically seen between the developed nations and developing or poor countries makes the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) an eligible case of a development project with a certain level of rationality in decision-making. The project embodies the Chinese government’ strong, bold, independent and conscious decision-making capability in the face of the challenges often encountered within the globalization system.For the developing and low-income countries, the completion of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (which is overdue this year) requires decision-making and execution of not only the trouble-free development projects but also such challenging ones as large dams like that of the Three Gorges, which emerged as a symbol of modernity and a useful tool to eradicate poverty. The TGD offers comprehensive economic benefits and positive impacts for human and societal development, mainly for flood control (society, economy), clean power generation (environment, economy), and navigation improvement (economy, society). Despite these multi-benefits of sustainable development dimensions, the Three Gorges project is controversial due to its social and environmental consequences. Yet, because of its undeniable contributions to and life-enhancing impacts on the local, national and global development, the rationality of such a project decision-making calls for in-depth studies and unbiased debates.The resettlement has been the target of the harsh criticism about the Dam. Thus, with some reference indicators of Human Development Conditions (specifically developed for the present research), the said Sustainable Development Dimensions are used as a model to display and evaluate the life conditions of the relocated people in Yichang ’before’ and ’after’ resettlement. The present policy evaluation was carried out under the "Decision-theoretic Evaluation" approach making use of the so-called "Multiattribute Utility Analysis." Overall, the method used in the paper was a combination of a literature review and qualitative, single case study with the prime objective to evaluate the policy impacts of the TGD as a development project while determining the status of rationality of the project’s decision-making. Another important objective of the research was to showcase the instructive sides of the Chinese government’ decision-making style while describing the traits of the right politics for development used when facing sharp-tongued criticism and resistance to changes, which define today’s globalization challenges. Covering these objective points can generate an indispensable lesson for the rest of the world, especially the countries in Africa where weak policy decision has been a bottleneck for development.The findings of the research generally reveal that the decision-making of the Three Gorges project has not gained a status of an absolute rationality for the reason that the project had no alternatives, which is required by the Rational Model of a Decision System used as reference in the paper. Yet having no alternative only shows how important the dam was rather than how irrational its decision-making was. China’s active and tangible contribution to the global reduction of poverty, chronic mortality and CO2emission was an undeniable factor for the project’s rationality, be it labeled lower-level rationality, bounded rationality or absolute rationality. Within the umbrella of globalization, the stakeholders of the project are found at the local, regional, national and international level, which should be considered new composite indicators of the rationality of the Dam’s decision-making. As an additional research contribution, the global implications of the Dam’s decision-making is hoped to shape the world order with the freedom to choose the policy direction appropriate to the development needs of one’s own country without any fear of blame-game, intimidation and policy sabotage while contributing to the welfare of the whole world.