Chronology, map & actor cards
A fictional city map, recurring residents and institutions, stakeholder cards, and a “what is known when” release schedule.
Asterbridge teaching pack
Release the case in stages, so students have to reason with incomplete information.
Asterbridge is fictional and pedagogical. This hub organizes the case around the same fifteen Decision Dossier records used in the book, with prompts for staged source releases, seminars, and cumulative assessment.
Teaching boundary
A simulation is a teaching environment, not empirical validation.
The case lets instructors control when students encounter new facts, conflicting accounts, authority constraints, public participation, implementation failures, and reopening triggers. It is useful for testing understanding and exposing reasoning errors; it does not prove that a real institution or governance system would perform the same way.
Record-linked packets
Fifteen moments in one cumulative public problem.
Each packet identifies what students know at that point in the case and suggests how an instructor can preserve uncertainty instead of revealing later answers too early.
IPublic Question and Initial Framing RecordChapter 1
- Event
- Mara’s complaint about the missing late-night Route 8 bus enters the public record.
- Actors
- Mara · Route 8 riders · Asterbridge administration
- Reasoning issue
- A lived experience must be preserved before administrators classify, frame, and professionalise it into a policy problem.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- What caused the service problem, who is affected, which frame is most useful, and which institution has standing or jurisdiction are not yet settled.
- Current outcome
- The original complaint and competing candidate frames become inspectable rather than being silently replaced by one administrative definition.
- Transition
- The case moves from experience to questions about political order, expertise, and who should have influence over the response.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
IIPolitical Order and Authority RecordChapter 2
- Event
- The Route 8 problem becomes an expert-commission problem: good knowledge and justified political authority may point to different actors.
- Actors
- Affected riders · Experts · Public officials · Asterbridge political community
- Reasoning issue
- Epistemic competence can justify influence without independently creating a right to rule.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Which historical and institutional conception of good political order should guide the relationship between expertise, citizens, and office-holders?
- Current outcome
- The case records a competence-without-sovereignty rule instead of treating expertise as self-authorizing.
- Transition
- The inquiry must now identify the actual institutions, delegations, and jurisdictional limits that govern any Route 8 response.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
IIIJurisdiction and Authority RecordChapter 3
- Event
- Asterbridge maps who may investigate, recommend, decide, implement, and review action concerning Route 8.
- Actors
- Authorized institutions · Administrative agencies · Elected office-holders · Experts
- Reasoning issue
- The best-informed actor is not necessarily the actor legally or democratically authorized to bind the public.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Delegated powers, review routes, principal-agent risks, and de facto influence may not align neatly with formal authority.
- Current outcome
- Jurisdiction and the human authorization point become explicit parts of the dossier.
- Transition
- Once authority is mapped, the case can ask whose burdens, interests, rights, and standing are hidden by an aggregate transport problem.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
IVStakeholder, Standing and Distribution RecordChapter 4
- Event
- The Route 8 dispute is examined below citywide averages to identify who gains, who bears burdens, and whose mobility needs are least visible.
- Actors
- Route 8 riders · Affected communities · Public officials · Other transport users
- Reasoning issue
- Aggregate improvement can coexist with concentrated harm, unequal standing, and competing claims about liberty and equality.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Which distributions count as politically relevant and which remedies are required remain partly normative questions.
- Current outcome
- Stakeholder positions and concentrated effects are made visible before a preferred solution is selected.
- Transition
- The case now needs rival research perspectives capable of seeing different mechanisms in the same public problem.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
VCompeting Research PerspectivesChapter 5
- Event
- Asterbridge deliberately views the transport problem through competing institutional, behavioural, rational-choice, historical, interpretive, and critical perspectives.
- Actors
- Researchers · Public administrators · Affected riders
- Reasoning issue
- A preferred method or discipline must not become the definition of the political object before alternatives are examined.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Different perspectives identify different units, mechanisms, evidence standards, and blind spots.
- Current outcome
- Rival ways of knowing are recorded without forcing them into one premature synthesis.
- Transition
- Before deeper research proceeds, the case returns to constitutional questions about power, legitimacy, and the bounded role of AI.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
VIPower, Legitimacy and AI Role RecordChapter 6
- Event
- The Route 8 case identifies who controls problem definitions, procedures, information, recommendations, and decisions, including where AI may assist.
- Actors
- Authorized decision-makers · Administrators · Experts · AI-assisted analytical systems · Affected publics
- Reasoning issue
- Capability, model agreement, technical quality, or procedural control cannot be laundered into political legitimacy.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Procedural power and informal influence may shape outcomes even where formal authority remains human.
- Current outcome
- AI-supported functions and prohibited authority substitutions are separated explicitly.
- Transition
- With the authority boundary recorded, the case can specify research questions and evidence needs before results are known.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
VIIResearch Design and Evidence PlanChapter 7
- Event
- Asterbridge translates competing Route 8 claims into a research design and evidence plan.
- Actors
- Researchers · Administrators · Affected riders · Authorized decision-makers
- Reasoning issue
- Research questions, measures, populations, comparison logic, assumptions, ethics, and uncertainty should be set before convenient data dictate the method.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- No single method can answer every descriptive, causal, predictive, normative, or authority claim in the case.
- Current outcome
- Evidence needs and limitations are specified before results are interpreted.
- Transition
- The dossier next preserves meaning and lived experience as qualitative evidence.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
VIIIQualitative Evidence and Interpretation RecordChapter 8
- Event
- The case listens to how affected people experience mobility, service loss, access, and the meanings attached to the Route 8 dispute.
- Actors
- Affected riders · Researchers · Community participants
- Reasoning issue
- Meaning, context, testimony, interpretation, and researcher judgment are evidence, but they require their own standards of provenance and challenge.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Sampling, access, interpretation, positionality, translation, contradictory cases, and saturation claims remain contestable.
- Current outcome
- Qualitative evidence is preserved for the claims it can support rather than treated as decorative anecdote.
- Transition
- The case then asks how political concepts become populations, denominators, variables, and estimates.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
IXQuantitative Evidence and Measurement RecordChapter 9
- Event
- Asterbridge examines how measures such as journey time, service use, access, subgroup effects, and other transport indicators are constructed.
- Actors
- Researchers · Data custodians · Route 8 riders · Public administrators
- Reasoning issue
- A precise estimate may still answer the wrong measurement question if the concept, population, denominator, or operationalization is poorly chosen.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Missingness, sampling, subgroup validity, weighting, and measurement choices affect what the numbers can establish.
- Current outcome
- Quantitative claims are attached to explicit measurement rules and uncertainty.
- Transition
- Observed patterns must next be separated from causal claims about why Route 8 outcomes changed.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
XCausal Claim and Identification RecordChapter 10
- Event
- The Route 8 record distinguishes observed change from claims that a particular policy, service decision, or intervention caused that change.
- Actors
- Researchers · Policy analysts · Authorized decision-makers
- Reasoning issue
- Association, prediction, and before-and-after comparison do not automatically identify a causal effect.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Counterfactuals, confounding, identification assumptions, heterogeneity, and transportability limit causal confidence.
- Current outcome
- Causal claims must state the comparison and assumptions that make them credible.
- Transition
- The case can then use computational evidence without hiding transformations, model choices, or validation behind scale.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
XIComputational Evidence and Model RecordChapter 11
- Event
- Asterbridge adds computational evidence and model-assisted analysis to the record while preserving data lineage, transformations, validation, and human review.
- Actors
- Data analysts · AI-assisted systems · Human reviewers · Public institutions
- Reasoning issue
- Scale and automation can reproduce a category error faster; computational sophistication does not make categories or objectives neutral.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Model error, subgroup performance, reproducibility, corpus provenance, and version changes remain material to interpretation.
- Current outcome
- Computational results become inspectable evidence rather than an opaque authority claim.
- Transition
- The heterogeneous record is now ready for synthesis without erasing disagreement.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
XIIEvidence Synthesis and Disagreement RecordChapter 12
- Event
- Asterbridge brings qualitative, quantitative, causal, computational, institutional, and normative-relevant evidence into one claim-by-claim synthesis.
- Actors
- Researchers · Reviewers · Public institutions · Affected groups
- Reasoning issue
- Synthesis must preserve non-comparability, minority interpretations, conflicting findings, and uncertainty where convergence is not justified.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Some evidence supports common conclusions while other claims remain disputed or conditional.
- Current outcome
- The dossier records supported, disputed, and unresolved findings instead of manufacturing consensus.
- Transition
- The next question is who participated, what their participation establishes, and what it cannot authorize.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
XIIIParticipation, Representation and Information Integrity RecordChapter 13
- Event
- Asterbridge records how people participate in the Route 8 decision environment, whom participants can legitimately be said to represent, and what information shaped that participation.
- Actors
- Route 8 riders · Other residents · Community participants · Public institutions
- Reasoning issue
- Public input, representation, standing, information integrity, and political authorization are related but distinct.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Recruitment, access barriers, missing voices, misinformation, moderation, and representation claims limit what participation can establish.
- Current outcome
- Public voice enters the decision record without being mistaken for automatic representativeness or authorization.
- Transition
- Evidence, disagreement, values, participation, and authority can now be carried into an explicit human-authorized decision.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
XIVAuthorised Decision and Public Reason RecordChapter 14
- Event
- A legitimately authorized Asterbridge institution must choose among available Route 8 options and state its public reasons.
- Actors
- Authorized institution · Authorized human decision-makers · Experts · AI advisers · Public participants
- Reasoning issue
- The strongest epistemic recommendation and the authorized public decision may legitimately differ, but the difference must be visible.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Values, rights, political trade-offs, administrative feasibility, and residual empirical uncertainty remain at the decision point.
- Current outcome
- The authorized proposition, rationale, authority basis, dissent, advice, and any override are preserved as a distinct record.
- Transition
- The decision now encounters implementation, where the lived policy may diverge from the authorized baseline.
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
XVImplementation, Monitoring and Learning RecordChapter 15
- Event
- Asterbridge compares the authorized Route 8 baseline with implementation, observed outcomes, complaints, adaptations, and monitoring signals.
- Actors
- Implementers · Authorized institutions · Route 8 riders · Reviewers
- Reasoning issue
- Implementation and monitoring generate evidence for learning, not automatic policy reversal or proof of cause.
- Uncertainty to preserve
- Observed failures or gains may reflect implementation, context, measurement, causal mechanisms, or the original policy design.
- Current outcome
- Reopening triggers, rollback feasibility, adaptation, and any need for reauthorization are recorded without erasing the earlier decision.
- Transition
- Learning returns the polity to a renewed public question: continue, modify, suspend, roll back, or redesign?
Instructor prompts
- Release only the fictional documents a student could plausibly possess at this point.
- Include at least one source with a material limitation students can discover.
- Include at least one affected perspective or institutional fact that a summary could obscure.
- Do not reveal later causal, authority, implementation, or outcome information before the relevant record.
Build richer course packets
Useful additions can sit around the same fifteen-record spine.
Documents, surveys & datasets
Timetables, administrative extracts, consultation records, survey instruments, qualitative excerpts, model outputs, and progressively released datasets.
Charter, delegation & review rules
Fictional legal and institutional material sufficient to map jurisdiction without inviting students to invent authority.
Hearings & representation
Recruitment material, participation records, missing-voice problems, information interventions, moderation challenges, and representation claims.
Baseline, delivery & monitoring
Authorized decision records, operational material, implementation deviations, performance measures, complaints, and adaptations.
New evidence & alternative futures
Signals that justify review, rival explanations, rollback constraints, reauthorization questions, and alternative scenarios for capstone defense.
Pair case with method