Resolving Messy Policy Problems

Description:

Our lives increasingly take place in ever more complex and interconnected networks that blur the boundaries we have traditionally used to define our social and political spaces. Accordingly, the policy problems that governments are called upon to deal with have become less clear-cut and far messier. This is particularly the case with climate change, environmental policy, transport, health and ageing—all areas in which the tried-and-tested linear policy solutions are increasingly inadequate or failing. What makes messy policy problems particularly uncomfortable is that science and scientific knowledge have themselves become sources of uncertainty and ambiguity. Indeed, what is to count as a “rational solution” is itself now subject of considerable debate and controversy.

For policy makers this raises a number of tough questions: Given scientific uncertainty, how are policy-makers to tackle messy issues? What should policy-makers do about the intractable and persistent policy conflicts that seem to accompany messy issues? How can policy-makers structure policy processes in order to better understand, deal with and learn from messy policy issues?

This challenging book seeks to answer these questions by focusing on the intractable conflict that characterizes policy debate about messy issues. In the first part of the book, the author develops a framework for analyzing intractable policy conflict about messy policy issues. In the second section, he applies the conceptual framework to four very different policy issues: the environment—focusing on climate change—as well as transport, ageing and health. Using evidence from Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific, the chapters compare how policy actors construct contending narratives or stories in order to make sense of, and deal with, messy challenges. In the final section, the author discusses the implications of the analysis for collective learning and adaptation processes. The aim is to contribute to a more refined understanding of policy-making in the face of uncertainty, and most importantly to provide practical methods for critical reflection on policy and to point to sustainable adaptation pathways and learning mechanisms for policy formulation.

Reviews/Endorsements:

"The field of policy studies is knee-deep in turgid texts, but this is not one of them. Ney guides us through all the theories, pointing out where they converge and where they conflict, and ending with a subsuming tour de force in which he refurbishes the classic theory of pluralist democracy by pinning down just what it is that constitutes the plurality."
-- Michael Thompson, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria and Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Said Business School

"Steven Ney has produced an extremely important study of contemporary public policy. He points out the extent to which the most significant policy problems facing governments and society are complex and are not subject to neat, linear solutions. This book should be read by anyone attempting to understand why policies often do not work, and how they might be made to work more effectively."
-- B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh

Table of Contents:

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes; Acknowledgements; List of Acronyms and Abbreviations; 1) Introduction; 2) Understanding Policy Conflict; 3) Transport; 4) Ageing; 5) Health; 6) Conclusion--Mess, Conflict and Pluralism; Index.