Policy analysis in the face of complexity: What kind of knowledge to tackle wicked problems?
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076717733325 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Public Policy and Administration
2019, Vol. 34(1) 62–82
Policy analysis in the face
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of complexity: What kind
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076717733325
of knowledge to tackle
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wicked problems?
Falk Daviter
University of Potsdam, Germany
Abstract
An ever-increasing number of policy problems have come to be interpreted as
representing a particular type of intractable, ill-structured or wicked policy problem.
Much of this debate is concerned with the challenges wicked problems pose for pro-
gram management rather than policy analysis. This article, in contrast, argues that the
key challenge in addressing this type of policy problems is in fact analytical. Wicked
policy problems are difficult to identify and interpret. The knowledge base for analysing
wicked policy problem is typically fragmented and contested. Available evidence is
incomplete, inconclusive and incommensurable. In this situation, the evidentiary and
the interpretative elements of policy analysis become increasingly indistinguishable and
inseparably intertwined. The article reveals the problems this poses for policy analysis
and explores the extent to which the consolidation, consensualization and contestation
of evidence in policy analysis offer alternative procedural paths to resolve these
problems.
Keywords
Evidence-based policy making, expertise, knowledge, policy analysis, wicked problems
Introduction
An ever-increasing number of policy problems have come to be interpreted as
representing a particular type of intractable, ill-structured or wicked policy prob-
lem. This type of policy problem resists standard approaches to problem solving.
While early research on wicked problems explored this perspective in the context of
studies on issues such as poverty and unemployment, the application of the concept
has greatly expanded in recent scholarship and now covers issues like climate
Corresponding author:
Falk Daviter, University of Potsdam, August-Bebel-Str 89, Potsdam 14482, Germany.
Email: daviter@uni-potsdam.de
Daviter
63
change, biodiversity, food safety and many more. Much of the current debate
primarily addresses the governance of wicked problems as an administrative
challenge. This line of research highlights the inadequacy of existing patterns of
sectoral policy responsibilities and specialization, as well as insufficient levels of
horizontal and vertical policy coordination in the context of complex and cross-
cutting policy problems. Studies written from this perspective frequently point to
the need for better coordination and more joined-up government (e.g. Askim et al.,
2009; Christensen and Lægreid, 2007, 2008; Flynn et al., 2011; Kavanagh and
Richards, 2001; Perri 6, 2004; Pollitt, 2003), or to the necessity for addressing
wicked problems through some form of collaborative or networked type of gov-
ernance (e.g. Bryson et al., 2006; Ferlie et al., 2011; Keast et al., 2004; Lægreid and
Rykkja, 2015; Roberts, 2000; Weber and Khademian, 2008). While these literatures
have made important strides in relating the study of wicked problems to key
debates in public administration research, they have also lost sight of some of
the more fundamental challenges involved in addressing wicked problems. In con-
trast to the current debate, the original work on wicked problems by Rittel and
Webber (1973) was much more concerned with the challenges wicked problems
pose for policy analysis rather than program management. In spite of this, the
policy analytical perspective on wicked problems remains far less developed.
This article contributes to the current debate by exploring a policy analytical
perspective with an emphasis on the role of knowledge in addressing wicked prob-
lems. Part of the analytical challenge of addressing complex and ill-structured
problems clearly calls for increasing the influx of scientific knowledge and technical
expertise in the policy process. There is little doubt, for example that human effects
on the environment can cause complex and adverse reactions that exceed the cap-
acity of environmental systems for self-repair (e.g. Renn, 1995: 148). Recognition
of such problems mandates that policy analysis systematically incorporate avail-
able scientific and technical expertise to address the uncertainty surrounding what
is known about the problem and its possible solutions. But from a policy analytical
perspective, the problem runs deeper. As this article will argue, evidentiary know-
ledge is inherently indeterminate in its relationship to complex policy problems.
More often than not, the relevant knowledge base itself is fragmented and con-
tested. As a result, policy analysis of wicked problems frequently faces incomplete,
inconclusive and incommensurable evidence. In this situation, the evidentiary basis
of policy analysis cannot conclusively determine the nature and structure of a
policy problem, and the problem cannot be identified and interpreted without
precluding some part of the evidentiary analysis. In addition to raising complex
questions of scientific and technical uncertainty, wicked policy problems therefore
remain fundamentally ambiguous. More or better evidence offers no way out of the
dilemma (Cairney et al., 2016; Feldman, 1989: 4–7; Koppenjan and Klijn, 2004: 37;
Sanderson, 2009: 712). Instead, additional evidence frequently contributes to the
ambiguity of the problem situation.
At the most basic level, this implies that analysing wicked problems is not exclu-
sively, or even primarily, a problem of closing the knowledge gap between evidence
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Public Policy and Administration 34(1)
and policy. The question of how policy analysis can remain reflective of multiple
ways of interpreting available information and cognizant of the ill-defined and
changing nature of policy problems is equally fundamental to this type of analysis.
The role of knowledge in this context therefore needs to be understood broadly as
referring not only to the evidentiary basis of analysis, but to the interpretative basis
of policy inquiry as well. While such a perspective has deep roots in public admin-
istration and policy research (e.g. Dunn, 1994; Hoppe, 2010; Parsons, 2001, 2005),
its conflicting implications for policy analysis of wicked policy problems remain
only partially explored. At the same time, relevant debates in adjunct areas of study
have become more difficult to relate to the problems of policy analysis. As Collins
and Evans (2003) for example observe the field of science and technology studies
has increasingly sidestepped the question of what kind of knowledge it takes to
tackle complex and contested policy problems, and has become more narrowly
interested in the social and political construction of expertise instead.
The first two sections of the article therefore further investigate the substantive
challenges of policy analysis in the face of complexity. The main interest of this part
of the article is to show how in the case of wicked policy problems the evidentiary
and the interpretative elements of analysis become increasingly indistinguishable
and inseparably intertwined. The third section of the article reexamines the sub-
stantive problems of policy analysis from a procedural perspective. This section
discusses how the assessment of incomplete, inconclusive and incommensurable
evidence can be embedded in different types of procedural contexts. From this
perspective, policy analysis is a fundamentally political function that needs to
confront choices between contestation and consensualization of policy knowledge.
The article concludes that wicked policy problems need to be understood as essen-
tially contested. The ways in which evidentiary knowledge can illuminate this type
of policy problem follows a distinct logic. Procedural alternatives for policy ana-
lysis of wicked problems should therefore be judged in terms of their ability to
enable the exploration and contestation of the evidentiary basis of analysis in ways
that speaks to, rather than substitutes for, controversy over the classification of
policy problems, the evaluative criteria of policy analysis, the assessment of policy
alternatives and the ultimate purpose of public action. The final section of the
article discusses core implications for both policy research and analysis and con-
cludes with a summary of the main arguments.
Wicked problems as an analytical challenge
In defining wicked problems, Rittel (1972; Rittel and Webber, 1973) originally
provided a list of 11 attributes that was subsequently cut down to 10. Some of
the more recent contributions to this debate have focused more exclusively on a
select number of problem dimensions and placed the analysis of wicked problems
in more limited theoretical and empirical contexts. Most notably, the notion of
‘super-wicked problems’ (Lazarus, 2009; Levin et al., 2012) especially emphasizes
the temporal dimension of problem pressure as well as conflicts between short-term
Daviter
65
interests and long-term benefits in collective decision making in the international
arena (Levin et al., 2012: 124). These studies have greatly contributed to the explor-
ation of the concept and the possibilities of its theoretical application. Other recent
contributions have taken a broader view of the challenges involved in addressing
wicked problems and point to the diverse and frequently conflicting managerial
demands that public administrations face in governing wicked problem. While the
predominant...
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