Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World: Governance, Politics and Plural Perceptions (Global Issues) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0230002307 ISBN 13: 9780230002302

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Synopsis

Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World is a powerful and original statement on why well-intended attempts to alleviate pressing social ills too often derail, and how effective, efficient and broadly acceptable solutions to social problems can be found. It takes its cue from the idea that our endlessly changing and complex social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between four ways of organizing, justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance failure inevitably results. Successful solutions are therefore creative combinations of four opposing ways of organizing and thinking.

About this title

Review:

'Casual observers might think 'clumsiness' comes naturally to government and public policy-making. If so, they might be surprised by how often it is carefully suppressed - often with disastrous consequences, as this book shows. We need to develop the methodology for the important angle of vision this book represents.' - Christopher Hood, Gladstone Professor of Government, University of Oxford, UK

'This study is a clever and important assault on the precepts 'drummed into the heads of those who aspire to be policy analysts' - that there is a single mindset in which a problem must be defined, facts and values distinguished and simple evaluative metrics deployed to achieve optimisation. The authors demonstrate the tragedies perpetrated by this dangerous approach. They show that plural voices - as identified by cultural theory - are necessary for clumsy, but safe, constructively engaged and politically feasible policy-making.' - Professor Tony Allan, KCL/SOAS University of London, UK

'...In an ideal world, everyone that has even a remote relation to policy and decision making would keep a well-worn copy of this book always at hand. But for the time being, anyone eager to look at an adequately complex model for governance that satisfies sociology's stringent standards might usefully turn to this volume.' - Michalis Lianos, British Journal of Sociology

Book Description:

A powerful and original statement on why well-intended attempts to alleviate pressing social ills often derail

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0230002307
• ISBN 13: 9780230002302
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 268
• Editor: Verweij M., Thompson M.