Download or read book Complexity Institutions and Public Policy written by Graham Room and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I think this is a very important book. Very few people in the social sciences write books on this topic and really do justice to complexity theory. Professor Room gives a very detailed, accurate and accessible review of complexity theory as it applies to social policy. His link with institutional theory is very appropriate and his discussion on the need for regulation (a link with complexity theory that many people would never reach) is really important and well grounded. It would be of interest to academics who really want to understand the implications of complexity theory for policy making in complex and fast-changing situations and to those undertaking advanced courses in politics, economics and sociology. - Jean Boulton, University of Cranfield, UK Graham Room argues that conventional approaches to the conceptualisation and measurement of social and economic change are unsatisfactory. As a result, researchers are ill-equipped to offer policy advice. This book offers a new analytical approach, combining complexity science and institutionalism. It also provides tools for policy makers in turbulent times. Part 1 is concerned with the conceptualisation of socio-economic change. It integrates complexity science and institutionalism into a coherent ontology of social and policy dynamics. Part 2 is concerned with models and measurement. It combines some of the principal approaches developed in complexity analysis with models and methods drawn from mainstream social and political science. Part 3 offers empirical applications to public policy: the dynamics of social exclusion; the social dimension of knowledge economies; the current financial and economic crisis. These are supplemented by a toolkit for the practice of agile policy making.

Download or read book Complexity and the Art of Public Policy written by David Colander and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ideas in complexity can be used to develop more effective public policy Complexity science—made possible by modern analytical and computational advances—is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. Complexity and the Art of Public Policy outlines a new, more flexible policy narrative, which envisions society as a complex evolving system that is uncontrollable but can be influenced. David Colander and Roland Kupers describe how economists and society became locked into the current policy framework, and lay out fresh alternatives for framing policy questions. Offering original solutions to stubborn problems, the complexity narrative builds on broader philosophical traditions, such as those in the work of John Stuart Mill, to suggest initiatives that the authors call "activist laissez-faire" policies. Colander and Kupers develop innovative bottom-up solutions that, through new institutional structures such as for-benefit corporations, channel individuals’ social instincts into solving societal problems, making profits a tool for change rather than a goal. They argue that a central role for government in this complexity framework is to foster an ecostructure within which diverse forms of social entrepreneurship can emerge and blossom.

Download or read book Complexity and Public Policy written by Robert Geyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a clear, concise and readable introduction to complexity thinking, its application to the social sciences and public policy, and the relevance of some of its various tools to those fields of politics, health, the international realm, development, planning and terrorism. The authors argue that the foundation for many of the current crises in these areas can be traced to the attempt by social scientists and policy-makers to treat these systems and processes as fundamentally orderly, predictable and controllable. By providing an overview of complex systems, a practical introduction to basic concepts and tools of these systems, and examples for understanding and managing them in real life policy situations they provide an exciting new perspective for rethinking our basic approaches to the social sciences and for understanding and managing the increasingly interdependent world of public policy. The book is vital reading for students and scholars of the social sciences and public policy, and also policymakers and the policy actor audience.

Download or read book Agile Actors on Complex Terrains written by Graham Room and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book assesses the value and relevance of the literature on complex systems to policy-making, contributing to both social theory and policy analysis. For this purpose it develops two key ideas: agile action and transformative realism. The book takes some major themes from complexity science, presents them in a clear and accessible manner and applies them to core problems in sociological theory and policy analysis. Combining complexity science with perspectives from institutionalism and political economy, this book is the first to integrate these fields conceptually, methodologically and in terms of the implications for policy analysis and practice. Room shows how the models and methods of social and complexity science can be jointly deployed and applied to empirical areas of public policy. He demonstrates how complexity science can provide insight into the nonlinear dynamics of the social world, but why these need to be understood by reference to the unequal distribution of power and advantage. Among the sociological debates with which the book engages are those concerned with causation and explanation, rational action and positional competition, and the place of evolutionary concepts in accounts of social change. Among the policy debates are those concerned with evidence and policy, the dynamics of inequality, and libertarian paternalism. The book will appeal to final year undergraduates and postgraduate students in social sciences; scholars in social and policy studies broadly defined; policy-makers who want to go beyond conventional discussions of evidence-based policy-making and cross-national lesson-drawing, and consider how to approach complex and turbulent policy terrains; and a wider range of scholars in other disciplines where complexity science is already well developed.

Download or read book Handbook on Complexity and Public Policy written by Robert Geyer and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-29 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Over recent years Complexity Science has revealed to us new limits to our possible knowledge and control in social, cultural and economic systems. Instead of supposing that past statistics and patterns will give us predictable outcomes for possible actions, we now know the world is, and will always be, creative and surprising. Continuous structural evolution within such systems may change the mechanisms, descriptors, problems and opportunities, often negating policy aims. We therefore need to redevelop our thinking about interventions, policies and policy making, moving perhaps to a humbler, more 'learning' approach. In this Handbook, leading thinkers in multiple domains set out these new ideas and allow us to understand how these new ideas are changing policymaking and policies in this new era.' - Peter M Allen, Cranfield University, UK

Download or read book Global Challenges Governance and Complexity written by Victor Galaz and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an increased interest in integrating insights from the complexity sciences to studies of governance and policy. While the issue has been debated, and the term of ‘complexity’ has multiple and sometimes contested interpretations, it is also clear the field has spurred a number of interesting theoretical and empirical efforts. The book includes key thinkers in the field, elaborates on different analytical approaches in studying governance, institutions and policy in the face of complexity, and showcases empirical applications and insights.

Download or read book Access Points written by Sean D. Ehrlich and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-09-26 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Access Points develops a new theory about how democratic institutions influence policy outcomes. Access Point Theory argues that the more points of access that institutions provide to interest groups, the cheaper lobbying will be, and, thus, the more lobbying will occur. This will lead to more complex policy, as policymakers insert specific provisions to benefit special interests, and, if one side of the debate has a lobbying advantage, to more biased policy, as the advantaged side is able to better take advantage of the cheaper lobbying. This book then uses Access Point Theory to explain why some countries have more protectionist and more complex trade policies than other; why some countries have stronger environmental and banking regulations than others; and why some countries have more complicated tax codes than others. In policy area after policy area, this book finds that more access points lead to more biased and more complex policy. Access Points provides scholars with a powerful tool to explain how political institutions matter and why countries implement the policies they do.

Download or read book A Complexity Theory for Public Policy written by Göktuğ Morçöl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity theory has become popular in the natural and social sciences over the last few decades as a result of the advancements in our understanding of the complexities in natural and social phenomena. Concepts and methods of complexity theory have been applied by scholars of public affairs in North America and Europe, but a comprehensive framework for these applications is lacking. A Complexity Theory for Public Policy proposes a conceptual synthesis and sets a foundation for future developments and applications. In this book, Göktuğ Morçöl convincingly makes the case that complexity theory can help us understand better the self-organizational, emergent, and co-evolutionary characteristics of complex policy systems. In doing so, he discuss the epistemological implications of complexity theory and the methods complexity researchers use, and those methods they could use. As the complexity studies spread more around the world in the coming decades, the contents of this book will become appealing to larger audiences, particularly to scholars and graduate students in public affairs. The unique combination of synthesis and explanation of concepts and methods found in this book will serve as reference frames for future works.

Download or read book Managing Institutional Complexity written by Sebastian Oberthur and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts investigate how states and other actors can improve inter-institutional synergy and examine the complexity of overlapping environmental governance structures. Institutional interaction and complexity are crucial to environmental governance and are quickly becoming dominant themes in the international relations and environmental politics literatures. This book examines international institutional interplay and its consequences, focusing on two important issues: how states and other actors can manage institutional interaction to improve synergy and avoid disruption; and what forces drive the emergence and evolution of institutional complexes, sets of institutions that cogovern particular issue areas. The book, a product of the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change research project (IDGEC), offers both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Chapters range from analytical overviews to case studies of institutional interaction, interplay management, and regime complexes in areas including climate change, fisheries management, and conservation of biodiversity. Contributors discuss such issues as the complicated management of fragmented multilateral institutions addressing climate change; the possible “chilling effect” on environmental standards from existing commitments; governance niches in Arctic resource protection; the relationships among treaties on conservation and use of plant genetic resources; causal factors in cross-case variation of regime prevalence; and the difficult relationship between the World Trade Organization and multilateral environmental agreements. The book offers a broad overview of research on interplay management and institutional complexes that provides important insights across the field of global environmental governance.

Download or read book Non Equilibrium Social Science and Policy written by Jeffrey Johnson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The overall aim of this book, an outcome of the European FP7 FET Open NESS project, is to contribute to the ongoing effort to put the quantitative social sciences on a proper footing for the 21st century. A key focus is economics, and its implications on policy making, where the still dominant traditional approach increasingly struggles to capture the economic realities we observe in the world today - with vested interests getting too often in the way of real advances. Insights into behavioral economics and modern computing techniques have made possible both the integration of larger information sets and the exploration of disequilibrium behavior. The domain-based chapters of this work illustrate how economic theory is the only branch of social sciences which still holds to its old paradigm of an equilibrium science - an assumption that has already been relaxed in all related fields of research in the light of recent advances in complex and dynamical systems theory and related data mining. The other chapters give various takes on policy and decision making in this context. Written in nontechnical style throughout, with a mix of tutorial and essay-like contributions, this book will benefit all researchers, scientists, professionals and practitioners interested in learning about the 'thinking in complexity' to understand how socio-economic systems really work.

Download or read book Marketing Public Policy written by Basskaran Nair and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-21 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policy analysts and policy planners should start from the premise that obstacles, uncertainties and surprises are important features of policy-making. All public policies should be treated as complex problems, from the outset. Complexity theorists start from the premise that complex policies are ill-defined and ambiguous. There is often little consensus about what the problem is, let alone how to resolve it. Into the complexity of the wicked problem fray, Marketing Public Policy introduces the role of communication scholars and practitioners whose models and practices focus on people, processes, opinions and behaviour as causes of organisational complexity. Communication practice’s role is to provide ideas on how to navigate, diagnose and interpret issues with a view to persuading the public to change its behaviour or opinions. From the case studies presented in this book, we see that despite rationally excellent macro- and micro-planning of policies to win the hearts and minds of citizens, public policies still deteriorate into hurts and minefields. The case studies are drawn from China, Indonesia, India, the USA, the UK and Europe to show that policy-making is always a complex issue in any country, whatever the political structure, whether democracy or communism.

Download or read book A Complexity Theory for Public Policy written by Göktuğ Morçöl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity theory has become popular in the natural and social sciences over the last few decades as a result of the advancements in our understanding of the complexities in natural and social phenomena. Concepts and methods of complexity theory have been applied by scholars of public affairs in North America and Europe, but a comprehensive framework for these applications is lacking. A Complexity Theory for Public Policy proposes a conceptual synthesis and sets a foundation for future developments and applications. In this book, Göktuğ Morçöl convincingly makes the case that complexity theory can help us understand better the self-organizational, emergent, and co-evolutionary characteristics of complex policy systems. In doing so, he discuss the epistemological implications of complexity theory and the methods complexity researchers use, and those methods they could use. As the complexity studies spread more around the world in the coming decades, the contents of this book will become appealing to larger audiences, particularly to scholars and graduate students in public affairs. The unique combination of synthesis and explanation of concepts and methods found in this book will serve as reference frames for future works.

Download or read book Policy Problems and Policy Design written by B. Guy Peters and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public policy can be considered a design science. It involves identifying relevant problems, selecting instruments to address the problem, developing institutions for managing the intervention, and creating means of assessing the design. Policy design has become an increasingly challenging task, given the emergence of numerous ‘wicked’ and complex problems. Much of policy design has adopted a technocratic and engineering approach, but there is an emerging literature that builds on a more collaborative and prospective approach to design. This book will discuss these issues in policy design and present alternative approaches to design.

Download or read book Handbook of Public Administration written by W. Bartley Hildreth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-19 with total page 1618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the publication of the previous edition, the best-selling Handbook of Public Administration enters its third edition with substantially revised, updated, and expanded coverage of public administration history, theory, and practice. Edited by preeminent authorities in the field, this work is unparalleled in its thorough coverage and comprehensive references. This handbook examines the major areas in public administration including public budgeting and financial management, human resourcemanagement, decision making, public law and regulation, and political economy. Providing a strong platform for further research and advancement in the field, this book is a necessity for anyone involved in public administration, policy, and management. This edition includes entirely new chapters on information technology and conduct of inquiry. In each area of public administration, there are two bibliographic treatises written from different perspectives. The first examines the developments in the field. The second analyzes theories, concepts, or ideas in the field’s literature.

Download or read book Handbook of Public Policy Agenda Setting written by Nikolaos Zahariadis and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-28 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Setting the agenda on agenda setting, this Handbook explores how and why private matters become public issues and occasionally government priorities. It provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the perspectives, individuals, and institutions involved in setting the government’s agenda at subnational, national, and international levels. Drawing on contributions from leading academics across the world, this Handbook is split into five distinct parts. Part one sets public policy agenda setting in its historical context, devoting chapters to more in-depth studies of the main individual scholars and their works. Part two offers an extensive examination of the theoretical development, whilst part three provides a comprehensive look at the various institutional dimensions. Part four reviews the literature on sub-national, national and international governance levels. Finally, part five offers innovative coverage on agenda setting during crises.

Download or read book Modeling Complex Systems written by Nino Boccara and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-09-09 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book illustrates how models of complex systems are built up and provides indispensable mathematical tools for studying their dynamics. This second edition includes more recent research results and many new and improved worked out examples and exercises.

Download or read book Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences written by David Byrne and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-09-26 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expanded and updated edition of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art revisits the use of complexity theory across the social sciences and demonstrates how complexity informs approaches to various contemporary issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening social inequality, and impending social and ecological catastrophe wrought by global warming. The book reviews complexity theory in the practice of the social sciences and at their interface with ecological science. It outlines how social theory can be reconciled with complexity thinking and presents a review of the way research can be done using complexity theory. The book suggests how complexity theory can be used to understand and evaluate governance processes, particularly with regard to social inequality and the climate crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also examined through a complexity lens, reviewing how complexity thinking has been employed in relation to the pandemic and how implementing a complexity framework can transform health and social care. The book concludes with a call to action and the use of complexity theory to inform critical thinking in the education system. This textbook will be immensely useful to students and researchers interested in social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies, and development studies.