The Tame, the Wicked and the Super Wicked

A post on the blog Community Of Practice In Philosophy for Management, contrasts “tame” and “wicked” problems [1].

Tame problems are those which can be clearly stated, have a well-defined goal, and once solved, stay solved.  The games of chess and go provide examples of tame problems. In contrast, wicked problems have complex cause-and-effect relationships, human interaction, and inherently incomplete information.  They require compromises.


In a 1973 paper, Rittel and Webber compare tame and wicked problems with a view to policy [2].



“The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame” problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good; there is no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about “optimal solutions” to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no “solutions” in the sense of definitive and objective answers.”



Wicked problems have no stopping rule, and their solutions are not true or false, but good or bad. There is no immediate or ultimate test of such a solution, and each is a one-shot operation, with no opportunity to learn by trial and error. There is no set of enumerable potential solutions, nor is there a well-defined set of permissible operations that may be used in a plan.

Every wicked problem is potentially unique, and can be seen as a symptom of another problem. An effect of a wicked problem can be explained in many ways, each of which leads to a different approach to a solution.



Levin et al. [3] go further by describing a category of “super wicked” problems, exemplified by climate change in its social and policy aspects. These problems have four key features:



Time is running out.

Those who cause the problem also seek to provide a solution.

The central authority needed to address it is weak or non-existent.

Policy responses discount the future irrationally.



They claim that together “these features create a tragedy because our governance institutions, and the policies they generate (or fail to generate), largely respond to short term time horizons even when the catastrophic implications of doing so are far greater than any real or perceived benefits of inaction.”



The paper presents an attempt to redirect social science approaches to climate policy away from traditional policy analysis, towards an option “that builds on an understanding of path-dependent causal processes”. Path dependence explains how present decisions are limited by decisions made in the past [4]. An example is the persistence of the QWERTY keyboard in the face of arguably superior rivals. The writers argue that path dependence can be used to address super wicked problems through “applied forward reasoning”, which seeks to initiate and nurture beneficial path dependent policies aimed at reducing carbon output over an effective time scale. Such interventions are described as “sticky”, in that, like the use of the QWERTY keyboard, they are difficult to displace once established, and relatively safe from, for example, changes of government.



The paper concentrates on how interventions achieve immediate ‘‘stickiness’’ and gain durability, expand the populations they cover, and change behaviours through the transformative effects of numerous small policy changes which trigger path-dependent processes.

Three diagnostic questions are proposed regarding such initiatives:



What can be done to create stickiness making reversibility immediately difficult?

What can be done to entrench support over time?

What can be done to expand the population that supports the policy?



Answers to the first diagnostic question can involve seeking entry points for change through existing “durable constitutions and other hard institutions”, and “assessing what sectoral factors, such as institutionalized resource allocation systems, shape and affect policy dynamic”.

For the second and third diagnostic questions, analysts are directed to “pay greater attention to the role of coalitions and values, [and] deeply held views about right and wrong by segments of society.”

The writers then expand on the development of coalitions in the context of climate change, giving examples from carbon taxes in North America, and “efforts to entice businesses to support climate efforts”.



The creation of “new interests in line with super wicked problems” can include the promotion of new educational institutes or training programmes related to solution of the problem; such institutes and programs have their own inertia, which together with their output of graduates trained for work in a specific field, promote some of the “stickiness” needed to address problems such as climate change. Attention is also given to “how norms and values might play a role in policy trajectories … uniting and expanding a political community.” Examples include “the shift against slavery or public smoking”.



Although much of the paper is concerned with rather general issues of policy, it may well be considered relevant to community energy work, and to that of the many climate emergence groups in the UK and elsewhere. The paper concludes:



“It is only by deliberate efforts to entrench these insights into mainstream policy analysis, and then to evaluate those interventions that have plausible logics for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that we may be able to collectively harness the policy logics we identify to ameliorate what is arguably the most super wicked problem of our times.”



References



[1] Tame Problems and wicked problems

https://copip.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/tame-problems-and-wicked-problems/



Posted on April 13, 2013; accessed 29 Sept.2019



[2] Dilemmas in a general theory of planning

Rittel, H.J., Webber, M., Policy Sci. 1973; 4:155–69.

https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01405730

Full text at

http://www.ask-force.org/web/Discourse/Rittel-Dilemmas-General-Theory-Planning-1973.pdf



[3] Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change

Kelly Levin, Benjamin Cashore, Steven Bernstein, Graeme Auld

Policy Sciences

June 2012, Volume 45, Issue 2, pp 123–152

https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/egl/files/2015/01/Overcoming-the-tradegy-of-super-wicked-problems.pdf



[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence