Complexity of Public Policy and Administration: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

That public policy and administration processes are complex is well known. Societies are multifaceted and dynamic; so should be the policies that are meant to govern them. This intuitive understanding makes complexity theory and related theoretical perspectives appealing to public policy and administration scholars and practitioners. The challenge is to develop meaningful and useful applications of seemingly esoteric and distant concepts and methods of complexity theory for public policy and administration. The papers in this special issue of Public Administration Quarterly take important steps in applying and refining those complexity theory concepts and methods that originated in fields as far away as thermodynamics, atmospheric science, biology, and mathematics. It should be noted here that these papers are not the first ones doing so. Since the 1990s, several researchers and theorists made contributions in books (Kiel, 1994; Kiel & Elliott, 1996; Elliott & Kiel, 1999; Morcol & Dennard, 2000; Morcol, 2002; Haynes, 2003; Dennard, Richardson, & Morcol, 2008) and symposium issues in this journal (Weber, 2005, 2006). The papers in this issue contribute to this literature. It is fair to ask the question, are the concepts and methods of thermodynamics, atmospheric science, and the like transferable to public policy and administration? Some scholars addressed this question and warned against indiscriminate and casual usages of the concepts of chaos, complexity, and related theories in the socials sciences (Kickert, 1993; Kellert, 1995; Sokal & Bricmont, 1999). These are legitimate critiques and public administration and policy scholars should be cautious and meticulous in their applications. But this does not mean that the exciting theoretical and empirical possibilities complexity and related theories offer should not be explored. A legitimate point some of the critics make is that complexity theory has a mathematical structure in the fields it originated and it is meaningless to ignore the mathematical logic of the theory and apply it only metaphorically in the socials sciences. Indeed the mathematical logic of complexity and related theories cannot be ignored. And most of the applications in the social sciences followed the dictum that complexity theory is mathematical at its core (Guastello, 1995; Kiel & Elliott, 1996; Elliott & Kiel, 1999; Dennard, Richardson, & Morcol, 2008). Axelrod (1984, 1997) and Miller and Page (2007) developed specific quantitative models and simulations for applications in social sciences. As important as they are, mathematical modeling and simulations are not the only way to use complexity theory in the social sciences. Conceptual clarification and qualitative/interpretive applications are as important. The papers in this issue have this orientation. They follow the precedents in Goldstein (1994), Morcol & Dennard (2000), and Gerrits (2008). The papers in this issue address problems in policy implementation, international relations, environmental policy and management, and police administration from the perspective of complexity theory. They illustrate the applications of concepts like nonlinearity, self-organization, path dependency, and landscapes. PAPERS IN THE SPECIAL ISSUE In their paper, Mischen and Jackson integrate the insights of three theoretical perspectives--complexity theory, social network analysis, and knowledge management--for a better understanding of policy implementation processes. They present three cases in welfare policy implementation to illustrate this integrated framework. Mischen and Jackson argue that for an organization to reach its goals, its leaders must understand the nature of the social networks within the organization and that of interorganizational networks. They should also understand the routines that emerge from and consequently guide patterns of behavior in these networks and the fitness landscapes in which they operate. …

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