‘Pragmatic complexity’ a new foundation for moving beyond ‘evidence-based policy making’?

ABSTRACT

Despite a range of criticism, the realm of policy still remains dominated by the rational, positivist and quantitative approaches of New Public Management, ‘evidence-based’ approaches and target/accountancy oriented ‘scientific’ management. Two notable attempts to develop an alternative to this dominant framework, however, have come from the older tradition of American pragmatism and the newer approach of complexity. In this article we introduce some of the core concepts of pragmatist philosophy and complexity relating to policy making. We then explore some of the key premises for bringing these two fields together and subsequently apply this ‘pragmatic complexity’ approach and a Stacey Diagram to drug policy. We argue that a marriage of pragmatism and complexity can provide a positive alternative conception of the relationship between scientific knowledge and decision-making and offers a way to integrate a scientific approach with democratic deliberation and values.

KEYWORDS:

• Complexity theory
• pragmatist philosophy
• evidence-based policy making
• deliberative democracy
• pragmatic complexity
• drug policy

Notes on contributors

Christopher Ansell received his B.A. in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia in 1979 and worked at the US Office of Technology Assessment from 1979 through 1984. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1993. He is currently Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches courses in public administration, organization theory, public policy, and regulation. Ansell is currently a U.S. editor of Public Administration: An International Quarterly and is the author of Pragmatist Democracy: Evolutionary Learning as Public Philosophy (Oxford University Press 2011). With Jacob Torfing, he is co-editor of Public Innovation through Collaboration and Design (Routledge 2014) and the Handbook of Theories of Governance (Edward Elgar 2016).

Robert Geyer studied in the US, France, Norway and the UK, obtaining his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995. He is currently a professor in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Lancaster University, UK. His major works include: (co-edited with Paul Cairney) Handbook on Complexity and Public Policy (Edward Elgar 2015), (co-authored with Samir Rihani) Complexity and Public Policy: A New Approach to 21^st Century Politics, Policy and Society (Routledge 2010), (co-edited with Jan Bogg) Complexity, Science and Society (Radcliffe 2007) and Exploring European Social Policy (Polity Press, 2000).