Locating Potential Leverage Points In A Systems Thinking Causal Loop Diagram Toward Policy Intervention

Abstract

Outcomes depending on various interacting and adaptive parts and actors in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world are challenging to analyze using traditional thinking. Hence, Systems Thinking (ST) can be applied as a tool to aid policy makers in designing interventions that anticipates various ways in which a system might react to policy changes through the practice of integrating multiple perspectives into a causal loop diagram (CLD). We formalize criteria for identifying potential leverage points (PLP) in a CLD. Identifying PLPs enable policy makers to apply ST tools to devise strategies that are capable of addressing VUCA problems.

Keywords:

• Causal loop diagram
• critical driver
• potential leverage point
• systems theory

Notes

1 As underscored by Roxas et al. (2018), carrying capacity includes the maximum number of tourists at any time and the activities in which they engage. Activities can include, but are not limited to, parties by the beach, businesses built near the waterways and beachfront, and environmentally unfriendly water activities.