Wicked problems and sociology: building a missing bridge through processual relationalism

ABSTRACT

Relationalism presumes conceptual primacy of relations over the elements engaged in those relations. In that sense, relations are not viewed as something external to pre-given elements, but as constitutive of those elements. Processual relationalism presumes that the relations between/among elements are not just static ties, but unfolding, dynamic processes. Currently, processual relationalism is increasingly present in the social sciences. Nevertheless, it is the movement of relational sociology that has been at the forefront of the processual ‘relational turn.’ In this paper, the authors argue that the methodological potential of processual-relational sociology should be taken decisively further since it is especially relevant for addressing the socio-political reality of our time that is increasingly characterized by what has been referred to as ‘wicked problems’. Through introducing the distinction of self-action, interaction and trans-action as it is discussed in relational sociology, the authors argue that the methodological consequences of processual relationalism overlap with constitutive explanation, which is an important addition to causal explanation that is prevalent in the ‘variable-centered’ social sciences. The authors offer a sketch of a research agenda for explaining a wicked problem that needs a processual-relational methodology to be addressed: the ongoing COVID-19 Crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational sociology
• processual sociology
• constitutive explanation
• wicked problems
• COVID-19 Crisis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Bogner et al., 2020; Cambré et al., 2020; Lawrence, 2020; Mathur, 2020; Moon, 2020.

2 The outlets of those 20 items where the following (number of items in the brackets):

-journals: Agriculture and Human Values (2); Current Sociology (1); Economy and Society (1); Human Ecology Review (1); Innovation-The European Journal of Social Science Research (3); Society & Natural Resources (2); Sociologia Ruralis (1); Sociological Review (1); Sociology of Health & Illness (1); South African Review of Sociology (1); Sport in Society (1); THEORIA (1).

-book series: Research in Rural Sociology and Development (2); Translational Systems Sciences (1);

-books: Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd (1)

3 The massive Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (Dépelteau, 2018a) for instance, does not mention ‘wicked problems’ at all except for in a name of the project lead by one of its contributors.

4 For the sake of expository clarity, we bracket here the fact that social entities are always already immersed in not just one, but multiple constitutive relations with multiple entities.

5 More specifically: not just ‘actions’ but ‘trans-actions,’ as we discuss in the next section.

6 See the next section on the distinction between different types of problems.

7 Note here that we are not trying to ‘ontologize wickedness’ (Turnbull & Hoppe, 2019, p. 320). We are analyzing ontological commitments (see Bricker, 2016) of processual-relational sociology from the viewpoint of their usefulness for conceptualizing wicked problems in a manner that sets a more fruitful research agenda than substantialist ontological commitments.

8 See Selg & Ventsel, 2020, especially chapter 3.

9 One of the very few places where post-structuralists deem it necessary to open up their presumed meaning for ‘constituted’ can be found in an endnote in Bacchi (2016): ‘The term ‘constituted’ refers to how ‘things’ are brought into existence through practices’ (p. 13, note 2). Although this meaning is compatible with what we are looking for, it is too general to inform research design questions.

10 Note again that we are not discussing here the fourth option of a situation where there is a disagreement over the definition of the problem and an agreement over its solution.

Additional information

Funding

Writing this paper was supported by the Estonian Research Council with the personal research funding granted to the project PUT1485 A Relational Approach to Governing Wicked Problems.

Notes on contributors

Peeter Selg

Peeter Selg, PhD, is Professor of Political Theory in the School of Governance, Law and Society at Tallinn University, Tallinn Estonia. His work has been published among other outlets in Sociological Theory, PS: Political Science; Politics, Journal of Political Power and The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology. His recent book (with Andreas Ventsel)is titled Introducing Relational Political Analysis: Political Semiotics as a Theory and Method (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). He is the editor (with Nick Crossley) of the book series ‘Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology’.

Benjamin Klasche

Benjamin Klasche, PhD, is currently a Lecturer for Political Science and International Studies in the School of Governance, Law and Society at Tallinn University, Tallinn Estonia. His work has been published in International Relations, International Studies and with Columbia University Press. His main research interests include social science methodology, international theory, relationalism and wicked problems.

Joonatan Nõgisto

Joonatan Nõgisto is currently a PhD-Candidate and junior researcher in the School of Governance, Law and Society at Tallinn University, Tallinn Estonia. His main research interests include social ontology, object-oriented politics, and wicked problems. His master’s thesis focuses on bringing the insights of object-oriented ontology into the study and governance of wicked problems.