Complexity: policymakers' divider and possible conqueror (original) (raw)

1980, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design

It is argued that acknowledgement of complexity is followed by feelings of helplessness which generate three distinct policymaking styles. These three, labelled analytical abdication, analytical alchemy, and analytical addiction, are outlined in terms of their logical bases, strengths, and weaknesses. A natural tendency for the emphasis of fashion to oscillate between all three, in order to speed progress towards greater understanding, is demonstrated, and its inhibition by policymakers' general intolerance towards work based on viewpoints radically different from their own is criticised. More tolerance towards useful features of each approach is thus suggested as the best tactic against the growing complexity problem.