Managing ‘wicked problems’ through complex adaptive governance networks

This chapter explores how ‘wicked problems’ can be distinguished from those problems that can be understood through a ‘linear’ logic, the core concepts and mechanisms that define governance networks that function as complex adaptive systems and the set of managerial strategies that can be employed to harness complexity and steer governance networks toward optimal structures, functions and solutions. It concludes that complex governance networks are needed to address the wicked problems facing many public managers but that the performance of these governance networks is often suboptimal, as their emergent properties, structures and functions are not understood by the public managers responsible for their stewardship. Consequently, public managers need to be able to gauge the substantive complexity inherent to the problems themselves, the strategic complexity inherent to the composition of the actors involved and the institutional complexity inherent in the prevailing rule structures and institutional norms.