The Policy Sciences: The Challenge of Complexity

Rebecca M. Hendrick and David Nachmias

Review of Policy Research, 1992, vol. 11, issue 3‐4, 310-328

Abstract: This essay reviews some of the recent criticisms of positivist science. It interprets this criticism, more generally, as directed towards the complexity of social science phenomena and the difficulty of dealing with complexity epistemologically and methodologically. Rather than ignoring complexity, changing the subject matter or explaining it away, we argue that complexity may be acknowledged and studied systematically withn the context of post‐positivist approaches. The essay than proposes several strategies for conceptualizing and researching complexity (at a “meta‐level” from substantive policy research) that are based in systems theory.

Date: 1992
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