The enduring challenge of ‘wicked problems’: revisiting Rittel and Webber

Kate Crowley () and Brian W. Head ()
Additional contact information
Kate Crowley: Politics and International Relations
Brian W. Head: University of Queensland

Policy Sciences, 2017, vol. 50, issue 4, No 3, 539-547

Abstract: Abstract There is, in the twenty-first century, an intense interest in the nature of wicked problems and the complex tasks of identifying their scope, viable responses, and appropriate mechanisms and pathways towards achieving improvement. This preoccupation is timeless, but the discussion over several decades has benefited from Rittel and Webber’s (Policy Sci 4(2):155–169, 1973) path breaking conceptualisation of wicked problems and the political argumentation needed to resolve them. This review revisits Rittel and Webber’s work and its enduring significance, reflecting upon its broad uptake and impact in the policy sciences, an impact that continues to grow over time. We revisit how the classic 1973 paper came to be published in Policy Sciences, its innovative depiction of social problems, its rejection of rationalistic design, its acknowledgement of the subjectivities involved in problem identification and resolutions, and the consequent need for argumentative-based solution processes. We find great resonance in the paper with contemporary problem solving preoccupations, not least that the political context is crucial, that argumentation must be transparent and robust, and that policy interventions may have consequences that cannot be easily controlled in open and highly pluralised social systems.

Keywords: Wicked problems; Horst Rittel; Melvin Webber; Systems theory; Policy solutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11077-017-9302-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:policy:v:50:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s11077-017-9302-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11077/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11077-017-9302-4

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Sciences is currently edited by Michael Howlett

More articles in Policy Sciences from Springer, Society of Policy Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().