Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy

Graham Room argues that conventional approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of social and economic change are unsatisfactory. As a result, researchers are ill-equipped to offer policy advice. This book offers a new analytical approach, combining complexity science and institutionalism. It also provides tools for policy makers in turbulent times.

Part 1 is concerned with the conceptualization of socio-economic change. It integrates complexity science and institutionalism into a coherent ontology of social and policy dynamics.

Part 2 is concerned with models and measurement. It combines some of the principal approaches developed in complexity analysis with models and methods drawn from mainstream social and political science.

Part 3 offers empirical applications to public policy: the dynamics of social exclusion; the social dimension of knowledge economies; the current financial and economic crisis. These are supplemented by a toolkit for the practice of 'agile policy making'.

This is a stimulating, provocative and highly original book. It will appeal to academics and students in social and policy studies and to a wide range of scholars in other disciplines where complexity science is already well-developed. It will also be of major interest for decision makers coping with complex and turbulent policy terrains.

Contents:

Preface

1. Introduction

Part I: Concepts

2. The Complexity Paradigm

3. Complex Adaptive Systems

4. The Economy as a Complex Adaptive System

5. Institutional Settings and Architectures

6. Institutional Dynamics

7. The Struggle for Positional Advantage

8. Conceptualising Social Dynamics

Part II: Methods

9. Attractors and Orbits in Dynamic Systems

10. Patterns in Time and Space

11. Connections and Networks

12. Mobility on Social Landscapes

13. Towards a Generic Methodology

Part III: Policies

14. Agile Policy-Making

15. Poverty and Social Exclusion

16. Social Dynamics of the Knowledge Economy

17. Global Turbulence and Crisis Postscript: Tools for Policy-Makers

References

Index