Reforming the Teaching and Conducting of Policy Studies to Deal Better with Complex Systems

Paul K. Davis, Tim McDonald, Ann Pendleton-Jullian, Angela O'Mahony, Osonde A. Osoba

ResearchPosted on rand.org Sep 17, 2021Published in: Journal on Policy and Complex Systems, Volume 7, Number 1, pages 119–139 (Spring 2021).

The teaching and conduct of policy analysis needs updating to account better for the special challenges of social problems occurring in complex adaptive systems. Drawing on topics central to this journal, we suggest changes relating to (1) worldview when conceiving and posing problems, (2) the basis for reasoning and inference within a worldview, (3) analytic style for conducting inquiry (e.g., addressing uncertainty and comparing options), (4) the character of the models used, and (5) the questions asked of the models.

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: Policy Studies Organization
  • Publisher: Journal on Policy and Complex Systems
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2021
  • Pages: 21
  • Document Number: EP-68721

Research conducted by

This publication is part of the RAND external publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.