Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World: Governance, Politics and Plural Perceptions

"Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World" is a powerful and original statement on why well-intended attempts to alleviate pressing social ills too often derail, and how effective, efficient and broadly acceptable solutions to social problems can be found. It takes its cue from the idea that our endlessly changing and complex social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between organizing, justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance failure inevitably results. Successful solutions are therefore creative combinations of four opposing ways of organizing and thinking. This book, jointly written by leading political scientists, anthropologists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, a geographer and an engineer, shows the force of these theoretically sophisticated, yet simple and practical ideas for a number of pressing issues from around the globe.