Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Provoking More Productive Discussion of Wicked Problems

2012; American Society of Civil Engineers; Volume: 138; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0000190

1943-5452

Jay R. Lund,

Transboundary Water Resource Management

Rhetorical consensus is easier and different than making a decision."(Pete Pivo) Wicked ProblemsWater management is full of wicked problems.These problems often have many conflicting stakeholders with entrenched opposing positions, great complexity, shifting dynamics, and substantial uncertainties (Rittel and Webber 1973;Liebman 1976).Wicked problems elude clean technical and policy solutions.The challenges of solving such wicked problems are borne out mathematically in game theory.For many problems, the parties involved have short-term incentives to behave unproductively.Games of "chicken" or other unproductive or counterproductive deadlocks result when parties follow near-sighted objectives as the overall system continues to deteriorate (Madani and Lund 2010).Elected and agency officials have special challenges dealing with wicked problems because the controversies from addressing them can threaten their careers.One response to these controversies has been frequent use of consensus processes, in which a wide range of stakeholders are assembled to outline solutions themselves, with little governmental direction.Sometimes these processes have been very useful and produce win-win solutions for all parties.However, seeking consensus often becomes a prolonged process of endless discussions and posturing, with very little progress-an elegant way to prolong a deteriorating status quo.Many problems cannot be resolved by a consensus process alone.The demonstration of win-win opportunities is not a sufficient condition for consensus.Stakeholders are usually not ready for the rhetorical and substantive compromises needed for consensus.Decades of work and failure are often needed for stakeholders to obtain the knowledge, perspective, experience, and political position on which consensus on long-term direction is possible (Blomquist 1992;Kelley 1989).Unfortunately, stakeholders are sometimes devoted to outsmarting each other more than solving the long-term problem.