Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09442-2
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dc.titleManaging pandemics as super wicked problems: lessons from, and for, COVID-19 and the climate crisis
dc.contributor.authorAuld, Graeme
dc.contributor.authorBernstein, Steven
dc.contributor.authorCashore, Benjamin
dc.contributor.authorLevin, Kelly
dc.date.accessioned2022-10-26T09:18:07Z
dc.date.available2022-10-26T09:18:07Z
dc.date.issued2021-11-17
dc.identifier.citationAuld, Graeme, Bernstein, Steven, Cashore, Benjamin, Levin, Kelly (2021-11-17). Managing pandemics as super wicked problems: lessons from, and for, COVID-19 and the climate crisis. Policy Sciences 54 (4) : 707-728. ScholarBank@NUS Repository. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09442-2
dc.identifier.issn0032-2687
dc.identifier.urihttps://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/233819
dc.description.abstractCOVID-19 has caused 100s of millions of infections and millions of deaths worldwide, overwhelming health and economic capacities in many countries and at multiple scales. The immediacy and magnitude of this crisis has resulted in government officials, practitioners and applied scholars turning to reflexive learning exercises to generate insights for managing the reverberating effects of this disease as well as the next inevitable pandemic. We contribute to both tasks by assessing COVID-19 as a “super wicked” problem denoted by four features we originally formulated to describe the climate crisis: time is running out, no central authority, those causing the problem also want to solve it, and policies irrationally discount the future (Levin et al. in Playing it forward: path dependency, progressive incrementalism, and the “super wicked” problem of global climate change, 2007; Levin et al. in Playing it forward: Path dependency, progressive incrementalism, and the "super wicked" problem of global climate change, 2009; Levin et al. in Policy Sci 45(2):123–152, 2012). Doing so leads us to identify three overarching imperatives critical for pandemic management. First, similar to requirements to address the climate crisis, policy makers must establish and maintain durable policy objectives. Second, in contrast to climate, management responses must always allow for swift changes in policy settings and calibrations given rapid and evolving knowledge about a particular disease’s epidemiology. Third, analogous to, but with swifter effects than climate, wide-ranging global efforts, if well designed, will dramatically reduce domestic costs and resource requirements by curbing the spread of the disease and/or fostering relevant knowledge for managing containment and eradication. Accomplishing these tasks requires building the analytic capacity for engaging in reflexive anticipatory policy design exercises aimed at maintaining, or building, life-saving thermostatic institutions at the global and domestic levels. © 2021, The Author(s).
dc.publisherSpringer
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.sourceScopus OA2021
dc.subjectClimate policy
dc.subjectCOVID-19
dc.subjectEpidemiology
dc.subjectHealth policy
dc.subjectPandemics
dc.subjectPath dependency analysis
dc.subjectSuper wicked problems
dc.subjectThermostatic institutions
dc.subjectWorld Health Organization
dc.typeArticle
dc.contributor.departmentDEAN'S OFFICE (LKY SCH OF PUBLIC POLICY)
dc.description.doi10.1007/s11077-021-09442-2
dc.description.sourcetitlePolicy Sciences
dc.description.volume54
dc.description.issue4
dc.description.page707-728
dc.published.statePublished
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