Complexity and the Art of Public Policy : : Solving Society's Problems from the Bottom Up / / Roland Kupers, David Colander.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Colander, David,; Kupers, Roland,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (320 p.) :; 3 halftones.

Complexity science-made possible by modern analytical and computational advances-is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. Complexity and the Art of Public Policy outlines a new, more flexible policy narrative, which envisions society as a complex evolving system that is uncontrollable but can be influenced.David Colander and Roland Kupers describe how economists and society became locked into the current policy framework, and lay out fresh alternatives for framing policy questions. Offering original solutions to stubborn problems, the complexity narrative builds on broader philosophical traditions, such as those in the work of John Stuart Mill, to suggest initiatives that the authors call "activist laissez-faire" policies. Colander and Kupers develop innovative bottom-up solutions that, through new institutional structures such as for-benefit corporations, channel individuals' social instincts into solving societal problems, making profits a tool for change rather than a goal. They argue that a central role for government in this complexity framework is to foster an ecostructure within which diverse forms of social entrepreneurship can emerge and blossom.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- PART I. The Complexity Frame for Policy -- Chapter 1. Twin Peaks -- Chapter 2. Government With, Not Versus, the Market -- Chapter 3. I Pencil Revisited: Beyond Market Fundamentalism -- Chapter 4. The Complexity Policy Frame -- PART II. Exploring the Foundations -- Chapter 5. How Economics Lost the Complexity Vision -- Chapter 6. How Macroeconomics Lost the Complexity Vision -- Chapter 7. Complexity: A New Kind of Science? -- Chapter 8: A New Kind of Complexity Economics? -- Chapter 9. Nudging toward a Complexity Policy Frame -- PART III. Laissez-Faire Activism in Practice -- Chapter 10. The Economics of Influence -- Chapter 11. Implementing Influence Policy -- Chapter 12. Laissez-Faire Activism -- Chapter 13. Getting the Ecostructure of Government Right -- PART IV. The Lost Agenda -- Chapter 14. Getting the Ecostructure of Social Science Education Right -- Chapter 15. The Lost Agenda -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index