The daily Astorian., July 20, 2017, Page 19, Image 28

JULY 20, 2017 // 19
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Crossword Answer
BOOKMONGER
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Coping with
intractable problems
he Pacifi c Northwest
is home to some fi ne
academic publishers,
and this week I’d like to call
your attention to a thought-
ful new book from Oregon
State University Press
that considers how serious
environmental and other
challenges are dealt with by
scientists, policy-makers and
citizens.
“New Strategies for
Wicked Problems” was a
collaborative effort edited
by OSU professors Edward
P. Weber, Denise Lach and
Brent S. Steel.
The editors defi ne
“wicked’ problems as having
three primary characteris-
tics. First, they involve such
complex causes and effects
that it is hard to get a handle
on the problem, much less
come up with good solu-
tions. Second, they involve
overlapping problems that
cut across multiple policy
domains and involve many
different (and often compet-
ing) players. And fi nally, no
matter the amount of brain-
power and resources thrown
their way, wicked problems
are “relentless,” and any po-
tential solutions will impact
a multitude of issues beyond
the initial problem.
The wicked dilemmas
this book uses as examples
include fracking, salmon
recovery, forest management
and health care. Feel a head-
ache coming on?
The chapter on fracking
was particularly thorny, not
only in terms of content, but
also in its use of academic
jargon. To be fair, this is
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“New Strategies
for Wicked Problems”
Eds. Edward P. Weber,
Denise Lach and Brent S.
Steel
OSU Press
248 pp
$24.95
a scholarly book from an
academic press, but two-
thirds of the way through the
chapter, after bushwhacking
my way through one small
paragraph that fairly bristled
with the following terms —
“multidimensional scaling,”
“inductive exercise,” “visu-
alizing matrices,” “pro-egal-
itarian values” and “stress
value” — I did indeed feel
stressed, and gave myself
license to skim the rest of
the chapter.
Subsequent chapters on
the health of forests and
the decline of wild salmon
populations were convinc-
ingly gloomy in laying out
the magnitude and com-
plexity of the problems.
As one author puts it, these
become collisions “between
an unstoppable change and
an immovable status quo.”
And many of this book’s
contributors reveal that
no matter how strong the
scientifi c research may be,
conventional policy-mak-
ing often manipulates it or
even outright overrules it
with political and economic
considerations.
But bear with the book a
bit longer. After presenting
these complex dilemmas and
unsatisfactory solutions in
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the fi rst section, a follow-up
section pitches ideas for new
ways of moving forward.
These chapters advocate
for replacing exclusive and
ultimately unsuccessful
top-down delivery of policy
edicts with strategies that
value and integrate input
from local stakeholders and
practitioners.
The authors of these
chapters offer new ap-
proaches including
“post-normal” science,
place-based social learning
and knowledge-to-action
networks. These sound like
buzzwords at fi rst, but the
authors demonstrate how
these collaborative ap-
proaches encourage more
constructive solutions.
Again, this isn’t easy
reading, but ”New Strategies
for Wicked Problems” does
offer ideas that might help
us extract ourselves from the
bickering, fi nger-pointing,
ignorance-exalting, polar-
ized quicksand into which
we currently seem to be
sinking.
Especially if you’re a
scientist, a citizen activist
or a policy-maker, this book
provides perspectives that
can help you reinvigorate
the way you address prob-
lem-solving.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael, who
writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, au-
thors and publishers of the
Pacifi c Northwest. Contact
her at bkmonger@nwlink.
com.
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