Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World

'A fascinating manifesto.' - The Globe and Mail

'...In an ideal world, everyone that has even a remote relation to policy and decision making would keep a well-worn copy of this book always at hand.' - British Journal of Sociology

'Both those who try to understand policy failures and those who intend to advise policy makers should take its argument about clumsiness seriously According to Verweij, Thompson and Engel, clumsiness is the new norm to craft policies suited to our complex world through the acknowledgement of plural logics. The message is convincingly conveyed here.'

- Political Geography

'Casual observers might think 'clumsiness' comes naturally to government and public policy-making. If so, they might be surprised by how often it is carefully suppressed - often with disastrous consequences, as this book shows. We need to develop the methodology for the important angle of vision this book represents.' - Christopher Hood, Gladstone Professor of Government, University of Oxford, UK

'This study is a clever and important assault on the precepts 'drummed into the heads of those who aspire to be policy analysts' - that there is a single mindset in which a problem must be defined, facts and values distinguished and simple evaluative metrics deployed to achieve optimisation. The authors demonstrate the tragedies perpetrated by this dangerous approach. They show that plural voices - as identified by cultural theory - are necessary for clumsy, but safe, constructively engaged and politically feasible policy-making.' - Tony Allan, Kings College and SOAS, University of London, UK