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Wellbeing as a Wicked Problem: Navigating the Arguments for the Role of Government

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Abstract

Governments in a number of countries have shown increasing interest in seeking to elevate happiness or wellbeing as an explicit policy goal. This interest has led to fierce debates both within and, increasingly, beyond academe about the appropriate role for government in this area. It is difficult to adjudicate between the various arguments surrounding the issue as they often take very different starting points, either metatheoretical or disciplinary. In seeking to steer a course through these arguments we take the distinction between ‘wicked’ and ‘tame’ problems as a reference point, arguing that wellbeing should be categorised as the former. The seminal discussion of this distinction (Rittel and Webber in Policy Sci 4:155–169, 1973) resonates sharply with current debates on wellbeing and indeed is located within similar debates in the past. We argue that understanding wellbeing as a wicked problem steers us towards deliberation and scrutiny as central to the agenda and cautions us against expecting to find a panacea. However, this understanding can take us beyond irresolvable disputes by pointing to the need for pragmatic and legitimate government action. In developing our arguments we ground them mainly in relation to empirical research on developments in the UK, where the connection between wellbeing and public policy is seen as relatively advanced. However, we suggest these arguments apply to other contexts where wellbeing is gaining increasing traction as a potential goal of government policy.

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Notes

  1. This paper draws on material from 15 semi-structured interviews conducted with a cross-section of actors engaged with wellbeing measurement and policy in the UK, undertaken between 2011 and 2013.

  2. In the field of economic development, the United Nations Development Program, Bhutan and Mexico have also developed multi-dimensional measures of life quality. Other countries around the world are considering their development currently.

  3. The social indicators movement is widely seen as a forerunner to contemporary experiments with measuring wellbeing and led to new national surveys such as the Swedish Level of Living Survey (1965) and the UK Social Trends Report (1970).

  4. Rittel and Webber use the term “wicked” in ‘a meaning akin to that of “malignant” (in contrast to “benign”) or “vicious” (like a circle) or “tricky” (like a leprechaun) or “aggressive” (like a lion, in contrast to the docility of a lamb)’ (p 160).

  5. 5786 Google Scholar cites as of 18/06/2014.

  6. In total, ONS held 175 events, involving around 7250 people. In total the debate generated 34,000 responses (ONS 2011, 2).

  7. The four questions included in the APS were: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile? Each is measured on a scale from 0 to 10. These questions are asked of around 165,000 adults (aged 16 and over) each year (ONS 2014, 33).

  8. In the ONS programme, there is one question on happiness out of four on ‘personal wellbeing’.

  9. Emphasis in original.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank John MackMersh for suggesting the connection between wellbeing and wicked problems and Paul Allin, Karen Scott and the anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Happiness Studies reviewers for their very helpful comments on this article. We would also like thank participants in the ESRC Seminar Series on The Politics of Wellbeing (http://politicsofwellbeing.group.shef.ac.uk/—Grant Ref: ES/L001357/1). Paul Anand would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for its support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, Northumberland Road, Elmfield, Sheffield, S10 2TU, UK

    Ian Bache

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Paul Anand

  3. Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, 34-40 University Road, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Louise Reardon

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  1. Ian Bache
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Correspondence to Ian Bache.

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Bache, I., Reardon, L. & Anand, P. Wellbeing as a Wicked Problem: Navigating the Arguments for the Role of Government. J Happiness Stud 17, 893–912 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-015-9623-y

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