Policymaking for a Good Society

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   Pages 1-11

3. Policy Paradigms should be Consistent with the Complexity of Reality

   Pages 12-20

4. Instrumental Philosophy and Criteria

   Pages 21-50

5. General Systems Principles for Policy Analysis

   Pages 51-60

6. Social Criteria and Socioecological Indicators

   Pages 61-71

7. The Social Fabric Matrix

   Pages 73-108

8. Illustrations of the Social Fabric Matrix

   Pages 109-143

9. Timeliness as the Appropriate Concept of Time

   Pages 145-185

10. Evaluation for Sufficiency: Combining the Social Fabric Matrix and Instrumentalism

    Pages 187-197

11. The Social Fabric Matrix in a Metapolicymaking Context

    Pages 199-227

12. Back Matter

    Pages 229-251

    PDF

Society, ecological systems, and technological combinations are sets of ongoing processes that are organized as integrated systems and networks. Consequently, real-world problems—whether labeled social, economic, environmental, or technical—are a result of the ongoing processes that organize and coordinate integrated parts to make undesirable deliveries to each other. Furthermore, the processes are guided by numerous policies and concomitant rules, regulations, requirements, and enforced behavioral patterns. Therefore, there is no reason to expect processes to change or problems to be solved without policy changes. The processes are ongoing, so changes in undesirable deliveries are dependent on changes in policies. One premise of this book is that too often policy analysis is conducted with knowledge bases and tools that are not appropriate for the task of analyzing and understanding complex socioecological and sociotechnical systems leading to wasted resources, policy failure, and frustration. The conjunction of the complexity of problem contexts and inappropriate policymaking that follows from insufficient analysis has left citizens frustrated and bewildered. Citizens want problems solved, yet they have lost faith in the ability of policymakers to implement solutions necessary to achieve a good society. Another premise is that it is not necessary to continue down that destructive path. In response, the purpose of this book, briefly stated, is to explain how to model, analyze, and make policy for the social fabric in which society's problems are enmeshed.

• Institution
• Policy
• institutional economics
• policy analysis
• policymaking
• program evaluation

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA

  F. Gregory Hayden

Policies and ethics