Part 7 - Wicked Problems

In a paper “SUSTAINABILITY: CAN LAW MEET THE CHALLENGE?” Rebecca M. Bratspies, Professor at the School of Law, New York City University, introduces the challenge of wicked problems, in the context of sustainability.

The complexity of the sustainability problem is daunting. The multiple interdependencies and the varying levels of uncertainty, not to mention the multitude of stakeholders with conflicting short and long-term interests, make responding to the sustainability challenge extraordinarily difficult. The temporal and spatial reach of the needed changes reach every aspect of society.

These kinds of thorny public-policy dilemmas have an evocative name: they are often called “wicked problems”. The paper referenced coined the phrase “wicked problem”.

A wicked problem is one that is reflexive, meaning that each attempt to create a solution actually changes the way the problem is understood and perceived. In other words, coming up with new possible solutions causes the very definition of the problem to change. Moreover, wicked problems lack a definite formulation, have no clear set of possible solutions, and offer no obvious means of determining whether or not the problem has been resolved.  

Sustainability is a particularly wicked problem, in part because of the lack of an institutional framework capable of developing, implementing, and coordinating the responses necessary to address the problem. As a result, sustainability, like climate change, can be characterized as a “super wicked problem”.