After half a century of ‘wicked’ policy problems, are we any better at managing them?

Since the term was popularised by Rittel and Webber in their seminal article, Dilemmas in a general theory of planning, the concept of ‘wicked problems’, or those that are resistant to optimal solutions, has posed a significant challenge to the creation of public policy. In this post, Brian Head, draws on his new book, Wicked Problems in Public Policy, to discuss how approaches to wicked problems and the challenges caused by an increasingly complex and polarised society have developed in recent years and argues for an approach aimed at better managing wicked problems, as opposed to seeking to directly solve them.