Policymaking in an Information Wired Environment
What is clearly perceived , on the contrary , is the heavy burden caused by the increasing complicatedness of everyday policy activities . In this situation , as shown by PICTO analyses ( PICTO 2012 ), the pursuit for innovation and management of ICT pervasiveness are often considered as bureaucratic accomplishments which make the government – governance relationships even more cumbersome .
However , the opportunity of a novel perspective to bear the government burdens and leverage the ICT potential is peeping out 8 . For it to gain momentum in government organizations while taking advantage of the tenets of complexity thinking 9 , some issues deserve further attention and are briefly mentioned in the following . Although by no means exhaustive , we hope that they can pave the way for other contributions and help in stimulating additional insights .
A ) Extending the perspective of observation of a policy problem .
There is a need to look at problems in
a different way in order to counter the overwhelming complicatedness of many policy practices . How this should be done is a longstanding issue and several suggestions have already been made . According to Maeda ’ s laws of simplicity , for example , the crucial aspect in sharpening a problem is to leverage one ’ s design capability by “ subtracting the obvious , and adding the meaningful ” ( Maeda 2006 ). Other scientists contend that an enhanced approach would result from a process of coevolution in the knowledge perspectives of the involved people ( see Mitleton-Kelly 2011 ). Insights from PICTO studies suggest that such an extension would , ultimately , ensue from the widespread usage of social-based web applications which themselves convey a novel way to appreciate phenomena ; not only do they provide manifold information about a certain problem , but they also show how other observers , with different points of view and analytical capabilities , regard and reason about that problem . Interpreted , situated , and exchanged information therefore are additional information chunks which may turn out to be even more valuable than the original one ( see Eversole 2011 ).
As government actors are more and more confronted with the need to couple their own ( internal ) view of a problem , with the many other ( external ) views , the role of cognitive mediation artifacts ( models ) is going to be increasingly important . The point to note in this respect , however , is not so much what kind of methods / models is going to be the most successful in linking the internal and external views . Rather , as already emphasized in Occelli and Semboloni ( 2011 ), the point is what
8
The opportunity to revise conventional advisory system for coping with governance change is also emphasized in Craft and Howlett ( 2012 ).
9
To properly expose the tenets of complexity thinking goes beyond the scope of this paper . For the sake of the present discussion , it may suffice to say that they emerge from the needs of line of enquire in which the consistency requirements commanded by a system approach is specified enough to put them in practice and accommodate the needs of those who have to take actions ( Rhodes et al . 2011 ). The approach is therefore trans-disciplinary and requires ( Montuori 2008 ): ( a ) a focus that is inquiry-driven rather than based on disciplines , thus calling for a knowledge that is pertinent to the object of inquiry in relation to the purposes of action ; ( b ) an emphasis on the construction of knowledge , thus paying attention at the underlying assumptions through which disciplines construct knowledge ; ( c ) an understanding of the organization of knowledge in situated contexts ; and ( d ) the integration of the knower in the process of inquiry .
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