Creating Adaptive Policies: A Guide for Policy-Making in an Uncertain World

Contents: 1. The need for adaptive policies/Henry David Venema and John Drexhage. 2. Seven Guidelines for policy-making in an uncertain world/Darren Swanson, Stephen Barg, Stephen Tyler, Henry David Venema, Sanjay Tomar, Suruchi Bhadwal, Sreeja Nair, Dimple Roy and John Drexhage. 3. Integrated and forward looking-analysis/Darren Swanson and Sanjay Tomar. 4. Multi-stakeholder deliberation/Stephen Tyler. 5. Automatic policy adjustment/Suruchi Bhadwal, Stephan Barg and Darren Swanson. 6. Enabling self-organization and social networking/Dimple Roy, Sreeja Nair and Henry David Venema. 7. Decentralization of decision making/Stephen Barg and Stephen Tyler. 8. Promoting variation/Sreeja Nair and Dimple Roy. 9. Formal policy review and continuous learning/Sanjay Tomar and Darren Swanson. 10. Insights into implementing adaptive policies/Stephan Barg and Stephen Tyler.  

“Today’s policy-maker has a tough job to do.  Policies that cannot perform effectively under today’s complex, dynamic and uncertain condition run the risk of not achieving their intended purpose. Instead of helping, they may actually hinder the ability of individuals, communities and business to cope with and adapt to change.

Creating Adaptive Policies: A Guide for Policy-Making in an Uncertain world is the very first book to distill the principles of complex adaptive systems and adaptive management into practical guidance for policy-makers. It describes the concept of adaptive policy-making and present seven tools for developing such policies. Based on interviews with people impacted by policy and research of over a dozen policy case studies, this book serves as a pragmatic guide for policy-makers by elaborating these seven tools. It will be an invaluable information resource for technical policy-makers, politicians and their advisors, as well as for those studying politics and international relations.” (jacket)