Policy and Practice

The Politics of Polycrisis

This book delves into the challenges and strategies for social democracy in Europe amid multiple, interconnected crises. It builds on discussions from the 10th Oxford Symposium and reflects on how progressive politics can navigate the complexity of today’s political and social landscape.

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A Philanthropic Theory of Systems Transformation for Advancing Equity in the Polycrisis

This article argues “that intervening to mitigate and reverse the effects of the polycrisis challenges change agents, program designers, foundations, and evaluators to move beyond traditional project-level thinking and autonomous foundation grantmaking to engage in collaborative, principles-driven systems transformation.” They trace the evolution of philanthropy over the past 25 years from SMART goals and logic

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Global crises are multiplying: Here’s how science can help our public decision-makers

The authors argue that the Canadian government’s Scientific Council, which synthesizes the best scientific evidence available for parliamentarians and members of government, needs much better evidence at its disposal to grapple with the global polycrisis. They outline five ways in which governments can more effectively utilize good evidence in policymaking: ask scientific advisors to “show

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Prepared for the Polycrisis? The Need for Complexity Science and Systems Thinking to Address Global and National Evidence Gaps

The authors argue that inadequate national and global level data prevent us from understanding the complex interactions of the polycrisis and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. They propose that applied systems thinking can address this gap by helping to hypothesize, model, visualize, and test system properties, especially if it uses participatory processes that “assist stakeholders

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Evaluation in the Polycrisis Epoch

Michael Quinn Patton argues that good public policy evaluation is crucial for addressing the global polycrisis, but requires an informed citizenry. It is thus presently “engaged in a battle against misinformation, politicized knowledge, irrational decision-making, and authoritarian governments. Framing his analysis with Ancient Greek philosophy, Patton proposes that evaluation is really about critical thinking and

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Polycrisis Research and Analysis Roadmap

This Roadmap, a collaboration between the Cascade Institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, presents a plan to advance polycrisis analysis as an inclusive, credible, and recognized field of knowledge and practice. It draws on the results of a broad consultation

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