Policy and Practice

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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Positive Pathways report

This Cascade Institute report explores how to translate an understanding of polycrises into actionable strategies to alleviate them. It suggests ways in which polycrisis analysis can build on existing approaches to systemic change to help chart positive pathways to better futures, by examining multiple factors — the sorts of systems changes required to avoid, mitigate

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Governance in Complexity – Sustainability Governance Under Highly Uncertain and Complex Conditions

This report presents an alternative concept of governance in complexity as an approach to managing sustainability challenges. It outlines how traditional governance methods may be insufficient for addressing the systemic, interrelated, and uncertain nature of these issues. The report highlights the importance of acknowledging multiple perspectives and trade-offs, rather than relying on simplified or universal

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A delusion of control: Loss of agency in modern complex systems

This article argues that as “we increasingly rely on [globalized complex adaptive systems], we surrender more and more individual autonomy and agency, diminishing our ability to actually control our outcomes and wellbeing.” Concomitantly, “the illusion that we as individuals–or even as a society–can fully control the modern complex systems-of-systems that enable modern living is a

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WTW Research Network Risk & Resilience Review: Emerging Risks from Geopolitical Shifts

This report by the WTW Research Network “introduces research and opinions that provide new perspectives to support risk management and resilience.” In particular, this report focuses on WTW’s work in geopolitics, topics such as supply chains, national competition, and emerging risks and their interconnectivity. WTW posits that the topics covered “highlight a need for an

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Institutional designs and dynamics of crisis governance at the local level: European governments facing the polycrisis

The authors analyze the institutional design variations in local crisis governance responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their intersection with other significant local crises from a cross-country comparative perspective, focusing on France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the UK (England).

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‘Pre-Polycrisis’ Hazard Mitigation

Nick King argues that industrial civilization has created many persistent and severe hazards (such as nuclear waste, methane leaking hydrocarbon infrastructure, contaminated sites, landfills, and deforested land), polycrises in the near future may significantly constrict humanity’s ability to manage these hazards, and therefore societies should prioritize long-term remedial actions now, while they still have the

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How useful is the concept of polycrisis? Lessons from the development of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit during the COVID-19 pandemic

The authors examine domestic policymaking processes amidst polycrisis by tracing the Canadian government’s development of its Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) during the Covid-19 pandemic. They argue that the process embodied three key best practices for national-level policy design in a crisis—policy integration, learning, and agility—and show how these elements evade capture by the polycrisis

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