A well-developed research literature has emerged for the study of wicked problems (Head and Alford, 2017; Kettl, 2006). The research literature on wicked problems focuses on the social and political complexity of wicked... [ view full abstract ]
A well-developed research literature has emerged for the study of wicked problems (Head and Alford, 2017; Kettl, 2006). The research literature on wicked problems focuses on the social and political complexity of wicked problems. The argument in this paper is there is an absence of wicked problem researchers. The paper explores explanations and implications of wicked researchers in public management and public policy not addressing the full range of wicked problems. This paper will explore two significant problems that are under-researched but having high human consequence: homelessness and gang violence. The research question in this paper asks why these problems are not studied. The lack of research disguises the causes of ineffectual action, separates problem-solving into different policy, compartmentalizes the public organizations into silos, and segregates elected officials into partisan or ideological camps. The missing nexus diminishes the capacity of each researcher and democratic governance.
A review of articles published suggests concluding that the fields of public administration, public management, and public policy are primary concerned with networks of service delivery, surveys of the performance of local and federal executives, and of education administrators in primary schools in Texas and Denmark. Now that is an exaggeration but not by much, an examination of the publications in five different journals published since 2013, reveals public sector researchers were chasing the available data, avoiding wicked problems, and failing to address major societal issues. In this paper, the problems of homelessness and gang violence are considered as wicked problems. Though neither are new problems and both are inconsequential, yet only two articles have been published on homelessness in leading public administration, public management, and public policy journals since 2013 and none have been published on gang violence.
The absence of researching on gang violence and homelessness suggests the potential for including a range of wicked problems that researchers in public management and public policy have avoided. The potential for connecting these types of social challenges suggests that there may be a class of collective action problems that if unrecognized disguise the incomplete coverage of research.
The paper first establishes homelessness and gang violence as problems as wicked problems. The second part explores what are the types of problems typically researched. The third section considers a range of explanations for the selection of the problems researched. The fourth section considers the implications of the findings for a separate set of wicked research, with suggestions for potential impact in as research agenda and in practice.
