There is an old saying that a problem well put is half solved. This much is obvious. What is not so obvious is how to put the problem well. (Churchman et al., 1957) A policy problem is an unrealized need, value, or opportunity for improvement (Dunn, 2016). Public policymaking is ultimately about solving, or at least attempting to solve, policy problems. That is easy to say, but much harder to do. One of the first barriers encountered when attempting to solve problems is being able to define problems in any meaningful way that can facilitate designing adequate solutions for those problems. As noted in the previous chapter, one of the basic requirements for policy design is having a theory of causation, and that theory is fundamentally related to the definition of the policy problem. While we may be able to attach a convenient label to any problems identified within society, we need to understand more fundamentally the causes of those problems and the dynamics through which they emerge. Understanding the dynamics of the targets of the problem (Kiviniemi, 1986) will help design effective policies as well as prevent waste and unintended consequences. As we will address in greater detail in this chapter, if there were a single understanding of a problem the resolution of that problem would be simple. However, unfortunately for both academic analysts and practitioners, the world of policymaking is rarely that simple. Almost any policy problem of any consequence can be conceptualized in a variety of ways, and those alternative views of policy can produce very different ideas about how best to intervene to affect the issue. As I will be arguing throughout this and the following chapters, this conceptualization of policymaking means that the definition of policy problems is a political process, and not a technical exercise (see Hoppe, 2010). That political process of defining the problem, and through that process attempting to understand the possible means of solving the problem, is as political, albeit perhaps not so overtly so, as the processes of formulating and legitimating a solution to the problem.

Making public policy is difficult. Richard Coyne (2005) argues that confronting ill-defined and awkward problems that are, in essence, wicked problems is the norm for policymaking, and that being able to deal with well-defined and rational policymaking is the exception. If that is at all an accurate depiction of the nature of contemporary policymaking then we need to invest heavily in understanding these problems if we are going to be able to cope with policy design, whether as academics or as practitioners. The preceding chapter provided a discussion of policy problems from a somewhat general perspective. In this chapter I will focus on a particular class of problems that have been referred to as “wicked”, “messy”, “complex”, or “intractable”. While, as Coyne points out, decision-makers should be careful in expecting any policy problem to be simple, or “tame”, clearly some problems are still more difficult than others. While many of the same principles of design may be applied to wicked problems, they also require some very careful attention and differentiated strategies if policy designers are to be effective in coping with them.