Wicked Problems
Public Policy
| summary | Some policy problems resist clean definition and have no single right answer — only better and worse responses. |
A growing collection of mental models for thinking about policy, drawn from books, papers, and 350+ editions of Anticipating the Unintended. Search for a topic to find relevant frameworks and what we’ve written about it.
Curated and explained by Pranay Kotasthane.
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Describe the policy problem you’re thinking about. You’ll get the most relevant frameworks instantly. Excerpts from six years of our newsletter will follow — they take a few seconds to load.
What we’ve written
Relevant excerpts from six years of Anticipating the Unintended, grouped by author.
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Three frameworks that show the range of what’s on this site — analysis, evaluation, politics.
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Political Thinking
How political coalitions form, narratives travel, and ideas become acceptable.
Public Finance
State functions, debt sustainability, taxation, and fiscal federalism.
Society
Social norms, networked societies, ideology, and information ecosystems.
Universe
Modelling, trade-offs, and frameworks that cut across domains.