Reading Complexity in Social Policy Contexts: The Value of Q Methodology By Iris Anne Hutchinson A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington 2012 ii Abstract Many social policy problems are recognised as complex and intractable, and hence necessitate analysts‟ having the capability to address them. Epistemological influences embedded in approaches to policy can impose constraints on the natural capacity and capability that people have to make sense out of particular experiences of complexity in the course of policy analysis work. Within the dominant policy approach adopted by policy analysts under the rubric of evidence-based policy, such complexity capability eschews any explicit role for opinion. However, the application of Q methodology by Michel van Eeten among others in a specific case of policy deliberation in the Netherlands, which had proven resistant to the standard, evidence-based policy analysis, shows that there could be a role for what is otherwise overlooked. Accordingly, this thesis examines the proposition that opinion indeed may play an important role in policymaking in complex and intractable situations. Q methodology is an established research methodology for acquiring and developing knowledge from a subjective standpoint. It has a growing record of successful application to public policy controversies, where solutions were made possible because opinion - and its everyday experiential rationality - were made available. Q methodology is also seen, however, as a marginal methodology. There has been insufficient explanation of why the application of Q methodology could make a positive difference to policy problems of a complex and intractable kind. The two research questions focus on the efficacy of Q methodology. Q methodology could make a difference in an adjunctive sense. It meets a policy need, namely to make opinion available as a complement to other evidence knowledge and thus adds to understanding of problems and solutions while remaining firmly within the prevailing evidence-based policy epistemology. Alternatively, Q methodology could make a difference of a transformative kind. It opens up a new epistemological space for doing policy analysis work with the power to create substantial policy-analytic change. To address these questions, the thesis develops an argument that establishes the linkages between pragmatism, complexity thinking and Q methodology and, in so doing, provides a path for understanding the role and place of opinion in iii policy making contexts. It proceeds through several stages which together make an epistemological argument for the efficacy of Q methodology. First, the nature of the policy problem is explicated as one of the separation of opinion from knowledge. Secondly, the thesis turns to a counter argument drawing on Peirce‟s pragmatism and his attention to abduction. In the next stage, dominant practice ideas about the capability needed to address complexity are critically examined, which shows that opinion is not valued in that practice. The success of van Eeten‟s work leads to a detailed examination of complexity in the policy context, and the claim that opinion is less problematical than are the overall epistemological choices made in policy analysis. Focusing on those epistemological choices, the argument draws together, in a fresh look, the thinking entailed in Q methodology in respect of its abductive logic and its theory of knowledge. Q methodology is shown to be a kind of science that allows objective fact to be approached from a subjective standpoint under experimental conditions. Finally, therefore, Q methodology is shown to open up an epistemological space quite unlike others. This makes the practice described as “reading complexity” in a real-world policy application possible. iv Acknowledgements The course of my research and writing this dissertation has been a long and surprising intellectual journey. That this dissertation has been completed has a lot to do with the significant help, support, understanding, and encouragement I have received from supervisors, colleagues, university staff, providers of financial support, friends and family. I extend my deepest thanks to my primary supervisor Dr Amanda Wolf for her invaluable support, superb mentoring, sustained critical feedback, and kindness over many years. I pay special tribute to Professor Steven R Brown, Kent State University, Ohio, United States (now retired), co-supervisor, and I thank him for his patience and for allowing me to work in my own way while never losing interest in the study. I am also deeply indebted to Associate Professor Robin Peace at Massey University, Wellington, for her numerous demonstrations of faith in my capacities, her unflagging support and active encouragement, and for her critical engagement with the thesis in its many drafts. I thank too Professor Dan Durning, Dr Jeff Foote, and Dr Michael McGinnis for their consideration of the thesis and the comments that they made. The Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) has been a supportive place of study and goodwill at the different levels of the institution. I would particularly like to thank Dawn Yeabsley, Co-ordinator, School of Government and Janet Keilar, Librarian, Faculty of Commerce and Administration who each in their friendly way helped me through required procedures and assisted in accessing the resources of the School of Government. I owe, too, particular thanks to Frances Austin for help with proofreading and the checking of references involving more than one draft. I would like to thank Professor Rowena Cullen, Associate Dean, Research, in the Faculty of Commerce and Administration for her advice and guidance when I needed help along the journey. Social Policy Evaluation and Research (SPEaR) provided me with a three year scholarship. This funding from SPEaR gave me the opportunity in 2004 to attend a course in Q methodology at the University of Essex, United Kingdom, 37th Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis and Collection and financed my v travel and participation in the 2004 and 2006 annual conferences of the International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity (ISSSS). In this regard, I am very grateful to a highly supportive Q community for their encouragement and recognition of this thesis in its early stages. I feel honoured to have received a scholarship as part of the ISSSS conference in Trondheim, Norway in 2006. I particularly wish to thank Dr Arlene Thorsen and Casey Brown for sharing with me their insights into Q methodology and for their collegial support and friendship. I am also very grateful to Building Research Capacity in the Social Sciences (BRCSS) for a completion scholarship which made it possible for me to continue with writing and supplied further impetus to reach my goal. A special thanks to the staff at SPEaR and BRCSS. Last, but not least, my final acknowledgements are reserved for my extended family and friends for their love and understanding for which I am very grateful. Most of all, I thank Nic for her unconditional and sustained support and for deciding to carry on with life with a PhD student in tow. It is to: Nic, Lois (my dearly loved twin sister), Tanya, Amanda, and Robin that I dedicate this thesis. vi CONTENTS Chapter 1: The research project ............................................................................. 7 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 7 Conception of opinion ........................................................................................ 8 Aim of this research and research questions.......................................................10 Background and context........................................................................................12 Epistemology of policy analysis practices..........................................................12 Epistemology: the complexity aspect .................................................................14 Motivation for the inquiry .................................................................................17 Q methodology and its record ............................................................................19 Policy analysis in New Zealand: the epistemology.............................................21 Areas of investigation ........................................................................................24 Methodological approach of this study ..............................................................26 Thesis outline .......................................................................................................29 Contribution of the research ..................................................................................30 Chapter 2: Methodology ........................................................................................31 Introduction ..........................................................................................................31 My three steps.......................................................................................................31 Step 1: Something is observed ...........................................................................31 Step 2: Development of propositions based on a hunch .....................................37 Step 3: Elaboration of the meaning of the propositions ......................................38 1 Peirce‟s pragmatism and abductive logic ...............................................................39 Logic of the pragmatic method of inquiry ..........................................................41 Understanding abduction ...................................................................................41 Pragmatic maxim ..............................................................................................47 Logic of discovery and epistemic debates ..........................................................48 Summary ..............................................................................................................54 Chapter 3: Policy thinking .....................................................................................55 Introduction ..........................................................................................................55 Evidence-based policy movement: a critical examination ......................................56 United States legacy: rationality project.............................................................57 Forces of change and the need for science/evidence...........................................62 The best means of meeting the challenge ...........................................................64 Focus on “the best” ...........................................................................................65 Use of the conception of evidence .....................................................................67 A repudiation of opinion ...................................................................................68 Hierarchy of evidence .......................................................................................73 “Wicked” or complex social policy problems ........................................................74 The basic argument ...........................................................................................75 Plurality ............................................................................................................76 Ethics ................................................................................................................77 Complexity capability .......................................................................................79 2 New thinking.....................................................................................................83 Systems thinking ...............................................................................................83 Modelling and prediction in a complex world ....................................................87 On a continuum ....................................................................................................89 Case description – a fifth runway for Schiphol Airport ..........................................92 Reanalysis .........................................................................................................95 Applied systems science ....................................................................................96 Narrative policy analysis ................................................................................. 101 Summary ............................................................................................................ 108 Chapter 4: Complexity thinking .......................................................................... 111 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 111 20th century scientific revolution ........................................................................ 114 Paradigm shift ................................................................................................. 114 Towards a paradigm of complexity .................................................................. 115 A transdisciplinary effort ................................................................................. 118 Away from a paradigm of complexity? ............................................................ 120 Epistemological shifts ..................................................................................... 123 Pragmatism: a classical expression of complexity thinking ................................. 125 Radical empiricism .......................................................................................... 127 Synechistic pluralism ...................................................................................... 131 The relevance of abduction .............................................................................. 133 3 Reading complexity in an everyday sense ........................................................ 134 Reading complexity: opinion-based policy analysis ......................................... 141 Classical pragmatism and new science ................................................................ 145 Summary ............................................................................................................ 147 Chapter 5: Q thinking .......................................................................................... 148 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 148 Subjective science ............................................................................................... 150 Much like quantum science ............................................................................. 153 Origins…………………………………………………………………………158 Q methodology and discourse analysis ............................................................ 162 Pragmatism, abduction, Q methodology link reaffirmed .................................. 165 Conscire theory of knowledge ............................................................................. 166 The concept ..................................................................................................... 166 Common knowledge ....................................................................................... 168 Q method ............................................................................................................ 171 Basic procedure ............................................................................................... 173 Epistemological status ........................................................................................ 186 Summary ............................................................................................................ 188 Chapter 6: Conclusion.......................................................................................... 189 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 189 Summary ............................................................................................................ 189 4