Why is it that many large public projects run out of control in terms of scope, budget and time? How can it be explained that urban regeneration programs are highly successful in one neighborhood but fail to deliver in an adjacent neighborhood? Why is it that public policies can return unexpected and sometimes even unwanted outcomes, despite meticulous planning? Why is public decision-making such a complex affair? The world is an erratic place, full of surprises, some of which are wanted and others are unwanted. Public decision-making in this world is like punching clouds: considerable energy is put into the punching but the cloud goes its own way, despite the punches. Recent ideas and insights from the complexity sciences improve our understanding of the intricate nature of public decision-making. This book offers a bridge between the study of public decision-making in the domain of Public Administration on the one hand, and the complexity sciences on the other hand. It is aimed at (doctoral) students and scholars in Public Administration who are curious about how the complexity sciences can inform the analysis and understanding of public decision-making. The book introduces important concepts such as systems, non-linear dynamics, self-organization and coevolution, and discusses their relevance to public decision-making. It also proposes a case-based research method for researching this complexity. Lasse Gerrits, Ph.D. is associate professor in Public Administration at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and member of the research group Governance of Complex Systems.

There is an argument that says that research in Public Administration is always about social complexity. This argument is true. There is also an argument that says that Public Administration is actually very little informed by complexity. This is equally true. The differences lie in the different takes on complexity. The latter approach understands that comprehension of complexity requires a specific theoretical framework and associated tools to look into the black box of causality. The authors in this edited volume gathered in Rotterdam (The Netherlands, June 2011) to discuss how the complexity sciences can contribute to pertinent questions in the domains of Public Administration and Public Policy. Their contributions are presented in this edited volume. Each contribution is an attempt to answer the Challenge of Making Public Administration and Complexity Theory work-COMPACT, as the title says. Together, they present an overview of the diverse state of the art in thinking about and research in complex systems in the public domain.

Why is it that many large public projects run out of control in terms of scope, budget and time? How can it be explained that urban regeneration programs are highly successful in one neighborhood but fail to deliver in an adjacent neighborhood? Why is it that public policies can return unexpected and sometimes even unwanted outcomes, despite meticulous planning? Why is public decision-making such a complex affair? The world is an erratic place, full of surprises, some of which are wanted and others are unwanted. Public decision-making in this world is like punching clouds: considerable energy is put into the punching but the cloud goes its own way, despite the punches. Recent ideas and insights from the complexity sciences improve our understanding of the intricate nature of public decision-making. This book offers a bridge between the study of public decision-making in the domain of Public Administration on the one hand, and the complexity sciences on the other hand. It is aimed at (doctoral) students and scholars in Public Administration who are curious about how the complexity sciences can inform the analysis and understanding of public decision-making. The book introduces important concepts such as systems, non-linear dynamics, self-organization and coevolution, and discusses their relevance to public decision-making. It also proposes a case-based research method for researching this complexity. Lasse Gerrits, Ph.D. is associate professor in Public Administration at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and member of the research group Governance of Complex Systems.