A colleague has asked me this question – and there does seem to be room for systems dynamics and/or causal loop diagrams – and indeed the good old ‘archetypes’ – to describe unproductive public policy and implementation.
I see some of something like this in an economics context – usually on Twitter – discussing topics like ‘rent control’, congestion charging etc (but rarely in a formal SD sense).
I recall it being really used in the unpublished drafts of the Monroe Review of child protection – only some of which made it to the published.
I suspect there is some material out there – in Kumu, Medium, Substack, RSD Conference proceedings maybe? And there is certainly some use of this kind of mapping in international development, education (both Linda Booth Sweeney and John Raven’s work on his website and RC51)…, public health – childhood obesity famously, COINTEL of course….
I did a pointed prompt to my own slightly-trained ChatGPT but didn’t quite get nice juicy examples (see below) – and I’ll reach out to some expert practitioners. Anyone got other examples to add?
__ChatGPT respnse__
System dynamics and causal loop diagrams (CLDs) have been applied to analyse public sector policies, revealing how certain interventions can be self-defeating. Here are concrete examples, focusing on recent UK public services:
1. Energy Transition in Tees Valley, UK (2022):
– Study: Researchers developed a qualitative causal loop diagram to understand policy design challenges for a sustainable energy transition in the Tees Valley region.
– Findings: The CLD highlighted complexities in balancing job creation with decarbonisation efforts. Policies promoting renewable energy investments inadvertently risked job losses in traditional energy sectors, illustrating the “Fixes That Fail” archetype. (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4462)
2. Public Utility Policy in Cleveland, Ohio (1998):
– Study: A case study demonstrated the use of systems thinking and causal loop diagramming in developing public policy for Cleveland Public Power.
– Findings: The CLD revealed that certain competitive strategies led to unintended consequences, such as reduced service quality, embodying the “Fixes That Fail” archetype. (https://proceedings.systemdynamics.org/1998/PROCEED/00078.PDF)
3. UK Government’s Systems Thinking Toolkit (2021):
– Resource: The UK Government Office for Science published a toolkit introducing systems thinking tools, including causal loop diagrams, for civil servants.
– Application: The toolkit provides guidance on using CLDs to model policy problems, understand feedback loops, and anticipate unintended consequences in policy implementation. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/systems-thinking-for-civil-servants/toolkit)
4. Policy Resistance and Systemic Mindset (1991):
– Analysis: A Department of Energy tutorial on system dynamics discussed how policy resistance occurs when a policy is applied to a system dominated by negative feedback processes, and the policy change does not alter the desired states of the negative loops. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep20101.10)
5. Implementation of Systems Thinking in Public Policy (2023):
– Review: A study investigated the state of systems thinking application in public policy, highlighting the value of systems thinking in decision- and policy-making within the government and civil service. (https://pure.strath.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/153163650/Nguyen_etal_Systems_2023_Implementation_of_systems_thinking_in_public_policy.pdf)
6. Systems Thinking in Policymaking (2023):
– Insight: An article discussed how systems thinking can be applied in policy design, emphasizing the importance of understanding complex systems to improve public services. (https://publicpolicydesign.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/08/systems-thinking-for-policymaking/)
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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