Policy Assemblages and Policy Resilience: Lessons for Non-Design from Evolutionary Governance Theory

Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of policymaking in settings with functional differentiation complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes policy tools goals, are an appropriate unit analysis EGT because they embody theory’s emphasis on co-evolving elements within systems. In rational practice, policymakers design policies assemblages by establishing objectives, collecting information, comparing options, strategizing implementation, selecting instruments. However, implies, this logical progression does not always materialize so tidily—some emerge from carefully considered blueprints while others evolve muddled processes, laissez faire happenstance, or happy accident. Products latter often include loosely steered, unmoored, ‘non-designed’ path dependencies that confound linear logic understudied literature. There exists need more intricate analytical vocabulary to describe underexplored ‘chaotic’ end spectrum, conjuring images ‘muddles’ ‘messes’ has exhausted its usefulness. This article introduces novel metaphor non-design—the bird nest—to bring studies non-design into lexical harmony.