Public Value Is Unknowable; Public Authority Makes Every Government Decision a Wicked Problem

Published date01 November 2021
Date01 November 2021
DOI10.1177/00953997211022685
AuthorMark Prebble
Subject MatterPerspectives
https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211022685
Administration & Society
2021, Vol. 53(10) 1582 –1602
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00953997211022685
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Perspectives
Public Value Is
Unknowable; Public
Authority Makes Every
Government Decision a
Wicked Problem
Mark Prebble1
Abstract
Knowability is the ability to identify a preferable course of action with sufficient
confidence to justify adopting that course. This article shows it is not possible
to judge the value of a public value proposition with sufficient confidence to
justify the use of public authority. The indeterminacy of public value is shown
by demonstrating that the necessary conditions to justify a public value
proposition include that the evidence sustaining it is not impossible, circular,
or unsubstantiated opinion. Those criteria are applied to an exhaustive set of
possible concepts of public value, all of which fail at least one of those conditions
so public value is unknowable. The implication is not that government is
impossible, but that it requires humility, discourse, and compromise.
Keywords
public value, public authority, knowability, wicked problems
Introduction
There is much dispute over which government actions will promote collective
well-being. Behind those arguments there is a prior but less debated question:
1Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Corresponding Author:
Mark Prebble, Adjunct Professor, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington,
Private Bag, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Email: prebblemark@gmail.com
1022685AAS0010.1177/00953997211022685Administration & SocietyPrebble
research-article2021
Prebble 1583
Is it possible to know which government actions will advance public value?
Belief in a positive answer to that question is necessary to justify holding rigid
opinions about policy, and rigid opinions contribute to polarization and culture
wars. If it can be shown, however, that it is not possible to know which govern-
ment actions will promote collective well-being, there is a powerful argument
for moderation, reasoned discourse, and compromise. Despite that, the ques-
tion of whether or under which conditions it is possible to identify those actions
that will enhance the public interest is a topic that has attracted only sporadic
attention and little debate. Much of the discussion that has occurred is based on
the suggestion that though most issues are resolvable, there is a class of wicked
problems that defy solution (Rittel & Webber, 1973). However, there is confu-
sion about the nature of wicked problems because different authors attribute the
supposed impossibility of wicked problems to many different causes
(Noordegraaf et al., 2019; Termeer et al., 2019).
Recently, some contributors have addressed the issue of solvability more
directly, from radically different positions. Fforde (2019), writing in the field of
policy science, coined the term “knowability,” which may be understood as the
ability to identify a preferable course of action with sufficient confidence to
justify adopting that course. He divided scholars into knowability optimists and
knowability pessimists and argued that pessimism was essential because social
and political processes are unpredictable. Peters (2017), however, writing on
wicked problems, argued that the concept of the “wicked problem” is meaning-
less and that all issues are solvable: he is a knowability optimist. Pesch and
Vermaas (2020), however, think that “the only things we can foresee are
unforeseen effects” (p. 973); they are knowability pessimists.
Elsewhere there are public value scholars working to develop reliable
measures of public value that can be used to assess policy proposals (Bryson
et al., 2015). Moore (2013) has made significant progress identifying and
appraising different dimensions of public value, but he is not content; he
believes “we ought to hold out for the simplicity that lies on the other side of
complexity in seeking accurate and useful measures of public value creation”
(Moore, 2015, p. 129). He is a knowability realist with aspirations toward
optimism.
The contrasts between these scholars are more apparent than real, how-
ever, because they were not addressing the same thing. All are concerned
with the ability to determine the best course, but Fforde discusses analytical
uncertainty, Peters focuses on decision-making, Pesch and Vermaas are con-
cerned with the intractability of social dilemmas, and Moore is looking for a
multidimensional metric for collective well-being.
This article clarifies the concept of knowability as applied to government
activities. The discussion is concerned with analysis (the specification and

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