Governing wickedness in megaprojects: discursive and institutional perspectives

Abstract

Megaprojects are now as important as ever. As a response to the pandemic, the European Union has put forward the Next Generation EU policy, making available a 2021–2027 long-term budget of €1.8 trillion to fund projects with ecological and digital applications in the field of telecommunication, transportation, and energy infrastructures. Similarly, in the United States a $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan is on the way. Also, China has planned to expedite the rollout of 102 infrastructure megaprojects earmarked for the 2021–25 development plan. Despite their importance to policy-makers, megaprojects are often met with criticism and opposition by citizens, and often go off the rails—either with regard to budget or time, or both. This introductory article presents the aim and scope of the themed issue. It positions the problem areas beyond technical issues and connects them to the social and institutional environment within which megaprojects are planned and implemented. Moreover, the article makes the case for conceptualizing megaprojects as wicked policy fields. In doing so, we specify the three defining elements of megaprojects, namely, complexity, uncertainty, and conflict. The article argues that megaproject development cannot be seen as a rational, straightforward process. It is often a non-linear, conflictual process shaped by the collective action of different stakeholder groups (e.g., project managers, policy-makers, and citizens). Driven by divergent interests, sociotechnical imaginaries, as well as behavioral and discursive logics, groups of actors construct and mobilize narratives to influence final decision-making while interacting with the institutional context.

Intentional and Undesirable Effects Related to the Interaction of Electromagnetic Fields with Major Living Tissues

“…Complexity often occur in a set of compound processes and could be encountered in various areas, e.g. neuroscience [89], Earth climate [90], space vehicles [91], computer vision [92], economics of fair division [93], game theory of strategic interactions [94], political science [95] and history [96,97]. These compound processes interact in complex actions according to nonlinear interdependent spatiotemporal behaviors.…”

Analysis of the Interaction Effects of Electromagnetic Fields with Major Living Tissues—One Health Concept Numerical Evaluation Strategy

“…The main cause of these difficulties is the nonlinearity of biological tissues reflecting complex constitutive laws representing the deformation and displacement behaviors of elastic tissues. Complexity often occurs in a set of compound processes [89] and could be encountered in various areas, e.g., neuroscience [90], Earth climate [91], evolutionary biology [92], space vehicles [93], economics of fair division [94], game theory of strategic interactions [95], political science [96] and history [97]. These compound processes interact in complex actions according to nonlinear interdependent spatiotemporal behaviors.…”

The Panopticon reloaded: A critical analysis of performance management systems in the trans-European transport network policy

“…According to this logic, whereas planning involves rational-analytic practices of identifying, assessing, and setting objectives about the necessary infrastructure needs of a territory, implementation is seen as a delivery system to accomplish a given task within a defined set of constraints (Morris, 2013). Moving towards a socio-economic understanding of megaproject development, more recent work has emphasized the role of power dynamics suggesting that megaprojects planning and implementation can hardly be considered rational, straightforward processes (Biesenthal et al, 2018; Esposito and Terlizzi, 2023). They are rather non-linear and conflictual processes shaped by actors’ divergent interests and logics of action (Esposito et al, 2021, 2022, 2023).…”