All Eyes on the Problem: Truth, Democracy, and the Policy Puzzle

The title of this dissertation is All Eyes on the Problem: Truth, Democracy, and the Policy Puzzle. Governments are confronted with collective problems that often defy resolution. Identifying which approach to wicked problems is most fruitful must begin with a sound understanding of the nature of the problems modern societies are grappling with. At its core, public policy making is an analytical endeavor. The idea of all eyes on the problem, which serves as a critical lens throughout the dissertation, refers to a conceptual distinction between two orientations toward complex collective problems: a problem-solving and a problem-finding orientation. In this study, I examine three approaches to policy making and assess them in light of this distinction. The first two approaches, discussed in part I, are often portrayed as opposites: the rational technocratic approach and the collective intelligence approach (Landemore 2012). Whereas technocracy seeks to address complexity and uncertainty by mobilizing specialized expert knowledge—often at the expense of citizen participation—the collective intelligence approach emphasizes the epistemic potential of cognitively diverse collectives. Despite these differences, both treat complex collective problems primarily as technical issues, either by assuming value consensus or by framing uncertainty in purely epistemic terms. As a result, both embody a problem solving orientation in public policy making. A further similarity lies in the assumption that a clearly identifiable group—experts or citizens—is capable of producing the right solution to complex societal problems. In light of persistent policy failures, however, this assumption warrants critical scrutiny. If governmental approaches are misaligned with the complexity of certain collective problems, public policy making may do more harm than good. This concern motivates calls to search for alternative modes of problem processing beyond state-led solutions, most notably articulated by Jeffrey Friedman (2019). While Friedman rightly exposes a blind spot in political epistemology, his skeptical conclusion is problematic insofar as it leaves alternative approaches unexplored. The second part of the dissertation therefore turns to an alternative: the constructivist collaborative approach developed within the argumentative turn in policy studies. Grounded in a problem finding orientation, this approach understands collective problems as inherently political and analyzes their complexity not only in epistemic terms, but also in sociopolitical and normative dimensions. Drawing on typologies of collective problems and contingency-based methods of problem processing, argumentative policy analysis offers an alternative account of the relationship between science and democracy, as well as of the roles citizens and experts play in the policy process. This part also shows how the argumentative turn has been inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas, whose ideas on communicative rationality and deliberative democracy continue to resonate within policy studies. A key point of convergence between the collective intelligence approach and the constructivist collaborative model lies in their shared commitment to deliberative democracy—the all eyes perspective. However, contemporary debates on epistemic deliberative democracy often equate epistemic value with procedure independent standards of truth. As a result, alternative deliberative models, including those developed by early deliberative democrats, are frequently dismissed as insufficiently epistemic. This dismissal is unwarranted and ill aligned with insights from the policy sciences, which focus not on truth tracking but on enabling collective action under conditions of uncertainty and contestation. Against this background, I argue that Habermas can be understood as a crucial bridge figure. His theory of deliberative democracy integrates epistemic and normative dimensions of public reasoning without relying on a truth tracking paradigm. To make this contribution visible, however, the concept of epistemic deliberative democracy itself must be revised and broadened. This task forms the focus of the third and final part of the dissertation.