Complex problems and public policies: the case of the obesity epidemic in Mexico
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24965/gapp.i28.10886Keywords:
Complexity, mainstreaming, policy formulation, obesity, epidemic, public healthAbstract
This article proposes an analytical framework to understand the complex nature of policy issues and problems, based on the following arguments. First, that complexity is related to the process of social construction that determines which issues are assumed as public problems and the way in which they are defined as such. Second, complexity also has to do with the «material causes» of the problems themselves that involve multiple variables and relationships. Third, the complexity also comes from the fact that social problems increasingly call into question the traditional referents of government organization and action; namely, the referents of a functional, spatial, and temporal nature which determine the way in which they approach problems and conceive their solutions. We deal with this third argument in this article, analyzing the case of obesity which, in the field of health, is a social problem representative of this complexity.
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