How best to deal with uncertainty and surprise in policy-making is an issue which has
troubled policy studies for some time. Studies of policy uncertainty and policy failure have
emphasized the need to create policies able to be improvised upon in the face of an
uncertain future, meaning there is a need to design and adopt policies featuring agility, and
flexibility in their components and processes. Such policies require redundant resources
and capabilities and this need is in strong opposition to ideas about design which equate …