PoliMod

How do political strategies and instruments work in society? How do they influence different actors? To what extent are they accepted or rejected? And why is this the case? These questions are asked by all those who work in the multifaceted field of policy consulting. Policy instruments can directly affect stakeholders in society, for example through financial incentives, bans or information campaigns. These can also trigger unintended or undesirable side effects. It is therefore highly relevant to analyse in advance how they could affect society in the future. There are a number of methods for such impact analyses. These include expert assessments or multi-criteria analyses. However, these methods only take limited account of the complex interrelationships in which policy instruments intervene. In particular, they do not adequately assess the effects on social dynamics. However, this is crucial in order to be able to assess the many possible effects, especially when policy instruments are intended to bring about highly complex dynamics of social change. In order to better understand the effects of policy instruments in these complex areas, there are approaches that have their origins in the complexity sciences. Using a spectrum of qualitative and quantitative modelling, it is possible to model complex systems for specific problems. In such system models, social factors are also integrated as complex interrelationships and related to other issues. In this way, policy instruments and their effects can be localised in complex social systems and elusive, non-linear or unconsidered interactions can be uncovered. In addition, the system models enable virtual experiments so that various drafts of policy instruments can be tested and improved in advance.

The most important findings are summarised in the factsheet ‘Modelling methods for assessing complex and social impacts of policies’. This provides a graphically visualised introduction to the topic of modelling complex systems to assess the (social) impact of policy instruments for practitioners in the field of policy advice. The graphics shown below were taken from this factsheet:

When are qualitative or quantitative systems models suitable for evaluating the efficacy of policies?

• If conventional assessment methods only barely encompass the complexity of the system or more precisely of the policy impact in reality
• To assess the impact of the policies on the dynamics of complex interdisciplinary processes (e. g. climate change, global crises)
• If the impact of a policy on the behavioural change of individual actors or on society needs to be deeper understood
• To identify unintended side effects of policies in the complex reality in which they operate

• Factsheet: Schünemann, C.; Reger, E.; Herold, H. Factsheet: Modellierungsmethoden zur Bewertung komplexer und sozialer Wirkungen von Politikinstrumenten - Qualitative und quantitative Systemmodellierungsansätze für die Politikberatung, 2024. www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/factsheet-modellierungsmethoden-zur-bewertung (accessed 2024-08-02).
• Final report: Schünemann, C.; Reger, E.; Herold, H. Machbarkeitsstudie: Modellierung von Anpassungsmaßnahmen: Akteure, Entscheidungen und Wirksamkeit – Qualitative und quantitative Systemmodellierungen zur Analyse der Lenkungswirkung von Politikinstrumenten; Climate Change 32/2024; Endbericht; Umweltbundesamt: Dessau-Roßlau, 2024; p 93. www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/machbarkeitsstudie-modellierung-von (accessed 2024-08-02).
• Partial report on methodological research and examples: Schünemann, C.; Sidorova, A.; Herold, H. Qualitative and Quantitative Modelling of the Efficacy of Policy Instruments - Opportunities and Limitations for Applicability to the Field of Climate Change Adaptation; Climate Change; 42/2023; Umweltbundesamt: Dessau-Roßlau, 2023; p 81. www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/qualitative-quantitative-modelling-of-the-efficacy.
• Scientific open-access publication: Schünemann, C.; Johanning, S.; Herold, H.; Bruckner, T. Modelling the Behaviour in Socio-Technical Systems for Policy Assessment - A Comparison of Modelling Approaches Using the Example of Sponge City Concept Implementation. Journal of Cleaner Production 2024, 462, 142722. doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.142722.
• Scientific open-access publication: Schünemann, C.; Johanning, S.; Reger, E.; Herold, H.; Bruckner, T. Complex System Policy Modelling Approaches for Policy Advice – Comparing Systems Thinking, System Dynamics and agent-based modelling. Political Research Exchange 2024, 6 (1). www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats.