Social complexity and wicked problems

I'm more and more nervous about what I think Conklin is doing in his book "Dialogue Mapping" (refer my initial post). I don't think it's helpful to pull social complexity out from wicked problems. As if wicked problems can exist in the absence of social complexity. Or, at least, in the absence of social factors.

Conklin wants to say that wickedness is a property of the "problem/solution space" and social complexity "is a property of the social network that is engaging with the problem".

However, I don't think you can have "wickedness" in a problem unless you have social factors. They are a necessary condition for wickedness. (However, they are not a sufficient condition - you need other things as well to get "wickedness").

"Dialogue Mapping"

"Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems" is a relatively recent book (2005) on dialogue and wicked problems by Jeff Conklin. You can read the first chapter of the book here. Jeff is part of the CogNexus Instititute.

I'm not sure I agree with Conklin's take on wicked problems. He seems to want to strip the social complexity out of them. He says: "... while wickedness is a property of the problem/solution space ... social complexity is a property of the social network that is engaging with the problem". I'm not sure these things are so easily teased apart. Expecially since Rittel's original paper (as Conklin acknowledges elsewhere) sees one of the contributors to "wickedness" being the various views of the "publics" and "sub-publics" affected. I can see why Conklin might want to separate out social complexity - to get some clarity - but I'm not sure if it is helpful.