Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Douglas Irvin-Erickson, and Ernesto Verdeja’s edited volume Wicked Problems sets out to explore the “practical puzzles” or ethical dilemmas and trade-offs in the practice of change-making and peacebuilding. A wicked problem is a complex challenge resistant to simple solutions. Attempts to prevent violence or demand justice are wicked problems: any tactic or strategy might create new problems or harms.
The book’s three sections focus on wicked questions of violence, leadership and organizations, and systems and institutions. A stunning array of authors write short, punchy chapters that offer a visceral kick in the gut by describing the trade-offs and tensions involved in addressing these problems outside the realm of normative academic posturing. For example, ending a brutal civil war might require giving amnesty to human-rights–abusing officials. Pinned between the rock of autocracy and the cliff of vast economic inequality, do change-makers accept a step toward change with promised elections, or do they hold out for more radical change? Should nonviolent activists focus on building the future they desire or confront the urgent harms occurring in the present? Does ending police violence in the United States begin with a too-timid police reform bill that brings only limited change, or would a failure to pass any new legislation be worse? And what might be the outcome of a full-out armed Black resistance to police brutality? Each of the paths toward change is problematic. What ethical frameworks do we use to make decisions?
The book distinguishes itself in several ways from other attempts to answer these questions. Although most other books emphasize the state-centric goals of stability or law and order, most of this volume’s authors are firmly rooted in social-justice–oriented peacebuilding and are critical of state power. There is no real debate among the authors on whether a social justice agenda is necessary. These authors agree that unjust political, economic, and social systems are the root harms that give rise to war and repressive violence. Conflict to provoke social change is necessary.
Although most books on change-making focus on the present, the ghosts of colonialism, slavery, and the layered matrix of oppression rooted in centuries of white supremacy, patriarchy, and vulture capitalism haunt the pages of this book. Without apology, the book’s contributors widely agree that building a just peace requires negotiating with these ghosts and healing intergenerational harms that play out in the present.
Most of the chapters provide vivid examples of ethical dilemmas in practice, not in abstraction. Change-making relies on normative values. Yet rarely do books provide the gritty context where change-making requires sacrificing one value in pursuit of another. Peacebuilding from afar seems far simpler than the gut-wrenching choices that must be made in critical moments.
Another of the volume’s distinctions is its breaking down of the strange focus in most peacebuilding books on “conflict-affected countries” in Asia, Latin America, and Africa while excluding Europe and North America. The rise of autocratic regimes in Western countries favoring explicit white supremacist goals has surfaced a tension that most white liberal peacebuilders have been reluctant to acknowledge. Many of the contributors discuss recent revelations among white Western change-makers who finally had to confront the troublesome legacy of colonialism and slavery and the pressing crises of police violence.
Revolutionary violence is out of fashion in most social-change circles. Yet this book includes a provocative chapter by Tony Gaskew, former police officer and dedicated advocate of Black armed resistance. Rightly critical of white liberals preaching about peace while accepting widespread injustice, Gaskew points to statements from both Gandhi and King that resisting injustice is necessary, even if it requires violence. Injustice is the evil, not violence. Sounding a lot like a modern-day Frantz Fanon, Gaskew argues both that violence is the only language the white supremacist system understands, and it is a necessary ritual to rehumanize Black communities. The “only language” argument is then paired with broad pronouncements that only violence is an effective antidote to white supremacy. Gaskew even seems to suggest that Malcolm X was too weak when he argued change should take place “by any means necessary.” In Gaskew’s view, nonviolence never works. Chapters like this one do not often find their way into books wrestling with the ethics of social change.
Although Gaskew offers a valid denunciation of white liberals’ preference for a slow, reformist pace of change, he does not provide evidence or examples of where radical Black resistance worked (Cuba? DRC?). The reader is reminded of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s research demonstrating through analysis of hundreds of cases that violent change fails twice as often as nonviolent social movements; this research is cited by the editors themselves and several of the other chapter authors. Without referencing intersectionality or patriarchy, Gaskew nevertheless criticizes the mostly women-led Movement for Black Lives while not addressing the evidence that nonviolent movements enable a larger number of people to participate, including people unwilling or unable to hold a gun.
Although other books examine ethics in change-making, this one stands out in the diversity of the contributors’ backgrounds, experiences, and assumptions about change-making. Rooted in decolonial literature and commitments, the section of the book on leadership and organizations provides critical reflections on the challenges of taking on white supremacy. For example, a chapter by Minh Dang on the paradox of survivor leadership in an organization focused on human trafficking offers clear examples and definitions of tokenization and pedestalization when other change advocates single out a special representative to speak for a minority or victim group while erasing the diversity and complexity within these groups.
In contrast to most edited volumes, the chapter authors make a solid attempt to refer to each other’s work and cross-reference themes. The editors, from their position in US-based institutions, make room for many voices and find the common themes that weave the book into a cohesive whole. Still, as discussed in the volume, sometimes even the most well-intentioned attempts to design for inclusion only highlight who has been left out.
This book may be especially helpful for those who have a passion for justice but have not experienced the pangs of idealism meeting reality. I will be using it in my classes to introduce students to the field of change-making and the concept of wicked problems. Change-making is neither simple nor quick. It is not pure, and one thing is for sure: no one’s hands are clean in the end. Although libraries accrue many books on ethics related to violence and social change, this volume does not have any real competitors in terms of offering readers a humbling taste of the dilemmas of change-making.
