Is Climate Change a Wicked or Ignored Problem? Insights From Mainstream Public Administration Literature

Climate change, one of the most significant challenges facing public administrators around the world, is not a traditional disaster; it is an integrated, tangled, slow-onset crisis with multiple implications to existing rules, programs, and regulations at every level of government. Public administrators are often at the helm of local adaptation and mitigation efforts, but is this reflected in the mainstream public administration literature? Using Conklin’s wicked problems framework, this study analyzed 20 years of climate change research published in high-ranking public administration journals to understand how the literature in these leading journals are addressing this wicked problem and related impacts.