Abstract
In the past decade there has been an increasing focus at both national and international levels on the extent to which governments can improve the wellbeing of citizens. At the core of these developments has been concern with GDP as the dominant indicator of societal progress, leading to a plethora of initiatives that have sought alternative or complementary measures of progress. A pivotal moment in developments was the report of the influential ‘Stiglitz Commission’ (CMEPSP 2009), which argued for the use of subjective wellbeing (SWB) indicators alongside more widely used objective indicators of progress, such as employment rates and life expectancy. This feature of developments has proved highly controversial and the issues it raises are central to our discussion here.
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Notes
- 1.
This first section draws on work developed by the authors with Paul Anand. We would like to thank Paul for allowing us to use this material here. The full articulation of our arguments on wellbeing as a wicked problem can be found in Bache et al. (2015).
- 2.
We are using the UK as shorthand here to refer primarily to actions being developed as part of the Measuring National Wellbeing Programme developed by the Office for National Statistics. We note that there are distinct activities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in relation to what we describe here as the ‘wellbeing agenda’ but do not have the space to discuss these distinct strands. Moreover, our arguments apply to a range of contexts within and beyond the UK.
- 3.
5786 Google Scholar cites as of 18/06/2014.
- 4.
In the ONS programme, there is one question on happiness out of four on ‘personal wellbeing’ (see Beaumont 2012).
- 5.
Emphasis in original.
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Bache, I., Reardon, L. (2016). The ‘Wicked Problem’ of Wellbeing: Theorising the Prospects for Policy Change. In: Tachibanaki, T. (eds) Advances in Happiness Research. Creative Economy. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55753-1_3
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