The Dutch government would like ‘Broad Prosperity’ (Dutch: Brede Welvaart) to take a more central role in policy-making and budgeting. Broad prosperity stands for everything that people value in life and society, and is about looking further, thinking long-term, and considering as many perspectives as possible. In this project, we had the societal aim of promoting Broad Prosperity in order to slowly make this concept an integral part of the way policy-makers work, shifting their approach to one that is interdisciplinary and considerate of social effects of policy. The aim is to make Broad Prosperity the standard way of discussing societal problems with citizens, which would foster an acceptance of different opinions and perspectives while moving towards collaborative solutions.
How can we prompt policymakers to account for broader perspectives?
The Complexity Companion consists of four small modules that can be divided amongst a group of stakeholders. Together, the devices are used to tangibly control a visualization of complex situations, displaying important elements and relations between these elements. No single module can control the visualization on its own, so the users are forced to collaborate and discuss their different perspectives. Each module has its own specialization: adding and selecting elements, changing the behaviour of the visual, adapting the relations between elements, and accepting AI input. Each module also makes its user responsible for two reflection points to further guide the discussion.
The design process took an explorative approach to iterate over interesting ways to discuss complex topics. We ended up with small, purposefully complicated machines, as the discussion topics are complex and need deliberate thought and concentration.
The Complexity Companion offers a way for policy-makers to integrate a Broad Prosperity approach in their collaboration, helping them to discuss highly complex topics with external parties. The main goal, however, is to achieve a shift in perspective towards consistently thinking in terms of Broad Prosperity. This can range from policy design at a high level, to discussing politics during your dinner tonight. The Complexity Companion contributes to this by inspiring both policy-makers and civilians to try new ways of working with Broad Prosperity.
