Can one “prove” that a harmful event was preventable? Conceptualising and addressing epistemological puzzles in post-incident reviews and investigations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Can one “prove” that a harmful event was preventable?

T2 - Conceptualising and addressing epistemological puzzles in post-incident reviews and investigations

AU - Meyer, Christoph

N1 - Funding Information: The author is grateful for comments received at the conference “Experts, Citizens, and Knowledge Problems in Democracy,” London, June 4–6, 2022 and, particularly, for Nikki Ikani for previous collaborations and helpful comments on the manuscript. The anonymous reviewers helped to improve the manuscript with their constructive comments and suggestions. The usual caveat applies. Support from the John Templeton Foundation (Centre for the Study of Governance and Society at King's College London: “The Political Economy of Knowledge and Ignorance,” Grant no. 61823) is gratefully acknowledged. The research also benefits from previously funded research by the European Research Council (FORESIGHT, Grant no. 202022) and the Economic and Social Research Council (INTEL, Grant no. ES/R004331/1) related to early warning on conflicts and surprises in foreign policy. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Policy Studies Organization.

PY - 2023/9/10

Y1 - 2023/9/10

N2 - A growing part of the literature on crises, disasters and policy failures focuses on the design, conduct and impact of post-incident reviews or inquiries, particularly whether the right lessons are identified and subsequently learned. However, such accounts under-appreciate the specific challenge posed by epistemic puzzles, under what conditions their difficulty may vary, and which strategies could help to solve them. Drawing on insights from a wide-range of cases, the article identifies hindsight bias, counterfactual reasoning, and root-cause analysis as core components creating an epistemic triangle of inquiry puzzling. It advances four propositions about the conditions that help or hinder investigators’ capacity to produce sound knowledge and concludes by setting out potential strategies that investigators can use to fully address or at least mitigate these epistemic challenges.

AB - A growing part of the literature on crises, disasters and policy failures focuses on the design, conduct and impact of post-incident reviews or inquiries, particularly whether the right lessons are identified and subsequently learned. However, such accounts under-appreciate the specific challenge posed by epistemic puzzles, under what conditions their difficulty may vary, and which strategies could help to solve them. Drawing on insights from a wide-range of cases, the article identifies hindsight bias, counterfactual reasoning, and root-cause analysis as core components creating an epistemic triangle of inquiry puzzling. It advances four propositions about the conditions that help or hinder investigators’ capacity to produce sound knowledge and concludes by setting out potential strategies that investigators can use to fully address or at least mitigate these epistemic challenges.

KW - Post-incident review

KW - lesson learning

KW - hindsight bias

KW - Counterfactual

KW - Root causes

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85170556820&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/rhc3.12281

DO - 10.1002/rhc3.12281

M3 - Article

SN - 1944-4079

SP - 1

EP - 19

JO - Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy

JF - Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy

ER -