Navigating "Wicked Problems" in Public Policy: The Power and Promise of Using SHAMROQ's Transdisciplinary Approach to Find Regulatory Text Patterns – A Mixed Method Study

Abstract

In an era marked by significant public policy challenges, including climate change, public health, and economic inequality, traditional bureaucratic or technocratic methods prove increasingly inadequate. These so-called "wicked problems," characterized by their complexity and resistance to simple solutions, require more dynamic, inclusive approaches, that transcend jurisdictional boundaries. Embracing these approaches, we extend SHAMROQ, a novel transdisciplinary approach that combines Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, and Logic to extract, classify, and model deontic expressions from regulatory texts. This mixed-method study examines three CFR titles: Title 16 Commercial Practices, Title 45 Public Welfare, and Title 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations Systems, with an emphasis on the distribution of deontic expressions and identifying challenges in regulatory text. The results, supported by a chi-square test of independence with a highly significant p-value < .001 , show a strong association between deontic expression types and CFR Titles. This research also provides deeper insights into regulatory language complexity by broadening the analysis across CFR Titles 16, 45, and 48. Title 16 features diverse permissions and obligations, reflecting commercial law's complexity. Title 45 uses strict directives like 'must' and 'shall' for public welfare compliance, while Title 48 focuses on obligatory terms for federal acquisition, aligning with procurement demands. Such insights can inform future research and practical applications in regulatory analytics, compliance, and public policy.