"The Epidemic That Wasn't" (Jan . 27 brings important attention to an area where media hype and junk science have provided the basis for counterproductive interventions into the lives of pregnant women and their families.
We analyze the Dutch energy-efficient housing innovation system and conclude that neglecting interactions between systemic problems may not only lead to inaccurate problem diagnosis, but also to ineffective or even counterproductive interventions.
But trying to control context out of improvement interventions is both inappropriate and counterproductive because improvement interventions are inherently and strongly context dependent.
Therefore, more counterproductive U.S. military interventions in the Middle East may create groups that make even the brutal ISIS look tame.
Pro-fracking groups say that local intervention is counterproductive, likening it to needing a different driver's license for each county.
But they took the laissez-faire arguments too far, and many of their followers went even further, denying the very possibility of market failure and pillorying virtually any form of government intervention as counterproductive.
Kazakh political scientist Rustem Kurmanguzhin (2016: p. 110) argues that the Kazakhstani government considers democratisation as a long-term goal which should be attained gradually and where external intervention is counterproductive.
More often U.S. intervention is counterproductive.
And he criticizes the counterproductive consequences of Western intervention: "In the face of Islamic terrorism, it would therefore be better to question ourselves about the way in [which] an overly Western model of democracy has been exported to countries such as Iraq, where a strong government previously existed.
In practice, however, such guidelines may be counterproductive by unintentionally discouraging intervention where significant delay has already occurred.
