January 2023
Ann Florini (New America and Arizona State University)
Sunil Sharma (George Washington University)
Gordon LaForge (New America)
Abstract: We live in an era of uncertainty and volatility. Rapid technological change, inequalities in income and opportunities, environmental deterioration, social disruptions, and political divisions are upending our political, social, and economic orders. Humanity’s best defense against these multiple and escalating crises of the Anthropocene is our capacity for collective action on an extraordinary scale. The challenge of governance today is how to bring about a systemic transformation of our politics, economics, and society that will allow liberal democracy, a fair capitalism, and a regenerative natural environment to cohabit amicably. But to do so at the pace and scale needed requires far more imaginative, flexible, adaptive, and responsive governance than our current arrangements can offer. In an evolving information and digital epoch, our governing mechanisms — top-down steering, market-based transactions, and self-organized networks — must be rethought with new relationships between states, firms, and civil society. The article examines current deficiencies in governance and proposes a new approach for orchestrating system-wide transformational change that involves balancing three key relationships: state and market, labor and capital, and nature and humanity. It then uses a complexity lens to advocate four principles for redesigning institutions and policy – systemic thinking, meaningful transparency, political and social inclusion, and effective subsidiarity.
Key Words: Governance, Human Development, Anthropocene, Climate Change, Information Age, Institutions, Politics, Governments, Corporations, Markets, Civil Society, Complexity, Systemic Thinking, Transparency, Inclusion, Subsidiarity.
