This article was written by Robert A. Knisely, J.D., a former senior executive in four federal departments, who is now retired.
The problem: As societies grow larger and more complex, governments are challenged both to solve societal problems and to involve their citizens in governance processes.
Why it matters: As citizens see problems go unsolved and their perceived distance from government increases, their faith and their support for their government will continue to decline.
The solution: Using the science of Design Thinking to address problems and engaging citizens by using the internet and artificial intelligence to address the problems of lack of faith in government.
The United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution were inspired by the American Enlightenment, which happened between the mid-18th and the early 19th century. It brought changes in moral philosophy, educational reform, religious revival, industrial technology, science, and political philosophy. Here in the early 21st century we find ourselves immersed in even greater changes in these and other fields. The growth and increasing complexity of advanced civilisations increase the challenges to governance. The ratio of citizens represented by each member of the US House of Representatives has increased from 30,000:1 at the founding to nearly 800,000:1 today. Expecting representatives to listen to constituents, and for constituents to see themselves as “represented”, has become all but impossible.
America’s citizens have become more 'distant' from government at all levels due to growth, the intensity of modern life, and perhaps the internet’s increasing presence and complexity. We don’t have the time to worry about climate change, much less governance. With less time available for thought, our politics have become less cognitive and more affective.
Governments are expected to solve societal problems — the problems of the governed. This involves identifying problems, creating and implementing solutions, and measuring outputs and outcomes. And, of course, finding the resources to implement the solutions. Creating each solution de novo increases complexity and delay beyond measure."
Going forward in the age of the internet, social media and political disarray, we must find and promulgate ways of encouraging and facilitating citizen involvement.
Following design processes
Another pathway would be to follow the design procedures developed (largely) on America’s West Coast, and now captured by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. This involves:
These steps can be taken in a room with a whiteboard or by engaging the public via crowdsourcing. Today’s governmental approach was best captured by John Brademus, who spent twenty-two years as a congressman from Indiana: “Congress never gets anything right the first time – after five or six years we have to revisit our ‘solutions’ and correct them.”
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One set of actions that governments can use to address problems is found in the late Lester Salamon’s book, ‘The Tools of Government’, published in 2002. Salamon compares each of 14 tools in terms of its Effectiveness, Efficiency, Equity, Manageability, and Legitimacy/Political Support. He also looks at each tool’s degrees of Coerciveness, Directness, Automaticity, and Visibility.
Salamon’s tool set is in a sense akin to Christopher Alexander’s book, ‘A Pattern Language’, (1977) in which he lists solutions to architectural concerns that addresses the concerns with solutions that have been shown to work – not in theory but in practice. As the saying goes, “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice – but in practice there is!”
While an improvement in design processes at the governmental level is a prerequisite, the popular acceptance of the proposed solutions — and the designs themselves — would benefit from greater citizen engagement.
Citizen engagement is vital
Going forward in the age of the internet, social media and political disarray, we must find and promulgate ways of encouraging and facilitating citizen involvement — and publicising it as well. Examples include Participatory Budgeting, whereby citizen assemblies are allocated funds and allowed to determine where and how these funds are spent. This is in practice around the globe. Another example is the Oregon Kitchen Table, where a panel of citizens are called by the governor to review and comment on the proposed state budget for the following year.
Another more general concept is inviting comment on public issues via the internet, eventually requiring the use of artificial intelligence to collect, correlate, summarise and make public quickly all comments received. A specific example would be to encourage nationwide electronic comments on proposed federal regulations. Although the draft language today is often too arcane, the issues at hand are not. And if we know that the public has had a hand in creating these regulations, we will be more likely to follow them.
Going a step further, we could require “Legislative Impact Statements” akin to the Environmental Impact Statements that have been the law since 1969. Legislative Impact Statements would describe the desired positive results of proposed legislation, as well as any perceived possible negative impacts – all for public comment as above, but prior to passage.
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(Image credit: Unsplash)
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