There is an increased interest in integrating insights from the complexity sciences to studies of governance and policy. While the issue has been debated, and the term of ‘complexity’ has multiple and sometimes contested interpretations, it is also clear the field has spurred a number of interesting theoretical and empirical efforts. The book includes key thinkers in the field, elaborates on different analytical approaches in studying governance, institutions and policy in the face of complexity, and showcases empirical applications and insights.
Peter Ho, former Head of the Singapore Civil Service, was the Institute of Policy Studies' 2016/17 S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore.This book collects the four IPS-Nathan Lectures that he delivered between April and May 2017, and gathers highlights of his dialogues with the audience.Ho surveys the increasingly complex world, and suggests what governments can do to prepare for the future — even as no one can predict it. He uses metaphors such as the 'black elephant' and concepts like the 'dialectic of governance' to explain how a systematic approach to thinking about the future can help countries in general — and Singapore in particular — build resilience and develop a comparative advantage in the face of uncertainty and rapid change.The IPS-Nathan Lectures series was launched in 2014 as part of the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore. Its primary goal is to promote public understanding and discourse of issues of critical national interest.
Identifies the major weaknesses in the current United Nations system and proposes fundamental reforms to address each. This title is also available as Open Access.
Resilience has become a central concept in government policy understandings over the last decade. In our complex, global and interconnected world, resilience appears to be the policy ‘buzzword’ of choice, alleged to be the solution to a wide and ever-growing range of policy issues. This book analyses the key aspects of resilience-thinking and highlights how resilience impacts upon traditional conceptions of governance. This concise and accessible book investigates how resilience-thinking adds new insights into how politics (both domestically and internationally) is understood to work and how problems are perceived and addressed; from educational training in schools to global ethics and from responses to shock events and natural disasters to long-term international policies to promote peace and development. This book also raises searching questions about how resilience-thinking influences the types of knowledge and understanding we value and challenges traditional conceptions of social and political processes. It sets forward a new and clear conceptualisation of resilience, of use to students, academics and policy-makers, emphasising the links between the rise of resilience and awareness of the complex nature of problems and policy-making.
Governing Complexity in the 21st Century surveys the ways in which social systems are becoming more complex. It shows how this complexity impacts every aspect of life for individuals, governments and societies in most social systems at individual, regional, national and global scales and explores how embracing ‘complexity thinking’ can greatly improve the art of governance in all policy areas. The book clearly explains the ideas and methods of complexity science—widely accepted in both the natural and social sciences—then demonstrates how ‘complexity thinking’ can be applied to improve our understanding of governance and policy actions. Providing a deep analysis of many governance challenges, including economic development and technological innovation, environment management, climate change and development in the Middle East, the book also compares national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Clear and jargon-free, this book is accessible to undergraduates and scholars alike. It is essential reading for policymakers everywhere, showcasing methods for governing effectively and efficiently in our increasingly complex world. It brings together the broad range of social and environmental science fields and will be useful for those studying or working in policy, politics and international relations, environmental issues, business management, philosophy, history and sociology.
Are we creating an ungovernable world? Can we be confident that our existing modes of global governance are sufficient, or adaptable enough, to meet the challenges of globalization? This new study powerfully tackles these key questions, delivering a provocative examination of the cognitive, practical and political limits on our ability to exercise systems of regulation and control on the same scale as the globalizing forces already shaping the human condition. Key issues addressed include: * an examination of the many meanings of 'global governance' * a contextualised view of global governance within the complex interaction of human and natural systems * an analysis of global governance at a fundamental and conceptual level * a case study of disseminative systems and global governance This book is essential reading for those with research interests in global politics, international relations and globalization.
This book is an introduction to complex systems thinking at the global governance level. It offers concepts, tools, and ways of thinking about how systems change that can be applied to the most wicked problems facing the world today. More than an abstract argument for complexity theory, the book offers a targeted critique of today’s highest-profile proposals for improving the governance of our environment, security, finance, health, and digital space. It suggests that we should spend less effort and resources on upgrading existing institutions, and more on understanding how they (and we) relate to each other. The volume will be essential reading for public policymakers, NGOs and think tanks, foreign policy experts, government officials, and global decision-makers.
This book deals with a range of topics related to global governance. It begins with an introduction to the theoretical literature in order to provide a framework for the individual chapters written by the authors contributing to this book. There are many global challenges that the global community, which includes state and non-state actors, has to deal with. International institutions like the United Nations are trying to meet some of these challenges, for example, in the field of sustainable development. One of the chapters in the book discusses the United Nations assessment of the Millennium Development Goals. Another chapter discusses the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and highlights the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations member states in December 2015. A related topic is climate change, which led to the Paris Agreement that states were encouraged to sign up for. Rising sea levels are threatening the existence of some low-lying atoll states of the Pacific region. The challenges they face are discussed by Roy Smith in his chapter, Maintaining Sovereign Identity among States Facing Existential Threats. There are other threats to our security and well-being posed by terrorism, for example, that require the adoption of appropriate counterterrorism measures. This issue is discussed by Natasha Underhill in her chapter Counterterrorism in a Globalized World: Threats and Ways Forward. Kunal Mukherjees chapter, The Rise of Islamism in the Contemporary World: A South Asian Perspective, discusses a related issue. The book argues that international co-operation is essential to solve problems and make progress in different areas, ranging from international security to international trade. But progress may be slow when states feel that it is not a positive sum game, which is what Chris Farrands argues in his chapter, Global Governance, Multilateralism and the Management of International Trade. Finally, the book addresses the issue of global governance and world order. One way forward is by reforming the United Nations and giving more recognition to regional organisations, as is discussed by Spyros Blavoukos and Dimitris Bourantonis in their chapter, Principled Multilateralism and the United Nations. But as the concluding chapter, Global Governance and World Order: Perspectives, Challenges and Outlook argues, ultimately, global governance has to be conceived as self-governance and not act as an imposition from above based on an international hierarchy; it requires a political commitment from all stakeholders if it is to be successful in maintaining world order.
There has been a rapid expansion of academic interest and publications on polycentricity. In the contemporary world, nearly all governance situations are polycentric, but people are not necessarily used to thinking this way. Governing Complexity provides an updated explanation of the concept of polycentric governance. The editors provide examples of it in contemporary settings involving complex natural resource systems, as well as a critical evaluation of the utility of the concept. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, this book makes the case that polycentric governance arrangements exist and it is possible for polycentric arrangements to perform well, persist for long periods, and adapt. Whether they actually function well, persist, or adapt depends on multiple factors that are reviewed and discussed, both theoretically and with examples from actual cases.
This book delivers new IMD insights on an emerging challenge - how to deal with overwhelming complexity. Global organizations face a complex decision-making environment. On one side, diversity of cultures, customers, competitors and regulations creates complexity; on the other, competitive pressures cause expanding countries to extract more synergies across products and regions. In such a climate, a new way of thinking, acting and organizing is needed beyond the familiar ‘control’ mindset. Drawing together insights from across the expert faculty, Managing Complexity in the Global Organization presents IMD’s framework on how to understand complexity and its four key drivers (diversity; interdependence; ambiguity and flux), along with solutions on specific issues in a variety of functions, industries and markets. The focus is on providing practical solutions based on real-life examples.
