The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome
Author(s): Yehezkel Dror (Author)
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 23 Oct. 2001
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Print length: 280 pages
ISBN-10: 1416207694
ISBN-13: 9780714652283
Book Description
The inadequacies of contemporary forms of governance are increasingly recognized: the brain drain from politics, distrust of governments, the danger of mass media and money-dominated elections, and the failure of governments to find good policy options on major issues. Industry, civil society and non-governmental organizations, however important, cannot compensate for government’s incapacity to shape the future, which only it is democratically entitled to do. Radical improvements in governance are urgently needed, but salient proposals are scarce. This book diagnoses contemporary governments as obsolete and proposes changes in values, structures, staffing, public understanding and political culture to equip governance for the radically novel challenges of the 21st century. This is the first Report dealing with governance commissioned and approved by the Club of Rome, testifying to the significance of this book.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘An outstanding, original and sweeping work with a biography of some 800 items and a glossary of essential new concepts.’ – Future Survey
‘Hopefully [it} will awaken many who now slumber… anyone concerned about the future of humanity should read Dror’s book.’ – InSite Reviews
From the Author
The book focuses on the rapidly deepening and widening abyss between human capacities to shape their future, for better or worse, on one side, and lack of moral, cognitive and volitional capacities to engage in responsible “weaving of the future” on the other. Markets and civil societies can do much, but only governments are legitimately entitled to make and able to enforce critical choices on future-shaping issues, such as uses of biotechnology, protection of essential ecological assets, advancement of globalization while containing its negative potentials, control of “evil” global actors and more.
However, governments are increasingly preoccupied with “blowing of bubbles” and suffer from serious congenital defects causing them often to concentrate on superficial aspects of the “here and now”. Therefore, quite a “revolution” in governance is requires in order to build up required core capacities to “weave the future”. That is the main thesis of the book, which combines critical evaluation of present governance in-capacities with multiple redesign suggestions.
Thus, “raison d’humanit?” is proposed as a partial substitute for “raison d’etat. Moving towards “knowledge government” is discussed as essential for coping with knowledge economies and societies. Strengthening of non-democratic enclaves within democracies is suggested as a way to take better care of inter-generation considerations. National and international policy colleges for politicians are presented as essential for overcoming profound ignorance of policy elites. Adequate compensation for politicians and senior civil servants should be combined with harsh punishment of corruption. Strengthened public television is among the proposals for empowering the people by making it more policy-enlightened, with public interrogation of candidates for top political office being a way to reduce image-manipulation. And much more.
Discussion of the possible need to move towards a “Global Leviathan” in case consensus-building and big-power cooperation fail in making global governance adequate further illustrates the innovative look at governance taken in this book, however “politically incorrect”.
Wow! eBook
