Layer 1
This is the IFF World Model. Roll over each of the factors, or use the navigation panel on the right hand side of the page, to investigate trends and discontinuities in each area. For more information on the model overall and how to use it visit the world model pages.
Description
Governance is probably the most intractable issue on the planet – given its role in addressing the challenges and interconnections in all other areas. Governance is not government. It is a process: the process by which institutions, organisations, corporations, societies and other actors ‘guide’ themselves. It is also about how these bodies interact with each other and with their stakeholders. At its most basic level, it is about how society organises itself for collective decision making.
We live in a world of complexity, uncertainty and rapid change in which national governments are increasingly powerless to act alone. Governance today requires certain capacities in leadership which are poorly developed even in the most powerful nations and cities. They include an ability to take decisions without clear evidence in situations of inherent uncertainty; a tolerance of ambiguity combined with a capacity for rapid learning; the ability to take people along with you while fully acknowledging uncertainty; and a new capability for decision thinking that is able to handle multiple possible scenarios. At an even more fundamental level, the connected world raises questions about the boundaries of community, and therefore of representation, that go to the heart of democratic theory.
|
|
|
