Author of machiavelli.net, proud father of three, interested in shaping network society. Welcome to my blog.Battling for the Institutional Ecology of Network Society
[Challenge] In 2002 the world came together in Monterrey to address the millennium development goals. The goals were developed by governments for governments. Today, global problems and global interconnectedness are challenging us to reflect how we govern social life on all domains, not as governments but as human beings. The institutional ecology metaphor reminds us that our social institutions are complex webs, that we can impact, but that are driven by emergent logic and unintended consequences.
We have an opportunity and a responsibility to act upon this challenge.
[Transformation] We are undergoing radical changes in our lifeworlds, societies, markets, governments, and inter-governmental relations. This is affecting the family, work-life balance, spirituality, institutions of the state, market, civil society, production, distribution, statehood, and inter-societal relations. The change from a society build upon the metaphor of the original contract between property owners to a society understood through the metaphor of the network and service provision, fundamentally changes the logics of our interactions on all levels of society.
[Governance]The focus on governance in the contemporary discourse of political science and policy making acknowledges this transformation by moving the focus from political science to the meta-level, where we discuss what is the role of governments, civic associations, and the private sector in creating economic, social, political, and inter-collective public goods. In corporate governance, we ask how can we regain the trust of investors and society, in global governance, we ask how can we address global challenges, in good governance, we ask how can governments gain the trust of multi-lateral lending institutions through better administrative practices and policy making, in e-governance, we ask how do information and communication technologies and new practices impact how we structure societal life.
These are not abstract academic discussions; these are battles happening in the real world, with real consequences for the politics of our worlds, because decisions made today will outline the conditions of possible public value creation tomorrow.
[Legitimation] Any institution as an institution is only as effective as it is legitimate. Legitimacy involves the capacity of the institution to sustain the belief that the existing institutional practice is the most appropriate for society. Legitimation then is the process of acquiring legitimacy by persuading intersubjectivities of the validity of a governance structure. As a process it is historical, which means it changes through time and is path-dependent. Therefore, legitimation needs to be analyzed from a macro-historical perspective. Today, the move from law-based legitimation to results-oriented legitimation changes our conception of our social worlds as much as the 16th Century move from transcendental to immanent law-based legitimation.
[Responsibility and Action] The role of the academy in the emergent network society is that of a gardener or maybe even a landscape architect. We live in a time in which we can frame, shape, delineate, and delimit the [public] spaces of our societies. Let us take that seriously, because great responsibility comes attached with such a role. The Monterrey Forum gives us such a platform. The questions that need to be addressed are: How is the landscape in which we can think about public value changing? What is the role of new technologies? What are changing legitimizing practices? How can we shape our institutional landscapes? What do we need to know to do that? How and where can we intervene?
