The future of our society will depend on how we respond to the crisis of governance.
Governance -- the way we provide public goods, services, and solve problems collectively -- is broken. Confidence in government is at an all time low. Traditional institutions are widely perceived to be untrustworthy or ineffective. Around the world, we are witnessing public expression of pervasive disappointment with government and rising hostility toward mainstream institutions. Especially visible was the Occupy Movement, which launched in New York City during fall 2011 and rapidly spread across the globe and took aim at traditional, centralized hierarchies ranging from governments and corporations to non-profit and media institutions.
Troublingly, this erosion of trust in government comes at a time when a large portion of the world’s population continues to face significant challenges in daily life. One billion people live on less than $150 dollars each year, and lack access to clean water, basic education, or even minimal health care. Environmental catastrophes exacerbate their plight. Meanwhile, rising temperatures threaten the planet itself.
At the same time, tremendous leaps in science and technology offer new opportunities to addresssuch challenges. Social networking and increased access to data enable citizens to connect and engage with one another to develop solutions to individual and collective problems. In order to recognize, implement and scale innovative solutions to public problems, however, we need open institutions capable of translating innovation into social progress. In this Cambrian age of big data and social media, we must use technology to transform governance.
Government 3.0: Rethinking Governance and Re-Imagining Democracy for the 21st Century at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU is a semester-long exploration of how to use technology to improve governance. Through conversations with leading technology and policy innovators, in-depth reading and, above all, personal reflection we will teach ourselves more about advances in technology, how those innovations can be applied to making decisions and solving problems and design new experiments that might help advance institutional innovation.
Amen!
Posted by: Kimberly Langon | January 26, 2013 at 08:26 PM
Dopey. Government isn't the solution; government is the problem. By far what defines us is NOT government; it's civil society. Unfortunately, all these idiots care about is MORE government. They may even see civil society, the natural order of people to self-organize, as evil. We must evolve to focus on civil society. We must shrink govt, stop the bleeding, starve the beast!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society
What is wrong with people?
Posted by: Jheuristic | January 27, 2013 at 07:01 PM
@Jheuristic:
Civil society is a bunch of citizens getting together to make decisions for society. Government is… a bunch of folks selected by citizens to make decisions for society? I say tomato, you say evil tyrant-beast.
On-topic, this is a great idea for a course, and I'm glad folks are studying this. Though if you're putting Gov 3.0 into beta without cloud syncing, some folks are going to want their money back.
Posted by: Dominic | January 28, 2013 at 10:45 AM
Governments are not mainstream institutions anymore. They only have ability to suck up our money as tax. What we need to do is to have legal rights to stop it.
Posted by: Tsuda Shoken | January 29, 2013 at 04:06 PM
Dominic, remember, your beloved state welfare, housing, health, education, etc. CREATES poverty, misfortune, misery and death.
Quick question: Which USA state has the largest social programs, the most left governing model, the largest state school system and largest govt transfer welfare payments by far? Right you are! California.
Now, which USA state has the highest POVERTY RATE? Exactly correct – California (23.5%). Bravo. You are on a roll. Woo-hoo!
The only other USA region with a similar poverty rate is, you bet, the nation’s gleaming capital, Washington DC, at 23.3%.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-244.pdf
Get a clue.
Again, please remember, once and for all, statist welfare begets misery. What more proof do you need?
Still not convinced? Take US education.
The Dept of Education was Jimmy Carter’s gratuitous payoff to Democratic union bosses for making him president. This useless bureaucracy has been a confident failure in every measure for over thirty years. Such a comprehensive, massive, long-term farce is seldom seen (except in large and growing central government agencies). Since the Dept of Education the US has steadily fallen to near last is many global education metrics. C'mon.
How about an informative field exercise for you to see your beloved govt in action? Go to your nearest large city. Have a nice evening stroll in its govt housing projects. What? You're afraid? You're afraid of govt? Good. Now we may be getting somewhere...
Please, try to think differently. Adopt the great, abiding American Tradition of suspicion and hatred of central govt. Remember, Obama is not a King.
Aaron, remember, when something is harmful, broken and evil, as this blog says govt is, don't do MORE of it and expect a different outcome, that's insane! Rather, scale-it-back, starve it, stop-the-bleeding, kill the beast.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” - Thomas Jefferson.
Posted by: Jheuristic | February 07, 2013 at 01:22 AM