Governance for Systemic and Transformational Change

We live in an era of uncertainty and volatility. Rapid technological change, inequalities in income and opportunities, environmental deterioration, social disruptions and political divisions are upending our political, social and economic orders. Humanity's best defence against these multiple and escalating crises of the Anthropocene is our capacity for collective action on an extraordinary scale. The challenge of governance today is how to bring about a systemic transformation of our politics, economics and society that will allow liberal democracy, a fair capitalism and a regenerative natural environment to cohabit amicably. To do so at the pace and scale needed requires far more imaginative, flexible, adaptive and responsive governance than our current arrangements can offer. In an evolving information and digital epoch, our governing mechanisms—top-down steering, market-based transactions and self-organized networks—must be rethought with new relationships among States, firms and civil society. This paper examines current deficiencies in governance and proposes a new approach to orchestrating systemwide transformational change that involves balancing three key relationships: State and market, labour and capital, and nature and humanity. It then uses a complexity lens to advocate four principles for redesigning institutions and policy—systemic thinking, meaningful transparency, political and social inclusion, and effective subsidiarity.