Stewardship

by Ruth Hubbard

This book is the first in a series of books is designed to define cumulatively the contours of collaborative decentred metagovernance. At this time, there is still no canonical version of this it is en émergence. This series intends to be one of many construction sites to experiment with various dimensions of an effective and practical version of this new approach. Metagovernance is the art of combining different forms or styles of governance, experimented with in the private, public and volunteer sectors, to ensure effective coordination when power, resources and information are widely distributed, and the governing is of necessity decentred and collaborative. The series invites conceptual and practical contributions focused on different issue domains, policy fields, causes célébres, functional processes, etc. to the extent that they contribute to sharpening the new apparatus associated with collaborative decentred metagovernance. In the last few decades, there has been a need felt for a more sophisticated understanding of the governing of the private, public and social for less compartmentalization among sectors that have much in common; and for new conceptual tools to suggest new relevant questions and new ways to carry out the business of governing, by creatively recombining the tools of governance that have proved successful in all these sectors. These efforts have generated experiments that have been sufficiently rich and wide-ranging in the various laboratories of life to warrant efforts to pull together what we know at this stage. This first volume in the series attempts to scope out, in a provisional way, the sort of general terrain we are going to explore. It is not meant to impose boundaries or orthodoxies, but only to loosely identify the horizons and the frontiers, as we perceive them at the time of launching this journey. Horizons and frontiers are to us not ways to limit the inquiries, but rather invitations to all forms of transgression.

151 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Ruth Hubbard was a professor of biology at Harvard University, where she was the first woman to hold a tenured professorship position in biology. She authored several books challenging the male model of science.

Born Ruth Hoffmann in Vienna, Austria, she escaped Nazism as a teenager, moving with with her family to the United States. Hubbard graduated from Radcliffe College in 1944, earning an A.B. in biochemical sciences.

Reviews

[Joshua Loong · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://joshualoong.wordpress.com/201...

Debates over government are a time-honoured human tradition. Whether over a beer or at the family Christmas party, politics and policy are what everyone can agree to disagree on. Everyone has their own opinion about how the government should be run, whether on the left or the right, and the usual sentiment is that the current government isn’t running things properly. But with all this rhetoric being thrown around the issue, I decided to read a bit more on it and came across this wonderful little book in the university library.

The main premise is that the current 21st century world consists of multiple interacting systems and networks of people, where power is diffused among them unequally. This include the state itself, as well as corporate and community interest groups.

In its current form, the government assumes hierarchical, top-down responsibility for certain issues, and sets out to use its resources to solve it. That has been the traditional model in which the government has pursued to achieving its goals. What Hubbard et al. are asserting is that this is not an effective means for the government to pursue socioeconomic outcomes. They are saying there needs to be a radical rethinking about the way the government governs, or as its termed “metagovernance”.

With power diffused among various organizations, governments are no longer leaders in the traditional sense but stewards (hence the title) that help guide and steer collective actions to a specific outcome. This means a few things: it calls for a reunderstanding the government’s context within society and the level of communication/collaboration it has with key stakeholders on issues. It also means that governments need to look more at iterative and experimental approaches to solving issues, and using social learning to allow the network to self-govern itself. All of this would mean changing the fundamental structure and operation of the government.

I rated the book a 7/10. I thought the book put forward some really interesting ideas on the way government policy should be enacted. I particularly enjoyed that they did case studies at the end on four separate Canadian issues that really displayed the idea of collaborative decentred metagovernance. This is a very academic book so I would warn against reading this too casually, although its not too long to get through.

It has been interesting these last few weeks as I’ve been really getting into reading about politics and government. Books like these really challenge the notions and thoughts you have about a topic everyone likes to talk about. Would definitely recommend the book if you are interested in government and public policy.