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Why are GAN's Emerging Now?
Many factors are at play in the rise of GANs. However, three in particular might be pointed to as critical. One is globalization, which makes new demands upon public policy systems; second, is the inadequacy of current public policy making structures; and third, is the increasing understanding that effective solutions must somehow address complex relationships accompanying global public policy through a systems approach. To develop GANs to respond to these factors, information and communication technologies are playing a critical role.
Globalization
The term globalization has become a commonly applied label to a number of linked economic and social trends. It has generated a vast literature (see, e.g. Bauman 1998; Friedman 2000; Held et al 1999; UN 1995). Although the economic forms of globalization receive the most attention with debate about trade flows and the comparative wealth of nations, globalization also encompasses social, political, cultural, and technological trends. It is associated with a myriad of interactions, such as international travel for vacation or work, increasing exchanges via telephone and the internet, exposure to other cultures through media, and even the ability to find foods and restaurants from around the world in all major cities. Globalization is also associated with a growing list of problems, such as environmental degradation, health epidemics, organized crime and terrorism, that demand more intense multi-national exchanges.
An authoritative text describes the term as reflecting "...a widespread perception that the world is rapidly being moulded into a shared social space by economic and technological forces and that developments in one region of the world can have profound consequences for the life chances of individuals or communities on the other side of the world" (Held et al. 1999). This description raises images of increasing interconnectedness and networking as people and organizations interact across distances more frequently and intensely. Indeed, the authors go on to suggest four key variables for measuring globalization:
- the extensivity of global networks, i.e. the geographic reach of networks to people, organizations and communities;
- the intensity of global interconnectedness, i.e. the number of times and amount of information and goods that flow over the networks;
- the velocity of global flows, i.e. the speed of exchanges; and
- the impact propensity of global connectedness, i.e. the changes that result in daily life from the connections.
Yet, this does not imply a global consensus over the nature or even the significance of the underlying trends. Held et al. (1999) distinguish between three schools of thought: hyperglobalizationists, skeptics, and transformationists. Hyperglobalizationsts focus on economic logic as the driving force for change, and imply that not only are the trends inexorable and unresistable, but also that they are leading to a growing irrelevance of nation states. Skeptics argue, in contrast, that when viewed in historical context the current levels of integration or interaction are neither particularly significant nor especially consequential, although many in this category admit that the trends leading towards regionalization could be an appropriate focus of attention. Transformationalists view globalization not as a natural or inexorable process, but as something that is being shaped by human action. They see current trends as driving the rapid reshaping of society, leading to fundamental transformation of power and structures.
In line with this last approach, GANs can be conceived of as networks that are trying to influence the process of globalization in terms of its impacts and structures. Although the term GAN includes skeptics and critics as well as protagonists, it is fair to say that notwithstanding their approval or criticism, all GANs are to some degree active agents of globalization. The consequence of their actions is not so much to "stop" globalization, as to tame and fashion it to work for the benefit of distinct human communities and human concerns.
As a broad societal development, globalization is associated with an equally broad range of linked impacts. Four changes that are especially relevant to the rise of GANs are the crisis of legitimacy of traditional decision making arrangements - especially, but not exclusively, nation states; the emergence of major gaps and weaknesses in global decision making processes; the rise in significance of non-state actors; and the growth in more integrative approaches to analysis and action.
Governance Crisis
A central impact of globalization is that social, economic, political, and environmental problems have changed in terms of their intricacy, geographic spread, and speed of onset. They defy the geographic boundaries that circumscribe traditional governmental responses. Local and national governments - limited to jurisdictional approaches - often are unable to do more than address local symptoms of a problem. As a result, many of these issues are today being discussed and decided at global levels, through intergovernmental negotiations, dispute resolution processes, formulation of norms and standards and other similar mechanisms. However, many governments are not adequately equipped for the negotiations or decision-making processes. Limitations among participants as well as deficiencies of the decision-making framework itself have served to disable the larger process and to impound effective global policy.
In other words, globalization has, on the one hand, weakened the ability of nation states to protect their economies and societies against the adverse impacts of exogenous shocks, and on the other hand increased the range and number of problems for which a coordinated international response is required. This has created what some observers term a crisis of global governance, referring both to the weakness of global institutions to deal with the new problems, and the erosion in the legitimacy and effectiveness of national institutions to deal with the problems on their own (UN 1995; Friedman 2000; Bauman 1998; Reinicke and Deng, 2000). GANs can be seen as emerging in response to poorly organized - or "under-organized" global public policy regimes. (Brown 1980)
Global governance is a concept of recent origin. True, it has antecedents, most notably the establishment of the United Nations and its subsidiary bodies (as well as its predecessor, the League of Nations). However, as is noted in the United Nations' own definitive document on the issue, the report of the Commission on Global Governance (Our Global Neighbourhood), these institutions were created at a time when
"...nation-states, many of them imperial powers, were dominant. Faith in the ability of governments to protect citizens and improve their lives was strong... Moreover, the state had few rivals. The world was not as closely integrated as it is today. The vast array of global firms and corporate alliances that has emerged was just beginning to develop. The huge global capital market, which today dwarfs even the largest national capital markets, was not foreseen. The enormous growth in people's concerns for human rights, equity, democracy, meeting basic needs, environmental protection, and demilitarization has today produced a multitude of actors who can contribute to governance." (Global Governance Commission 1995; p. 3)
In other words, the UN system was created to enable negotiations and agreements between nation-states, not for assuming the role of a global nation-state. The report goes on to argue that unless the UN system is reformed radically it will not be able to meet the challenges of the 21st century. These challenges include addressing the four governance gaps, which the UN and intergovernmental organizations are incapable of doing on their own. Rather than a "world government" in a nation state model, the evolving model might well be based upon GAN-like components.
Growing Systems Thinking
Another factor in the rise of GANs is the growth in systems analysis, which focuses upon groups of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements that together form a complex whole. (Forester, 1965; Richardson and Pugh III, 1999; Senge, 1990) Systems are almost always defined with respect to a specific purpose within a larger system, such as with the alternative trade movement within the traditional trade system. Whereas traditional science builds knowledge mainly by breaking questions and concepts into ever-smaller parts, a systems perspective focuses upon how all the parts fit together. Both approaches are useful, but when undue attention is placed upon the parts, the aggregate impacts are often lost. This is particularly obvious with environmental issues, which provide incontrovertible evidence of the need for more integrative approaches. Systems thinking has also led to thinking of organizations and issues as intersections of stakeholder interests, and the importance of correctly defining and meaningfully engaging a system's stakeholders.
A focus upon relationships - which is the basis of systems thinking - is changing the way we think about organizations and decision-making processes. (Wheatley, 1992) Instead of an earlier partiality towards single-focus organizations divided into self-contained divisions, with systems thinking there is much greater interest in flexible specialization, network development, and multi-purpose organizational forms. This is reflected in GANs. Many of them strive to re-integrate diverse knowledge and perspectives, both by creating a 'big tent' for people and organizations with diverse ideas, and by engaging with or building bridges to other networks and groups in order to create more integrated responses. (Brown 1993; Sharma, Vredenburg and Westley 1994)
Recent years have also witnessed a distinct change in the dominant metaphors employed by social analysts. Instead of thinking of the world in terms of mechanical models, there is a growing shift towards biological metaphors. (Maturana and Varela 1998) The mechanistic view creates organizations as "links" in a production chain with a hierarchical structure. The biological metaphor's key characteristics are flatness, decentralization, and self-organizing in a way that facilitates multiple connections and growth.
In biological model, a "DNA" is developed to support an organization's growth. This DNA is often expressed in terms of governance structures, operating principles and membership that are defined and built by all the stakeholders in a particular issue. The system stakeholder engagement in this development process greatly facilitates rapid development of trust and a common culture and usually embraces principles such as transparency, accountability and participation. In these models, rather than having a central command structure to define an organization's or network's activities, the activities grow out of member organizations' and individuals' own internal impulses and goals. However, there is "alignment" around the critical purpose and statement of principles.
This systems thinking approach helps explain the emergence of GANs by pointing out shortcomings of traditional approaches. Traditional public policy decision-making institutions have been slow to absorb the impact of innovative ways of thinking. They tend to see government and intergovernmental agencies as the key powers, around which all activities should revolve. By contrast, GANs create collaborative, peer-like relationships between stakeholders.
The rise of GANs reflects the conclusion that centrally-driven organizing models, particularly on a global scale, are simply not up to the challenges of global public policy making - if they were, there would not be space and support for the creation of GANs. The problems of traditional approaches include a tendency to be exclusive and bogged down with "who should be at the table"; they tend to generate homogenous approaches that ignore and suppress local cultures and values; coordination becomes an impossible task because of the number of actors; and key opportunities that arise in specific places are often lost.
The systems thinking approach also brings out the need to act with more careful reflection about the roles of the environment and our three key societal systems: political, economic and social. These systems are represented by organizational "sectors" of government, business and civil society; change within the larger system can be approached by working with organizations in each of these sectors: governments and their agencies, businesses, and civil society organizations like NGOs.
The shift toward systems thinking is demonstrated by an increasing number of "intersectoral" initiatives involving organizations from two or more of the organizational sectors. Some GANs have been formed out of a specific desire to combine these organizational sectors, such as the World Commission on Dams (http://www.dams.org) with Commissioners from a broad range of stakeholder groups.
Citations
Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998. Globalization. New York, NY: Columbia University Press
Brown, L.D. 1980. "Planned Change in Underorganized Systems." Pp. 181-208 in Systems Theory for Organization Development, edited by T.G. Cummings. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Brown, L. David. 1993. "Development Bridging Organizations and Strategic Management for Social Change." Advances in Strategic Management 9:381-405.
Forester, Jay W. 1965. "A New Corporate Design." Sloan Management Review 7:5-17.
Friedman, Thomas. 2000. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
Global Governance Commission. 1995. Our Global Neighborhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.
Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Maturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Varela. 1998. The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding (revised edition). Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Reinicke, Wolfgang H., and Francis M. Deng. 2000. "Critical Choices: The United Nations, networks, and the future of global governance." . www.globalpublicpolicy.net: World Bank and the United Nations.
Richardson, George P., and Alexander L. Pugh III. 1999. Introduction to System Dynamics Modeling. Waltham, MA USA: Pegasus Communications.
Senge, P.M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday.
Sharma, Sanjay, Harrie Vredenburg, and Frances Westley. 1994. "Strategic Bridging: A Role for the Multinational Corporation in Third World Development." Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 30:458-476.
Wheatley, Margaret. 1992. Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organizations from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
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