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ARTWORK. Cover photo of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Photo by Chris Hardy via Unsplash.
Shane Szarkowski Editor-in-Chief
For better or worse, the future of governance is hybrid
Today’s governance crisis didn’t develop overnight. The pressures on our institutions today are compounded by flaws in our models that we’ve recognized but been unable to fully address for some decades.
Beyond direct polycrisis pressures, there are two major factors differentiating today’s situation. The first is the entrance of private sector and other stakeholders into governance processes. From evacuation operations in Afghanistan to climate initiatives, non–government stakeholders have been filling governance gaps in increasingly visible ways.
The second difference is the ballooning capabilities of emerging technologies. This dynamic creates new pressures on governance processes as institutions learn how to govern and use them. It also gives exponentially greater capability to non–state stakeholders looking to become more involved in governance.
This could make governance more inclusive and resilient, but who is included or excluded —and how, why, and from what—are questions we can’t yet answer. The answers matter.
Done poorly, we face an era of “chimera governance,” with an amalgamation of actors exercising governance power without effective coordination or matched vision—leading to inefficient and even contradictory governance.
Done right, we can usher in an era of transparency, accountability, and stakeholder access which could truly help the future arrive well.
To think about the future of hybrid governance, Diplomatic Courier asked its network of World in 2050 experts to reflect where we’re headed and what it means. At a time every global convening hosts main stage conversations involving this evolution of governance, discussing what we want out of hybrid governance and how to get there is timely indeed.
We are excited to share this digital anthology on the future of governance, full of insights from our network! We hope you find it useful. As ever, thank you for reading!
Kennedy Center’s Hall of Nations in Washington, DC. Image via
Stock.
A glocal approach to hybrid governance
By Craig Grunwald
Image via Adobe Stock.
After “the era of big government” ended in the 1990s, the 2000s and 2010s exposed the limits and discontents of globalization and market–oriented reforms. Left in their wake is a rising wave of populism capitalizing on neoliberal shortcomings and a fragmented, often chimera–like hybrid governance:
• Neonationalism is gaining ground, even as external shocks demand global cooperation and threaten the durability of local innovation.
• Trade and geopolitical alliances are shifting and increasingly transactional, further complicating collective action.
• The “Mag 7” tech giants hold market capitalizations exceeding the nominal GDP of most governments, driving borderless innovation that often outpaces regulation.
• Governments face deep resource constraints, including persistent deficits and sovereign debt crises, hindering delivery of basic public goods.
• Bilateral and multilateral aid are in decline, and philanthropy is insufficient to fill the gaps.
In theory, the resources exist to navigate this landscape. But it is unrealistic to expect governments and intergovernmental organizations—constrained by politics and competing interests—to raise and manage them effectively alone. If communities, private–sector partners, and social impact organizations are not systematically engaged to understand local context and mobilize capital and expertise, the future of hybrid governance will exclude populations who need it most.
A glocal approach, rooted in the ethos “think globally, act locally,” can help avoid this pitfall. By linking locally led development with global systems reform, it enables underserved communities to navigate market, governmental, and transnational forces on their
AS NON–GOVERNMENT ACTORS GET MORE INVOLVED IN GOVERNANCE, A “GLOCAL” APPROACH THAT PRIVILEGES SHARED ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING IS REQUIRED TO ENSURE THE FUTURE OF GOVERNANCE DOESN’T EXCLUDE POPULATIONS WHO NEED IT MOST.
own terms. It also addresses the tendency of place–based models to operate in silos, treating global integration as an abstract concept disconnected from local realities.
Community–centered blended finance offers one way to operationalize this approach. Place–based interventions in frontier, emerging, and developed markets are often too small to attract catalytic capital alone. However—if bundled, de–risked with concessional capital, and diversified across geographies— they can become more viable for commercial and impact investors. Such structures can expand over time by incorporating additional communities with shared challenges, increasing scale and diversification. In parallel, they can generate evidence for policymakers to inform more inclusive and responsive global norms and commitments.
Reorienting aid and investment toward community–driven, financeable, cross–border solutions is only one step toward helping the future of governance arrive well. For hybrid governance to succeed, it will require ongoing collaboration, innovation, adaptation, and coherent policymaking and capacity building among all actors shaping governance systems. There are no silver bullets, only shared accountability and learning.
About the author: Craig Grunwald is the founder of Common Sovereignty.
Global governance in the geo–technology era
By Amit Sharma
For nearly a century—from NATO and the Bretton Woods institutions to the political dominant consortia of the G7 and G20—international governance has largely been the domain of governments. Newly emergent global realities are challenging these traditional power dynamics, which were defined by geoeconomics and geopolitics. The defining features of those eras have been joined by a new, arguably more powerful vector: geo–technology. Advancements in technology infrastructure driven by global companies have upended commerce and the flow of labor and capital—and are influencing government oversight and sovereign power.
Increasingly, technological innovation by and among private sector actors are
Image by Joshua Woroniecki from Pixabay.
enabling governments to deliver services domestically and driving partnerships internationally. Those same innovations are also being exploited to create new threats which require new governance solutions. Here are several examples:
Facebook allegedly enabled atrocities against the Rohingya in Myanmar, as its algorithms encouraged the spread of anti–Rohingya rhetoric—an issue Amnesty International said Meta was aware of. With the spread of mis– and disinformation at an all–time high, we need new governance solutions to protect vulnerable groups. Other social media platforms are enabling anti–Muslim atrocities against the Rohingya in Myanmar faster than security forces have been able to move to protect them.
Satellites supplied by Starlink have been a boon for Ukraine in its defense against Russia, relaying information to strategic spaces more rapidly than government–controlled assets have been able. Yet this illustrates how much governments can come to rely on private companies—and thus private individuals—for national security, long the domain of governments alone.
The U.S. dollar’s continued status as the global reserve currency and baseline for global swaps, commodities, and corporate debt transactions is being supported and extended by digital asset service providers and the growth and use of tokenized value. With this growth, private stablecoin companies have become the 16th largest holder of U.S. treasuries. This relationship is concerning, given that digital assets in general are creating macro–economic stability concerns that cannot be addressed with the usual policy and market tools. While real time payments and liquidity efficiencies present positive financial market infrastructure upgrades, new vulnerabilities emerge in tandem.
These examples illustrate various ways technological innovation is directly impacting geopolitical and geoeconomic activities. The growth of AI is further ex-
pediting innovative solutions while creating new vulnerabilities.
This situation requires entirely new governance structures. In some ways, those structures are already evolving.
The private sector is increasingly working to drive governance solutions where governments have failed or been slow to date. Some global companies in alternative energy security are teaming up with governments to address the consumer and financial impacts of climate change absent global convergence on common standards. Core competencies in data science and web–innovation are increasingly being made open source, democratizing innovation across the globe. Small businesses are increasingly engaging global talent where labor movement has been traditionally constrained. Global standard setters across these spaces are creating common protocols for data sharing and interoperability between cloud and future iterations of the web. Governments are being forced to respond more robustly through direct engagement with, investment in, and support of companies reckoned to be vital to national interests.
But a significant challenge remains— aligning incentives. Our collective adoption of economic success as a bellwether for progress has enabled and emboldened the billionaire class. Their ability to extend power beyond markets to political influence is resulting in greater disparity, disenfranchisement, and exploitation of the world’s most vulnerable. Ultimately, the biggest threat to global governance will remain a human challenge, one that requires us to reorient markers of progress from the highest success of the few, the collective success of the many.
About the author: Amit Sharma is founder and CEO of FinClusive.
Governance has always been, will remain, driven by people
By Blair Glencorse
Image by Johnnie Shannon from Pixabay.
There is no question that the way we govern ourselves is undergoing fundamental shifts. From the rise of authoritarian populism to the use of AI and shifting global political alliances, the post-World War II governance structures to which we are accustomed are changing rapidly at every level. The globe is facing overlapping crises and our institutions are not fit for purpose—in this there is grave danger that we will not be able to solve our collective challenges; and many people will be left behind.
But despite all of this, let me explain why I am a governance optimist.
New technologies certainly have downsides, but think for example about how AI can help governments analyze financial transactions, monitor processes, root out corruption, and automate compliance— the efficiency and transparency gains can be monumental. Or consider the key role the private sector is now playing in terms of governance—examples include diaspora bonds, revolving funds to address issues such as climate change, and impact investment funds that include governance components.
Multilateral institutions are also adapting rapidly. See the recent IMF Governance Linked Bond in Sri Lanka for instance, or the new CIVIC facility within the World Bank to support social innovation. Frameworks are emerging—including through the recently concluded UN Financing for Development Conference—to mobilize significant private capital for governance related work, including through performance–based contracts, results–based financing, and more.
Many governments are also stepping up despite the massive challenges we face— through the Open Government Partnership for instance, Armenia has developed a comprehensive approach to countering mis– and disinformation. The Philippines has adopted laws and standards that are opening up billions of dollars of public
GOVERNANCE IS A PROCESS, NOT AN OUTCOME—AND WHILE IT IS NOT LINEAR IT REMAINS DRIVEN BY THE PEOPLE GOVERNED. AMID CONCERN OVER THE IMPACT OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES ON OUR GOVERNING INSTITUTIONS, THE PATH FORWARD WILL BE HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY THE GOVERNED.
contracts to scrutiny by citizens. Brazil is engaging millions of citizens in collective policy prioritization—and these are only several of many other examples.
But there is a thread that connects all of these efforts across domains and organizations, and that is people. These are all collections of people who are influenced— both for good and bad—by all of us, one way or another. We are not passive bystanders, we all have a role to play. Whether that is through building feedback loops in communities, engaging in participatory democracy processes like citizens’ assemblies, or driving forward decentralized decision making around issues such as climate governance through blockchain–based carbon offset trading.
These efforts can start locally but impact globally. Governance is a process, not an outcome—and it is certainly not linear. To adapt our collective governance frameworks, from communities upwards to international policy and back down, it is all of us that will drive the outcomes we need.
About the author: Blair Glencorse is Co-CEO of the Accountability Lab.
The future of governance is (mostly) human
By Dr. Andrea Bonime–Blanc
Photo by Ray Rui on Unsplash.
The future of governance is and should be human or at least mostly human—as opposed to agentic, automatized, or robotic.
Just as we talk about putting the human in the tech loop to ensure that cutting edge tech doesn’t go off the rails, we need to keep the (good) human aspects of governance at the center of governance.
With the twin factors of unfettered exponential tech competition (including geopolitical implications), and the worldwide decline in leadership trust by stakeholders, we are losing some (or a lot) of what makes us human: empathy, judgment, care. Combating that requires we keep humans at the core of governance. What makes us human should always be integral to every level of governance—international, national, or organizational.
The future of governance will only arrive well if it is (mostly) human.
While exciting and potentially deeply game changing for the better (in health, education, even climate change), current exponential technologies also have a dark underbelly of savage competition that wants nothing to do with governance.
Witness the ongoing polarization between technologists who call themselves “accelerationists” and want no regulation (e.g., Silicon Valley mogul, Marc Andreessen, or David Sachs, chair of President Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) and those who are focused on technology arriving well through good governance. These latter individuals are often disparagingly called “decelerationists” or “doomers” (mainly by accelerationists). To the contrary, I like to think of these leaders as enlightened tech stewards. They include leaders like Tristan Harris & Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, who warn of unfettered “dehumanization” that ungoverned exponential tech can bring.
Closely intertwined with this separation into warring camps is the rise of widespread global stakeholder distrust in leaders of all kinds—government, business, media, and even civil society. This is especially so when it comes to believing what leaders say and specifically what they say about tech and the future of work.
Good governance is built on human qualities and voluntary actions. Or put differently, we cannot wait for governments to develop perfect guardrails and regulations. We need to do what’s right for the broader stakeholder community now through our own voluntary actions.
Here are some tactical thoughts:
• Get rid of the governance noise (e.g., shut down your distractive devices).
• Stay focused on the governance signal—your human created agenda and priorities.
• Engage directly and in person with key stakeholders.
• Reward emotional intelligence, curiosity and humility in leaders.
And here’s a concluding strategic thought: all stakeholders should work on putting and keeping responsible humans in the governance loop.
And above all, please don’t replace humans in governance roles with AI agents or worse yet, humanoids.
About the author: Dr. Andrea Bonime–Blanc is the Founder and CEO of GEC Risk Advisory
Who governs in a borderless world?
By Rui Duarte
Image via Pixabay.
Governance is transcending traditional boundaries. Historically dominated by nation states and intergovernmental institutions, today’s governance landscape increasingly includes corporations, civil society, and multi–stakeholder coalitions— reshaping policy, innovation, and the very practice of international relations.
Where will this hybridized form of governance lead us? Will it foster inclusive and responsive systems, or will it devolve into fragmented agendas marked by inefficiency?
Recent examples are mixed. The Covid vaccine rollout showed immense potential: collaboration among governments, corporations, research institutes, and NGOs resulted in over 13 billion vaccine doses distributed globally by early 2024 (WHO). That success is tempered by persisting and stark disparities; vaccination coverage exceeded 80% in high–income countries but under 30% in many lower–income countries.
Digital governance also highlights hybrid governance’s mixed outcomes. Initiatives like the Internet Governance Forum attract diverse stakeholders but often struggle with cohesive, enforceable policies. Those policies are critical, today; Access Now reported that over 65 countries imposed internet shutdowns or restrictions in 2023.
Ensuring hybrid governance delivers effectively requires innovative mechanisms.. A Global Hybrid Governance Index (GHGI) could be designed to transparently evaluate governance initiatives based on inclusivity, accountability, coherence, and effectiveness—driving continuous improvement and trust.
Cities lead the way, employing participatory budgeting, digital citizen assemblies, and blockchain–powered services. Barcelona’s “Decidim” engaged over 400,000 residents in governance decisions in 2023 alone. Globally, COP climate summits reveal ambitious targets yet persistent
GOVERNANCE IS TRANSCENDING ITS TRADITIONAL BOUNDARIES, AN EVOLUTION THAT IS RESHAPING THE VERY PRACTICE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. THIS NEW MODEL NEEDS SYSTEMATIC MECHANISMS THAT MAKE IT DELIBERATE, INCLUSIVE, AND
TECHNOLOGICALLY INFORMED.
implementation gaps, underlining the importance of systemic coherence.
Emerging technologies like AI add further complexity. Responsible AI can enhance transparency, diplomatic dialogue, and stakeholder coordination. Conversely, unchecked AI risks exacerbating governance fragmentation and inequalities.
Strategically harnessing hybrid governance through interoperability, accountability, and inclusive innovation (integrated with responsible AI) will enable us to effectively tackle tomorrow’s complex global challenges.
The future of governance looks like it will be hybrid. For that to be a good thing, this new model of governance must be a deliberate, inclusive, and technologically informed hybridity.
About the author: Rui Duarte is member of World in 2050’s Brain Trust.
Governance and legitimacy in a post–sovereign era
By Eva Oloumi
Photo by Jesse Collins on Unsplash.
At its core, governance is about power; who holds it, how is it used, and when is it legitimate?
Western democracy traditionally positions elected governments as the sole legitimate sources of power and public decision making. Yet today increasing amounts of power flows through unelected systems: platforms, markets, and machines which shape our lives without consent or visibility. In fact, this erosion exists on an international scale. The Westphalian order, the modern foundation of international governance, asserts the key principles that sovereign states are the highest authority within their borders and all states are equal under international law. And yet, large tech companies implicitly and explicitly reach into our collective psyche, often rendering borders merely symbolic as data flows across jurisdictions to encode and constrain values and alter what we see, desire, and even believe.
Even more concerning, most governments rely on technologies they haven’t designed and cannot meaningfully regulate or control. In a shocking example earlier this year, President Trump made remarks about Canada becoming the 51st state, making many question what happens to governance when a nation’s data infrastructure is dominated by foreign platforms? This risk only escalates in the context of AI. AI servers and technological underpinnings are concentrated in just a few countries. This means frameworks, values, and training data reflect extremely narrow cultural and geopolitical worldviews. The result? Porous and deeply contested governance environments, amplified power asymmetries, and a world further divided into ‘provider’ and ‘subscriber’ states—shaping who controls the levers and what people are even allowed to imagine. The potential for abuse in this form of digital colonialism isn’t abstract. It can impact everything, from what is socially acceptable to national defense.
TODAY, GOVERNMENTS RELY INCREASINGLY ON TECHNOLOGIES THEY CANNOT MEANINGFULLY REGULATE OR CONTROL. AS WE ENTER AN ERA OF HYBRID GOVERNANCE, WE REQUIRE NEW LEGITIMACY MODELS THAT INCLUDE PARTICIPATORY SENSEMAKING
As challenges ahead demand new legitimacy models, governance must venture beyond dominant scenario–based approaches toward the participatory sensemaking of underlying worldviews and metaphors. Narrative shapes what feels legitimate, what actions seem possible, and what futures people are willing to work toward. Without that foundation, governance loses meaning and trust. It’s not just about who governs, but how we adapt decision making in a world of blurred boundaries, compressed feedback, and exponential advancement. If we get it right, hybrid governance could enable more inclusive and resilient systems. If we get it wrong, we will be ruled by systems we can’t see, can’t influence, and can’t vote for.
About the author: Eva Oloumi is the founder of Paradeigma.
How programmable governance architects the post–institutional era
By Dr. Dimitrios Salampasis
Image via Adobe Stock.
Our world is driven by overlapping crises, institutional inertia, and reactive politics against global planetary–scale phenomena like climate change, economic inequality, corruption, infectious diseases, debt crises, and human rights violations. The scale of these problems mismatches the scale of possible solutions, reflecting the underlying failures of global governance. This magnitude of increasing complexity philosophically reimagines how societies understand and structure agency, trust, and evolutionary dynamics, while putting continuous pressure on the relevance and failures of static forms of bureaucracy, fixed hierarchies, interpretative enforcements, and diminishing institutional legitimacy. Novel governance models call for transparency, auditability, efficiency, inclusivity, and compliance—while ensuring assurances on social, environmental, and political stability.
Programmable governance is an essential stakeholder within this reality of rapidly changing global conditions. It is rooted in the logic of code, inviting us to consider ‘governance–as–a–software.’ Programmable governance aims at bringing modular, upgradable capabilities by reimagining governance as an operating system of distributed accountability. Institutional procedures, power distributions and social contracts embed algorithmic logic that is encoded into digital protocols, decentralized/blockchain–based infrastructures and smart contracts. This set of code–based rules is conducted entirely through automated processes, resulting in transparent rules–based decision–making processes that are verified by code rather than opaque and biased human discretion.
Programmability embeds integrity and compliance at the level of governance architecture, minimizing frictions of coordination by means of verifiable and predictable logic trees. Programmability revisits the notion of trust departing from politics and leaning towards digital structures, ensuring explainability, fairness, and inspectable logic. Programmability enables governance systems that can be adaptable (as humanity evolves) and revisable in real–time via democratic feed-
WE REQUIRE NEW MODELS OF GOVERNANCE TO RESPOND TO TODAY’S OVERLAPPING CRISES. CENTRAL TO A SUCCESSFUL NEW MODEL SHOULD BE PROGRAMMABLE GOVERNANCE, ROOTED IN THE CODE OF LOGIC, TO COPE WITH RAPIDLY CHANGING CONDITIONS.
back loops. The evolution of programmable governance is based on the performance of collective judgement rather than on vague ideological underpinnings.
Programmable governance does not replace human values and judgement. It is a call for a novel experiment revolving around the encoding of collective human judgement by offering scalability, executable logic, and flexibility enacted within distributed and interoperable ecosystems that co–exist and learn from each other. Twentieth–century governance principles, practices and assumptions are not fit–for–purpose any longer. Programmable governance embodies ethical practices and embraces civilization changes where the underlying infrastructure will soon be a supercomputer, where networks are global and distributed, where identities become fluid, realized by avatars and algorithmic agents, where institutions become decentralized and where transactions become tokenized. Programmable governance brings intelligent democracy and humane morality into a newly–encoded, adaptive social contract.
About the author: Dr. Dimitrios
Salampasis is the FinTech Capability Lead and Associate Professor of Emerging Technologies and FinTech at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.
Africa’s emerging harm–reduction approach to governance
By Dr. Imane Kendili
Photo by Carlos Torres on Unsplash.
Every day across Africa, people care for one another where formal systems fall short. A nurse piecing together mental health care in an overcrowded clinic.
A group of mothers creating a food–sharing network. Young people offering peer support where institutions are absent. Africa is not waiting to be governed. It is already governing, just differently.
This shift is not driven by sweeping reforms, but by a quiet force: harm reduction. Once a public health strategy, it is now emerging as a governance philosophy. It begins with reality, not ideology. It chooses adaptation over control, accompaniment over imposition.
What once seemed temporary is becoming structural. Local practices, often invisible, are repairing the fabric of governance from below. They are deeply rooted in need, shaped by vulnerability, and powered by care. And they are not isolated. Through South–South networks and regional alliances, they are speaking to one another, and gaining strength together.
About the author: Dr. Imane Kendili is the head of African Global Health. ANTHOLOGY I JULY 2025
These practices are now influencing national policies and even shaping international debates. Africa’s harm reduction models—flexible, community–led, and grounded—offer insights into how we can govern with humility, resilience, and humanity.
But this emergence comes with a warning. Without shared frameworks and coordination, we will face a fragmented governance landscape—a patchwork of disconnected efforts, noble but incoherent. Avoiding this “chimera governance” means investing in collective architecture: regional collaboration, ethical alignment, and scalable structures that can hold diversity without diluting it.
Harm reduction does not replace the state, it reimagines it. It invites a different kind of authority: one that learns and builds in imperfect environments.
ACROSS AFRICA, HARM REDUCTION IS EMERGING AS A QUIET FORCE NOT ONLY IN PUBLIC HEALTH, BUT AS A GOVERNANCE PHILOSOPHY. LOCAL PRACTICES ARE CHANGING GOVERNANCE FOR THE BETTER.
It reminds us that effective governance does not demand control, it demands connection.
The future of governance should not be dictated from above. Instead, we should help it to rise from the margins with courage and understanding.
For hybrid governance to work, SME’s need governance mindset
By Leonor Diaz Alcantara
Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash.
Conversations about the evolution of governance and the entry of new stakeholders, from private–public partnerships to bigger roles for civil society, always seem to assume this evolution is a good thing. However, there seems to be a growing divide in how governance is practiced by bigger players and by small and mid–sized enterprises, which form the majority of the economy. In these SMEs, governance sometimes remains inconsistent or absent.
In the UK, the number of directors disqualified from leadership due to misconduct in the last 20 years has remained the same, mostly in SMEs, which would appear to indicate that despite the higher level of concentration on governance, the level of misconduct remains constant.
This is not just a UK problem; in Germany, the company Wirecard collapsed after systematic fraud, regulatory evasion, and weak oversight.
The U.S. company Frank collapsed after its founder was charged with fabricating data and using company funds for personal costs.
For SMEs, governance apparently is not treated as a basic operating principle as it is in larger companies, institutions, and across civil society. This creates dangers in a global economy, and especially in a digital economy where small companies can scale quickly and become significant.
Part of the problem is that for many founders, good governance is seen as overly complicated, tied to regulations and systems rather than leadership mindset. That mindset sees good governance as something for large institutions with large teams, rather than understanding that good governance is a mindset of responsibility and integrity.
To drive a car, you need to pass a driving test. To open a bank account you need to pass a credit rating test…yet in the UK,
WE ASSUME THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNANCE TO INCLUDE BIGGER ROLES FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND CIVIL SOCIETY TO BE A GOOD THING. BUT A GROWING DIVIDE IN GOVERNANCE PRACTICE BETWEEN BIGGER PLAYERS AND SMES IS PROBLEMATIC.
a company can be set up online in a matter of hours. Whilst this creates a vibrant SME economy, it is also open to abuse. The 2022–23 Annual Report and Accounts by the Insolvency Service (part of the UK Government) stated that there are tens of thousands of companies struck off annually, a significant share for non–compliance, with many directors going on to launch new entities—some repeatedly, exposing a regulatory gap. This is not a UK only problem, the practice of “phoenixing” is also prevalent in Europe and the U.S.
So is the answer more regulation, more limitations on setting up companies, more enforcement? Probably a mixture of all three—in the future, governance must apply not just at the top but across the base. Governance must be embedded from the outset and treated as a condition of investment; supported with frameworks that are practical and enforceable.
About the author: Leonor Diaz Alcantara is the founder of think tank, Saviesa.
The risks of abundance and fuzzy lines for regional governance
By Adam Ratzlaff
Pan–American Union Building in Washington, DC. Photo courtesy of Wally Gobetz via Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The Americas have a long history of promoting regional integration and cooperation. As far back as 1826, the Latin American liberator, Simón Bolívar, hosted the Congress of Panama to develop regional cooperative mechanisms. In 1889, the United States hosted the first Pan–American Conference which would lead to the development of the Pan–American Union and other regional institutions. And, as the world looked to create a new model for global governance through the United Nations, Latin American diplomats pushed for Chapter VIII of the UN Charter to promote regional integration. Today, there are over 40 regional organizations and other intergovernmental forums that are specific to the Western Hemisphere—ranging from broad based political bodies to specific functional groups and from trade promotion bodies to multilateral development banks. Further complicating this cornucopia of regional governance mechanisms are an abundance of regionalized civil society and business organizations as well as growing linkages between select regional governments and global entities—such as participation in the BRICS group.
Yet, collective governance and regulation in the Americas remains elusive. The challenge, though, is not too few organizations—but rather too many. Many of the different forums engage both public and private sector actors and have mechanisms for civil society engagement. However, they also have overlapping memberships and mandates. These overlaps threaten the effectiveness of existing institutions to address their mandates creating a situation of “contested multilateralism” in which countries are able to “forum shop.” This means that states, companies, and civil society groups can choose the body that they think best fits their interests rather than being forced to negotiate through complex processes.
These opportunities may seem like a win for collective governance, but it creates a problem in which different organizations have different norms and governance
THE AMERICAS HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF PROMOTING REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND COOPERATION. YET AN OVERABUNDANCE OF GOVERNANCE–FACING INSTITUTIONS AND OVERLAPPING MANDATES HAMPERS COLLECTIVE GOVERNANCE AND REGULATION IN THE REGION.
standards despite their shared memberships and mandates. It also creates opportunities for actors to shift debate between different forums in order to stall progress or restart negotiations. The problem is compounded by a common trend of creating more organizations or resurrecting zombie organizations when facing obstacles through existing frameworks.
Whether governing AI or combatting climate change, regional and global challenges require collective responses. However, the oversaturation of regional governance bodies complicates cooperation rather than easing it. As nations, companies, and civil society seek to address these challenges they will need to understand the pitfalls of an overly crowded governance field and work to streamline processes rather than falling into the temptation of creating yet more channels that further dilute governance mechanisms.
About the author: Adam Ratzlaff is the founder and CEO of Pan–American Strategic
