Sustaining Progress (Week 11)
'Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.' - Albert Einstein
Environmental concerns have garnered significant attention in the current federal Parliament. Not only has Parliament seen its first Greens Member, but the carbon tax has consumed much time and effort on behalf of all parties. The study of sustainability is also pertinent for parliamentarians in terms of unravelling complexity. Environmental approaches transfer quite well to strategies for good governance because ecosystems are archetypal complex systems which comprise multiple networks of adaptive agents. The primary tool which sustainability practices can offer to politicians is to promote the integration of complex and adaptive concerns within their decision-making.
Firstly, the integration of multiple policy subjects is at once necessary and difficult for politicians to manage. It is necessary because of the complexity and interconnectedness of social and governmental challenges, particularly at the national level. For example, immigration policy bears on issues such as workforce participation, population growth, human rights and national security. Just as modifying one component of an ecosystem affects the health of the whole, changing policy settings in one field may have flow-on effects elsewhere.
Yet politicians struggle to take an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to crafting policy. It is convenient for them to focus on short term objectives within a single policy field, as discussed in Week 10. It is also easier for politicians to generate political mileage by setting and achieving discrete and simple policy goals than by tackling complex, system-level problems. The methodology behind sustainability would promote a paradigm shift to prevent the systemic avoidance of complexity. Policy inspired by sustainability thinking would consider accountability on multiple metrics by expanding upon concepts such as the triple bottom line.
Firstly, the integration of multiple policy subjects is at once necessary and difficult for politicians to manage. It is necessary because of the complexity and interconnectedness of social and governmental challenges, particularly at the national level. For example, immigration policy bears on issues such as workforce participation, population growth, human rights and national security. Just as modifying one component of an ecosystem affects the health of the whole, changing policy settings in one field may have flow-on effects elsewhere.
Yet politicians struggle to take an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to crafting policy. It is convenient for them to focus on short term objectives within a single policy field, as discussed in Week 10. It is also easier for politicians to generate political mileage by setting and achieving discrete and simple policy goals than by tackling complex, system-level problems. The methodology behind sustainability would promote a paradigm shift to prevent the systemic avoidance of complexity. Policy inspired by sustainability thinking would consider accountability on multiple metrics by expanding upon concepts such as the triple bottom line.
Secondly, politicians tend to neglect higher order goals for smaller, more immediate policy demands. On a taxonomy of policymaking, substantive political attention is largely focussed at the base of the pyramid. This is where operational and responsive policy is made. Such a political focus makes good political sense, because it is through operational policy that politicians most readily create personal benefits for voters.
An integrated approach to policy and politics would encourage politicians to devote more time to higher order goals such as democracy and systemic sustainability. A sustainable ecosystem facilitates not only the healthy functioning of each organism, but also the ongoing health and progress of the system itself. In theory the legal system also furthers higher principles in its day to day functioning. For example, at criminal law each case ought to be resolved with certainty and fairness in order to advance the ideals of due process and the rule of law.
Finally, integration of policy concerns would allow politicians to countenance objectives concerning the future as well as the present. Social progress along metrics such as democratic governance is one element of this necessary future thinking. Perhaps the most distinctive element of the study of sustainability is its consideration of the future as well as the present health of ecosystems. Indeed, the seminal definition of sustainability is centered on the balance of current and future resource needs and systemic wellbeing. Jarod Diamond would approve of such attention to the derivatives of the function of systemic progress.
In political terms, Steve Hatfield Dodds argued that paying attention to the needs of the future requires ‘adaptive governance’. He defined this concept as a form of social, economic and environmental management which can evolve as needs change over time. I would have liked to ask Hatfield Dodds whether such evolutionary governance was practical in the context of political incentives to set short-term goals with measurable outcomes. In line with other future-proofing methods, adapative governance may work to neutralise some of the risks of future uncertainty. I could not attend the tutorial but in preparing my ticket I was taken by the frank approach which sustainability policy took to acknowledging the presence of uncertainty. Recognition that you have a problem is the first step in coping with complexity.
* Our Common Future: report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, (1987) World Commission on Environment and Development, published as Annex to United Nations General Assembly document A/42/427, 'Development and International Co-operation: environment', August 2, 1987.