Futures 44 (2012) 773–777

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Futures

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Future of governance workshop summary

Bruce Tonn *, John Scheb, Michael Fitzgerald, Dorian Stiefel

Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:

Available online 31 July 2012

A B S T R A C T

This paper presents the results of a workshop on the future of governance held at the

University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The participants were broken into five groups based on

different perspectives on governance: local, state, federal, international, and courts. Each

group developed a definition of good governance, assessed trends impacting their

conception of good governance, developed future scenarios, and tested the scenarios

against six wildcards. Good governance is characterized by transparency, accountability,

representativeness, and effectiveness. Unfortunately, most trends are negatively impacting

good governance, with advanced in information technology being the lone exception.

World governments face a catch-22 situation because in order to deal with these negative

trends they need to improve in all aspects.

� 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Background on the future of governance workshop

Frustration with governance and government is extremely high in the United States. There are calls for more transparencyand accountability, fewer taxes but more government services, and more efficiency, balanced against more fairness andequity. The media portrays the electorate as torn, angry and confused. Many wonder where the country is headed. In thissituation, it is important to ask: Are we making the best decisions as a society with respect to national security, energyindependence, the environment, education, health, and a myriad of additional public policy issues?

It is also legitimate to worry whether our focus is too myopic. Yes, we have problems we must deal with today but whatabout tomorrow? Bringing the future into discussions may seem problematic and a distraction. However, even given all theproblems we must deal with today, it is better to have some idea what is coming down the road just in case situations mightimprove on their own or if what we foresee will require immediate actions to avoid even larger catastrophes. In this spirit,the basic question addressed by the future of governance workshop was this: Are trends leading towards better governancein the future or worsening governance in the future?

Over fifty individuals participated in the workshop, held at the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy on October 14–15,2010. The group included University of Tennessee-Knoxville faculty and research staff, invited authors from around theUnited States, local elected officials and government employees, local citizens, and students taking a special course on thefuture of governance being offered by UT’s Department of Political Science in conjunction with the workshop.

The workshop was designed to engage participants in discussions about the future of governance. To provide some focusfor the discussions, the participants were assigned to one of the five perspectives: Local, state, national, international, and the

* Corresponding author at: Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, McClung Tower, Room 1018, Knoxville, TN 37996, United States.

Tel.: +1 865 974 7041; fax: +1 865 974 7037.

E-mail address: btonn@utk.edu (B. Tonn).

0016-3287/$ – see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2012.07.009

Table 1

Characteristics of good governance from five perspectives.

Local State Federal International Courts

1. Public participation Cultivation of willing

consent of governed

Aggregation of public

preferences

Effective Ability to resolve conflicts

and problems

2. Meets social needs Promote well-being Assignment of responsibilities

to proper levels

Good at foresight Access to justice

3. Communication Participative Representation Representative Fairness (of processes

and outcomes)

4. Transparency and

accountability

Uphold public trust

(transparency, etc.)

Opportunities for people

to participate

Cooperation Independence

5. Representative and

promotes equity

Resilience (innovation)/

adaptive

strength

Transparency and

accountability

Protection of human

rights/justice

Responsiveness (wise

interpretation vs. activism)

6. Good at foresight Effective/efficient Fairness and equity Conflict prevention Transparency and

accountability

7. Allocates resources well Sovereignty Integrity

8. Good at solving problems Flexibility/complementary

function

B. Tonn et al. / Futures 44 (2012) 773–777774

courts. All of the groups except the international group adopted United States-centric viewpoints. Real ‘work’ discussion wasfacilitated by five distinct breakout group discussion sessions. In the first session, participants were challenged to identifythe characteristics of good governance. In the second session, the task was to determine which trends (taken from numerouslists of political, economic, social, technological, and environmental trends) could most impact good governance for eachperspective and the third session focused on completing a worksheet that explicitly tracked how each trend might positivelyor negatively impact each characteristic of good governance. The fourth breakout session, which proved to the hardest,required the groups to develop three scenarios describing different future states of governance set in the 2030–2050timeframe. The last breakout session tested the resilience of these scenarios to withstand the impacts of six wildcards, whichranged from the ubiquitous use of life loggers to life spans averaging 120 years to massive internal migration due toenvironmental catastrophes. The two luncheon presentations, one held in Second Life, further spiced up the workshop. Theparticipants also had the opportunity to grill the invited authors about their draft manuscripts, which addressed topics suchas whether technology will be the death of hegemons and how government can be designed to best function with humancognitive limitations in mind.

Observations of and discussions with participants suggested to us that each participant experienced the workshop in aunique fashion. Some found the challenge of thinking about the future to be invigorating. Some struggled with the task ofimagining futures several decades from today. Some enjoyed time to escape the humdrum of their jobs. Some had epiphaniesas discussions linked previously unconnected ideas to create new insights about governance. Most had not participated in aworkshop that was so interactive and made use of futures-oriented methodologies. Many participants were pleasantlyexhausted at the end.

The students as a whole really enjoyed the workshop experience. They particularly enjoyed the interdisciplinary nature ofthe groups. For example, the three political science students in the international group got to meet and know a culturalanthropologist, a person so rare and unusual in their experience that she might as well have been an alien! Many of thestudents were wary if not nervous about the workshop, since they were not only expected to prepare materials for the eventbut also were given the responsibility for facilitating all of the breakout groups. This is understandable because few hadexperienced a class like this before. Once the workshop got going, the worries faded.

The workshop came to no final conclusions about the future of governance. In hindsight, that was a bit much to beexpected. In fact, it might be premature to assess the outcomes of the workshop because it is likely that the participants arestill ruminating about the scenarios and what good governance really means.

2. Characteristics of good governance

Participants worked in their breakout groups to review a good governance definitions handout and agree on additionalcharacteristics of good governance (see Table 1). Despite the varying aspects of governance each group was addressing, mostgroups identified transparency, accountability, representativeness, and effectiveness as key characteristics of goodgovernance. Although two groups listed good foresight as an aspect of good governance, it was difficult for the groups, andespecially difficult for the practitioners and academics attending the workshop, to move beyond conventional currentgeneration-focused aspects of governance and government.

3. Trends impacting good governance

Table 2 lists the trends identified by the five discussion groups as most significantly impacting good governance.Generally, the participants viewed increasing natural resource scarcity, increasing population, and increasing poverty and

Table 2

Trends impacting good governance from five perspectives.

Local State Federal International Courts

1. + Energy costs + Cost of education + Population + Inequality + Population

2. + Debt and expenditures + Debt + Economic globalization + Energy demands � Social information

transfer

3. + Demographic change � Health + e-Commerce + Global climate change � Civility

4. + Educational standards + Poverty + World demand for energy � Biodiversity and habitats + Cultural attention deficit

disorder

5. + Access to technology � Water supply relative

to demand

+ Conflict over fresh water + Conflict over fresh water + Interest groups

6. + Conflict between economic

development and conservation

+ Soil erosion + Globalization of health � Energy supply

7. + Quality of education + Media propaganda + Ubiquitous computing

and communications

+ Multiculturalism

8. + Technology + Intelligence of electronic

devices

+ Globalization + Technology

9. + Resource scarcity + Evolution of WMDs + Globalization

10. + Age of population + Demographic transition + Wealth disparity

11. + Internet users + Urbanization and land use � Legal-ese

12. + Diversity of violent conflict + Alternative dispute

resolution

+/� denote trends moving upwards (increasing) or downwards (decreasing), respectively; italicized trends are seen as negative; underlined trends are seen

as positive; trends not underlined or italicized are seen as potentially being both positive and negative.

B. Tonn et al. / Futures 44 (2012) 773–777 775

income inequality as negatively impacting good governance. From the discussions, one could surmise that the increasingubiquity of computing and communications technologies is just about the only trend that could have potential positiveimpacts on governance in the future. The state-level group identified mostly negative trends, which seems to reflect the diresituations most states in the United States currently find themselves in with respect to declining state budgets, continuedsprawl, and increasing costs of social services and education. The international breakout group, on the other hand, found thatalmost all important trends have both positive and negative characteristics re good international governance. The silverlining for this group is that major problems tend to promote more focused and collaborative international governance.

4. Scenarios of good governance

Participants found developing scenarios to be the hardest part of the workshop. It was difficult for them to systematicallythink about key futures questions while also factoring in the potential driving forces. However, for each scenario theydevised, there are implications for current public policy as well as signposts and indicators that can be used to recognizeaspects of each scenario if they actually occur.

Table 3 provides brief summaries of the scenarios. Overall, none of the scenarios ventured beyond their groups’perspectives. For example, the local and state-level groups focused on scenarios that encompassed elements of educationand economic development. The national and international scenarios incorporated large scale trends and disasters. The

Table 3

Scenarios of good governance from five perspectives.

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3

Local Sunopolis: Breakthrough solar technol-

ogy leads to bright economic and social

futures

Brain Trust High: Higher educational

standards and access to technology

transform local economies

State Comcast Saves Blob County: Cable

company moves call centers from India

into rural Appalachia

German Immigrants (VW) End State

Water Wars: Volkswagen builds new

plant in rural Tennessee, spurs regional

cooperation

National Aging Population: Threatens national

governance in many ways (e.g., costs,

representation)

Catastrophic Disease Outbreak:

National government gives way

to small isolated populations

Internet Use Continues to Explode: On-

line governance threatens deliberation

International Economic Collapse 2030: Triggered by

global bankruptcy

Environmental Crisis 2030: Triggered

by abrupt climate change

United States of Google: Company uses

economic resources to develop cheap,

reliable and unlimited energy source

Courts I’ve Got My AI on You: Implementation

and administration of virtual courts

When Water Runs Out: Dispute rises

between multinationals vying to pro-

vide a desalinization plant to Yemen.

Parties create an ad hoc court

Reluctant Cog: Utopian system of pub-

lic service is challenged by those who

refuse to serve

B. Tonn et al. / Futures 44 (2012) 773–777776

courts scenarios depicted radically different court systems and processes. The use of IT to transform courts is furtherexplored in the contribution by Tonn et al. [1] to this special issue.

5. Wildcards

For the wildcard breakout session, participants studied each of six wildcards to see how resilient each scenario is to thechanges in the wildcard. They also noted any deep insights into the nature of governance.

Wildcard (1) Survivor America—In the year 2050, rapid climate change is hammering the United States. More frequent and

unimaginably more violent storms, combined with general sea level rise, have made the East, West, and Gulf coasts uninhabitable.

Unprecedented droughts and unsustainable demands for water have also lead to depopulation in much of the Southwest. Combined

with an increase of the overall U.S. population of +130 million over the year 2000 U.S. population, over 100 million Americans have

been displaced and/or are searching for new homes in the middle of the 21st century.The purpose of this wildcard was to present to participants an extreme situation that would require good governance at

all levels of government to overcome. As expected, the federal-level discussion group found this wildcard to be squarely in itsbailiwick and judged that unprecedented centralization of power at the national level would be needed to deal with theconsequences of the massive internal migration. The courts group found that massive relocation may produce a national,homogenized legal system and may lead to an authoritarian system. The local group found that the scenario would be a boonto many Midwestern towns but disastrous for many other localities. A similar conclusion was reached by the states group.The international group also saw migration to the mid-West and an opportunity for large transnational organizations likeGoogle to take over functions not being provided by a splintered system of governance. Overall, this wildcard would put atmost risk the ability of governments to meet social needs in an efficient and responsive fashion.

Wildcard (2) Cornucopia—In the year 2050, the convergence of information technologies, biotechnologies, and

nanotechnologies has resulted in what science fiction writer Charles Stross calls Cornucopia Machines. These machines, located

in homes and offices around the United States, can produce almost any conceivable product from special mixtures of carbon-nano-

based goo. People now produce textiles, medicines, and everyday objects in their own homes. With some assembly required, the

Cornucopia machines can also produce building materials, solar panels, water filters, and toys. Advanced, large-scale Cornucopia

machines located at local retailers can produce more sophisticated products such as automobiles and computers.The purpose of this wildcard was to have the groups explore the impacts on good governance of extreme abundance and

almost complete economic self-sufficiency. Cornucopia machines fit most naturally with the local government paradigmthat values local production and self-sufficiency as buffers against uncontrollable globalization. Conversely, cornucopiamachines could cause major problems for national and international governments dependent upon a neo-capitalisticfoundation to provide sources of revenue and the GDP-based model of economic growth and policies. The machines couldalso cause vexing legal issues related to intellectual property. Overall, though, cornucopia machines might be able to lessenthe need for governments to deal with formerly unsolvable resource issues which then could allow all participants to focuson other issues important for good governance, such as transparency and accountability.

Wildcard (3) 120!—The average life expectancy of Americans in the year 2050 is 120 years! Scientists have fulfilled the

promises of a long-life promoted by such visionaries as Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey (although, sadly, these two did not live

long enough to benefit from these advances, having perished in a tragic accident with an early version of a Cornucopia Machine). All

anyone has to do is to ingest an inexpensive cocktail of nanobots once a year. The nanobots spread throughout the body and fix

fraying DNA strands, cell by cell. Afterwards, they disintegrate and are naturally flushed from the body.Obviously, this wildcard explores the impacts of reduced rates of mortality and a vastly older population. Most discussion

groups believed that this scenario, on balance, could be positive so long as major strides are made towards resourcesustainability. The international group envisioned major problems outside of the developed countries, where sustainabilityis most problematic. However, this group also envisioned major transnational organizations responding appropriately tonew market opportunities associated with a more aged society. Since older persons tend to be more involved politically, thiswildcard could be quite beneficial to fostering good governance.

Wildcard (4) The Plague—In the early part of the 19th century, Mary Shelley, best known for her first novel Frankenstein,

published a second novel titled The Last Man. In this novel, a mysterious Plague arose on earth. It had no cure. It steadily killed off all

of mankind, save one last man. In the year 2050, a similar malady is threatening humanity. Its mode of transmission is unknown. No

cure has been found. It circles the earth, causing a wide range of illnesses and has a mortality rate of 1/100. Those previously infected

have no protection from re-infection.This wildcard pushes the boundaries with respect to good governance during times of public health crises. One general

reaction among the perspectives is that communities, states, and nations will react by trying to isolate themselves from therest of society. Trends towards telecommuting, distance education and all other activities accomplishable in cyberspace willincrease greatly. Some localities may capitalize in new niche markets, such as by supplying new devices to the biohazardindustry. Strict international, national, state, and local health laws may act to centralize government and restrict freedoms.Courts may be overwhelmed with health related cases. Fairness, equity, transparency and accountability would be at riskfrom this wildcard.

Wildcard (5) It’s Alive—On September 15, 2050, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that artificial

consciousness has emerged in robotic technologies and in virtual bots and personalities. These entities are self-aware. The scientific

community believes that they constitute a new branch of earth-life.

B. Tonn et al. / Futures 44 (2012) 773–777 777

Concepts of good governance, one can argue, are founded on assumptions of citizenship rooted in well-spatially definedcommunities of humans. This wildcard challenges the assumption that governance only needs to include Homo sapiens.Many challenging ethical issues arose during discussions of the federal group. Do robots deserve rights? Can they be ownedor should they be treated as corporations? Maybe for legal purposes they should be classified as children? The courts groupwas also concerned with robot rights and the theft of intelligent entities. The international group envisioned robots as beinga boon to international economic growth and infrastructure development whereas the local group envisioned hostilitiestowards robots if they took away local jobs. Overall, artificial consciousnesses do not pose fundamentally new risks to goodgovernance as long as the perplexing question of their rights can be dealt with.

Wildcard (6) LOG (1984)—It’s the year 2050. Life logger information is uploaded into systems that automatically make

decisions about our access to public services and money and certain civil and criminal prosecutions. Life loggers are worn as glasses,

hats, and pendants. They record all visual and auditory information received by the users. (Gordon Bell of Microsoft was famous for

pioneering life-logger technology early in the 21st century.) Systems also make all of our information (citizen, legislator, everyone)

available to everyone else in the community/country/world.This wildcard would ensure transparency in governance as the lives of all citizens, including those who earn a livelihood

as politicians, will be open to all through the life logger technology. The courts group quickly concluded that this technologywould make detecting crimes and prosecuting individuals much easier as long as compliance was high. The local governanceparticipants bristled at this wildcard, on the other hand. The international group envisioned major rebellions and the federalgroup believed that this technology could totally redefine government. Thus, this wildcard begs the question: Is too muchtransparency a bad thing for governance?

6. Insights and observations

In retrospect, the concept of governance proved to be subtle and elusive. It was extremely difficult for the participants tocarry forward their characteristics of good governance through the discussions of trends, the development of the scenarios,and the discussions of the wildcards. References to the characteristics of good governance easily became lost in discussionsabout what governments and courts need to do. Towards the end of the workshop, the catch-22 became apparent:Governments will not be able to perform better unless the conditions for governance are improved and in some respectsimproving conditions for governance relies upon better performing governments.

Most trends are believed to be acting against the evolution of better governance. For most, the combined pressures ofincreasingly complicated and seemingly intractable problems make good governance ever less likely. The only glimmer ofhope expressed by the participants focused on beneficial uses of information technology in support of good governance.Tonn and Stiefel [2] explore these avenues in more depth in this special issue.

Although it might be premature to assess the outcomes of the workshop, several additional insights and observations areworth discussion. For example, in the local discussions, it was clear that we need an adaptive educational system and that wemust use human capital better. In the international discussions, one important insight is that each change leads to moraldilemmas, ethical dilemmas, unintended consequences, erosion of sovereignty, and cultural homogenization. At the sametime, new forms of rebellion emerge along with trust/distrust of technology, and perceptions that are in constant flux. Whatwe call an underlying assumption could merely be a nostalgia that permeates perceptions of possible futures. In alldiscussions, the themes of keeping ahead of the technology curve and maintaining energy independence consistentlyemerged.

Three key questions also emerged: (1) Will people contribute to a public good for the types of governance projects impliedby this workshop or do they see their existence as private? (2) How do we enable rather than control? (3) What can we donext?

Will Americans contribute out of their personal wealth for the types of governance projects implied by this workshop?Participants see this as a balance between general unwillingness and human goodwill/selflessness, which led to thesuggestion that we consider differing views in other communities and regions, including different views on taxes and thewillingness to contribute to the public good. Perhaps the bigger question is whether we contribute to a public good or see ourexistence as private. If that is the question, then governance is the key. Governance becomes any activity that people believeresponds to a need and that people have trust and confidence will yield some good.

How do you enable rather than control? As we saw in the scenario and wildcard exercises, if you start at the national levelwith more control, problems emerge. We could consider state and local government adaptive measures before resorting tofederal measures.

What can we do next? Participants agreed that we must build on the workshop by looking at the problems inherent in thetrends we discussed and by looking at one aspect of our discussions such as participatory citizenship.

References

[1] B. Tonn, D. Stiefel, J.M. Scheb, C. Glennon, H.K. Sharma, The future of the courts: Fixed, flexible, and improvisational frameworks. Futures (2012)(available on-line).

[2] B. Tonn, D. Stiefel, The future of governance and the use of advanced information technologies. Futures (2012) (available on-line).