More "Nature of Governance"

A suggestion that markets ultimately provide needed governance is exactly right...depending on what kind of governing you're trying to do. Which prompted me to spend a few minutes thinking about what kinds of governance there are...which of course led to questions about "why governance", etc.

So, here's a few random thoughts:

• Governance seems to imply some sort of control (implies centralized), or influence (implies decentralized)...though I may be mixing apples/oranges here...



• Control seems to have at least a whiff of telos (goals/purpose) to it.



• So, one key question would seem to be "what goals are you pursuing & why do you need governance to reach them?"



• Once you understand that, then a consideration of the relevant cause-effect relationships, and the degree to which you can know/control/influence them would seem to follow.



• If you have to achieve a specific effect in space & time, then you're probably going to lean toward control-oriented governance (e.g., I need to ensure that credit card transactions are finalized within x hours of initiation).



• If you're trying to influence behavior across all space/time, you'll probably use a more decentralized governance approach.



• Centralized governance probably tends to dominate the Execution/Exploitation domain; decentralized governance probably tends to dominate the Exploration/Innovation/Discovery domain.



• The emerging hyperconnectivity would seem to be dramatically increasing the ruggedness of the information-decision/action landscape...it that's so, incentives to more efficiently explore it are ultimately an essential factor (demand-side), but we also need to find better ways to "control" (guide?) decentralized exploration/adaption/agility (supply side).

This article on Internet governance is a "first-page" Google response to "governance taxonomy". It posits five "baskets" of governance: (a) infrastructure and standardization, (b) legal, (c) economic, (d) development, (e) socio-cultural.

Sounds like a reasonable jumping-off point to me...for those inclined to work the problem top-down... :-)