June42012
The Greening of Governance
Moving to greenkeeping governance will entail many novel complexities and imponderable challenges. Yet there is little doubt that we must re-imagine the role of the State and Market, and imagine alternative futures that fortify the Commons Sector. We must gird ourselves for the ambitious task of mobilizing new energies and commitments, deconstructing archaic institutions while building new ones, devising new public policies and legal initiatives, and cultivating new understandings of the environment, economics, human rights, governance and commons.
Tags: /governance /political ecology /political economy /commons
May302012
Is there a new creative and collaborative way that regular citizens are participating in society, and if so, how do we recognise, understand and promote these innovative and transformative ways of investing in society?
People are rediscovering the pleasures and benefits of common activity: neither as passive consumers, nor as needy recipients of charity, but as active makers and designers of the social, economic and physical infrastructure of where they live. There is a new sense of agency emerging, of optimism and of control, and it is revealing itself through positive activity on a human scale.
Tags: /creative /collaboration /governance /human systems
November242011
A Parliament Building for the People
Before he got busy being one of the best architects in Australia, Andrew Maynard would do wonderful polemics, thought exercises, and just fun stuff that displayed his imagination and humour. Now he is at it again, imagining a new Parliament Building that responds to the people, that he calls Mob-ile Parliament.
TreeHugger
Tags: /Architecture /governance /government /design
October12011
The Politics of Reflexive Governance »
The boundaries of what is considered the challenge of environmental governance have been increasingly expanding. Early approaches to environmental governance focused on land development and pollution and aimed at protecting nature and human beings from disturbing interventions. Later, societal production and consumption as well as technology were recognized as part of the problem; environmental governance was, thus, directed at shaping society and technology in order to maintain social–ecological systems. Most recently, the patterns and processes of governance itself have come to be identified as challenges in working toward sustainable development because they define the very capacities by which societies shape and transform themselves.
Tags: /adaptive management /governance /resource management /resilience /technology /sustainability
