Empowering the Edges: Igniting Change Beyond Government
Why a vibrant civil society is crucial for Canada's future and how we can collectively build it.
On Wednesday, I wrote about some of the political realities that often constrain government ambition and action. Today, I want to shift gears to focus on the role those of us outside of government have to play in shaping a better Canada. If we can't solely rely on government to deliver the transformative change Canada needs, then it's our responsibility to cultivate a vibrant and courageous policymaking culture from the edges. This means generating innovative ideas, fostering crucial collaborations, and having the courage to challenge the status quo with conviction. I’ll first touch on the big picture - how and why we need an active and vibrant policymaking culture outside of government, before looking at where there are examples of dynamic experimentation at the “edges.” Finally, I’ll share my thoughts on how we can collectively make meaningful progress that our country urgently needs.
Empowering the Edges: Civil Society's Role
It's easy to default to the idea that the federal government needs to take the lead in pushing a vision and being bold. I’ve previously highlighted how those in the policy community have repeatedly called for new national strategies around innovation: again, and again, and again, and again. Instead, we need more attention on real places and communities across the country: “By not respecting that geography, and the diversity of the local economies and local conditions that make up Canada, we have erected a major barrier to addressing our innovation paradox.”
Part of this is understanding the roles and strengths of the respective levels of government better. I think provincial governments have a far bigger role to play in addressing Canada’s innovation and productivity challenges, and that, with rare exceptions, they aren’t stepping up to the plate.
But the work for a more prosperous and inclusive Canada needs to go far beyond the federal and provincial governments. It also needs to come from civil society. From people and organizations on the periphery who need to bring new ideas and energy to this work.
This is essential not just for improving our innovation outcomes, but more generally for the flourishing of our society. As Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson set out in The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty, our freedom and prosperity are built on the foundations of an ongoing competition between an ever more capable state and an ever stronger civil society that shackles Hobbes’s Leviathan.
We need society’s competition to keep the Leviathan in check, and the more powerful and capable the Leviathan is, the more powerful and vigilant society must become. We need the Leviathan to keep on running too, both to expand its capacity in the face of new and formidable challenges and to maintain its autonomy, which is critical not only for resolving disputes and impartially enforcing laws but also for breaking down the cage of norms.
- Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, The Narrow Corridor
There are reasons to believe that this competition is not functioning as it should. This is very apparent in the US, where a fascist President is using the power of the state to crush dissent and shackle civil society — “the beginning of an American policy of state terror,” as
has put it.The Struggling Leviathan of Canadian Government
Canada might not be there, but that doesn’t mean we should be complacent. There are cracks aplenty in both our Leviathan and our civil society. When it comes to government, a recent article by Andrea Migone, Michael Howlett, and Alexander Howlett, Words not deeds: the weak culture of evidence in the Canadian policy style, sets out some of the shortcomings we face. As they argue, “Canada has developed a policy-making system and style where sloganering and short-termism in policy-making are rife.” We have a “distinctively fragmented and procedurally-oriented” policy-making process that is marked by an “internally dominated elite bargaining style” and that “requires only very limited input from outside groups or the public.” As a result, we have governments, provincial and federal, that overpromise and underdeliver.
An article from Brendan Boyd and Jared Wesley published last week, Moving Toward a Government Trust Ecosystem in Canada, also paints a picture of an internally focused elite system. Boyd and Wesley have surveyed elected and unelected officials as well as the wider public to understand the “government trust ecosystem.” While declining public trust in government and other institutions is well known, that is only one part of a more complex picture of trust. They found that Canadian public servants and elected officials have higher levels of trust in themselves than the rest of Canadian society. As Boyd and Wesley argue, “when members of parliament and public servants have more confidence in themselves than in broader societal institutions like corporations and unions, it can erode trust in the government within society.” They further state how “if politicians and public servants lack confidence in certain civil society actors, it can also generate mistrust in the parts of government that deal with them” risking undermining the “public service bargain, a fundamental aspect of the Westminster system of government” and something that can feed populist narratives.
We risk a situation where this lack of trust in wider Canadian civil society fuels a greater dependence on the already underperforming, internally dominated, elite-style of government. As this continues to overpromise and underdeliver, the ongoing erosion of trust is likely to persist with all that means for our politics and prosperity.
“The Energy at the Edges”
This is not the whole picture, though, or at least should not be. If the centre is failing, then it is to the “edges” we need to look. The UK-based writer
has recently written a piece on The Energy at the Edges that describes the work happening in local communities and progressive organizations, which is transforming institutions and addressing complex challenges.As Plunkett argues, “the dominant logic of the old system — a blend of social democratic Fabianism, technocracy, and a narrow class institutional forms and managerial practices — has proven incapable of governing affordably, safely, and responsively in contemporary conditions.” In response we are seeing “the buds of new approaches are growing at the edges of the system — from local services, to pioneering councils, to the dynamic edges of civil society, to reform-minded team leaders.”
While those at the edges are in direct contact with changing conditions and with direct delivery, the middle of the system “is subject to forces that inhibit change or distort the necessary signals and feedback loops.” Indeed, inside these systems “people get locked into a gamified world that has a tight internal coherence, but little link to outside conditions.” That certainly holds true for Canada.
Plunkett points to many examples, both in the UK and internationally, of dynamic and exciting work that is happening to create more effective and responsive governance. Whether it's around civics, relational state capacity, internet ways of working, new delivery philosophies, new institutional forms, climate-focused work, digital economy regulation, or beyond, a lot is happening.
Yet Canadian examples are notably absent from that list. While there is certainly interesting work happening here, and some truly innovative organizations, those are more the exception rather than the rule.
Returning to Migone, Howlett, and Howlett’s article, that is part of the problem we face. They note how that internally dominated elite bargaining style is reinforced by “the weak nature of external policy actors—including only a small number of think-tanks, underfunded interest groups, and a declining and sensation-oriented media—[which] cannot hold a government to account, are generally underfunded, and exercise only modest influence in media and other debates on key policy issues, allowing more partisan and electoral issues to hold sway.”
They point to the ample evidence that shows how academics are mostly disengaged from policymaking, apart from a small group of “hyper-experts” who play a largely “supportive or sycophantic role” for governments. Outside consultants are used primarily “to bolster or support decisions already made for other reasons rather than help craft new ones.” Think tanks, interest groups, political parties and the media “have also all been examined and found wanting in terms of their engagement in the political and policy systems and their engagement with and use of evidence.”
That is a pretty dire picture. We don’t currently have a thriving and energetic civil society at the edges that can provide an alternative pole of activity to our underperforming governments.
Where to next
If, according to Acemoglu and Robinson, prosperity and liberty come from the competition between a powerful and capable state and a powerful and vigilant civil society, then it is no wonder we are in our current position. We lack a powerful and capable state, and our civil society shows more signs of withering than of power.
I’m of course writing this on the same day as the federal election. But I hold out little hope there. In his blog today, Alex Usher argues that the party platforms “are all, in their own way, disastrous and deeply unserious.” The solutions do not come from above, even as we should work towards creating a more capable and powerful state.
My hope lies in cultivating more “energy at the edges.” We need more “public entrepreneurs,” to use a term from Elinor Ostrom that I have written about before. We need institutions and individuals on the periphery, from think tanks to not-for-profits, trade associations, incubators, and non-governmental funders, and far beyond, to lead in ways that we aren’t seeing enough of now. And we need to see them push governments to do and be better.
As Plunkett writes, “It seems likely that we will only escape the doom spiral when we manage to redirect our attention to the kind of positive work I have described, and that means turning away from the middle to the edges.”
I have some thoughts on how we can nurture more energetic edges, though with the caveat that my research and thinking on this topic are still ongoing.
Address Our Courage Deficit: Embrace Context and Complexity
A foundational starting point is that we need to deal with the world as it is. Yet, this wider complexity and context, along with the ability to connect the dots on adjacent issues and see how they overlap, are often lacking. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, “Our thinking and our policy-making are too often siloed - working away at small pieces of much larger, more complex, and interlocking systems. We close our eyes to harms elsewhere, only realizing their gravity when they hit closer to home.”
We need to concerted effort to break down those silos, to embrace a way of doing business that is grounded in a curiosity about a complex and challenging world. That is built on the ability to have tough, evidence-based conversations.
At the Democracy XChange conference earlier this month, Tehreem Fatima, Advocacy Manager at Fora: Network for Change, spoke about the culture of obedience that pervades Canada’s not-for-profits and the lack of support for people willing to dissent. In a phrase that has stuck with me, Fatima described this as our courage deficit.
We need to close that courage deficit. Part of this requires leaders to build organizations where dissent is not only allowed but also encouraged. It is from dissent from the norms around us that we get innovation. That we get solutions that break the mould.
But as ever, this can’t be only top-down. We also need greater collective action and solidarity among the workers in our civil society, from middle managers to junior staff, to use the agency they have to create spaces for, and engage in thoughtful and challenging conversations on complexity and context. That is foundational to enabling more energy and creativity that disrupts the toxic status quo we face right now.
Bring Ideas to the Table
One of the things that struck me most professionally after moving to Canada was the disconnect between policy and government affairs/lobbying. In my admittedly small experience of the UK and Europe, the lines between policy work and public affairs were nowhere near as stark. Folks working in government affairs teams in companies would spend far more time on proactive policy work, looking to shape the direction of policy on multiple fronts — for regulatory policy, their sector, the wider innovation or entrepreneurial environment, and beyond. Similarly, in business groups, there was more connection between lobbying and developing policy thought leadership.
While there are, of course, exceptions that break the rule, government affairs in Canada seem to be far more about who is in your contact list and address book, and how many meetings you can set up. The content of those meetings, and whether fresh ideas are being brought to the table versus more narrowly self-interested funding or other asks, seems far more an afterthought.
Not all organizations approach things that way, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with some through Orbit Policy that take a broader view of the need to be proactive thinkers about big questions, even when they don’t come with a funding request. But they are not the norm.
This lack of expansive ideas contributes to the lack of trust that public servants show to those outside the government. If all you bring is a self-interested ask, is it any surprise that public officials distrust your motives and don’t look beyond their walls for thoughtful partners to address the challenges they face?
A second consequence is that organizations in turn become reactive, defined by funding agreements set on governments’ terms and ideas. If in-depth policy thinking and proactive program design aren’t happening within organizations at the edge, then, almost by default, they are being done instead by the same governments which are driven by “sloganering and short-termism.” It is a recipe for the complex, underperforming innovation policy landscape we see today, where the sum of organizations and programs does not add up to more than the sum of their parts.
We need organizations to invest in creative policy and program work that brings new ideas to the surface and positions them as thoughtful partners to government. It is also worth stating explicitly that being a thoughtful partner means having the courage to call out public officials, both privately and publicly, when they pursue misguided policies. Sometimes we need to bite the hand that feeds us when they are feeding us garbage.
Facilitating Coordination and Collaboration
Finally, we need to nurture our collective intelligence through networked collaboration and coordination. This is a matter of institutional networks, where organizations can work together, share data and experiences, and collaborate to solve shared challenges. This can also involve having the strength in numbers to challenge the government that I mentioned above.
I also think there is a need for more coordination and collaboration among individual professionals to facilitate the resurgence of our civil society. Over in the UK, Rachel Coldicutt is working to create a “Society for Hopeful Technologists.” As she wrote in the original blog that fleshed out the idea, such as society would:
Be a place for fostering and sharing big ideas
Be an advocacy body that responds to government policy proposals and offers pragmatic opinions about hyperbolic policy proposals that won’t survive contact with reality
Be a useful point of contact for regulators and policymakers
Be an inclusive place to gather, learn, and improve skills
Be a place of professional resistance and organization when malpractice and bad actors appear on the horizon
It seems to me that we have a similar need for an organization like that in Canada to facilitate the work we need to do. I have met many people who believe we need a more progressive and inclusive vision of Canada, and who are trying to do work that contributes to that. Our failings aren’t because of a lack of talent and capability among those working in this space. But again, we aren’t adding up to more than the sum of our parts. That needs to change.
If you’ve read this far, thanks for sticking with me. This is one of my longest articles here, and a lot more that I didn’t even get into.
This is urgent work. In the face of a fascist United States, on top of the myriad of other challenges and threats we face here in Canada and around the world, we need to be actively working to nurture this energy at the edges. If we don’t do it, then no one else will.
If any of this resonates with you, then I’d love to chat more. Feel free to send me an email at tom@orbitpolicy.com or leave a comment here!
Once again spot on. Thanks for posting.