The Research and Development Challenges

The Governance Commons' Research and Development Portal is organized around a series of challenges, which we believe must be surmounted before we can overcome current difficulties with governance processes.

• Challenge #1: Improving Security
  Good governance requires basic security--it is very difficult for people to engage in peaceful problem-solving when their security is constantly under threat. Therefore, the Commons supports efforts to promote security in three key areas:

  • Challenge #1a: Limiting Violence and Intimidation by strengthening the ability of police and military forces to protect the public from inter- and intra-state violence, while, at the same time, not taking unfair advantage of their powerful positions within a society.
     
  • Challenge #1b: Protecting Individual and Group Rights from illegitimate uses of state power and from structural violence through effective national and international judicial, political, and social mechanisms. 
     
  • Challenge #1c: Fulfilling Basic Human Needs by promoting sustainable economies capable of limiting both the humanitarian tragedies of hopeless poverty and the security threats which can arise when people become truly desperate. Under Construction -- Library Resources Available
     

• Challenge #2: Promoting Cooperative Relationships
  For governance to work, inevitable and, in many ways, constructive intergroup competition must be tempered by a willingness to work together to advance mutual interests. This is why the Commons supports relationship-building efforts in three areas:

  • Challenge #2a: Broadening the Sense of Community by overcoming hateful divisions and histories of unrightable wrongs that often prevent communities from recognizing their common interests. In short, we seek to reframe relationships from "us versus them" to "we." Under Construction -- Library Resources Available
     
  • Challenge #2b: Fostering a Sense of Fairness by encouraging development of a moral basis for balancing individual freedom and the pursuit of self-interest with reasonable obligations to others and to future generations. Under Construction -- Not Yet Available
     
  • Challenge #2c: Encouraging Agreement-based Problem Solving  through public- and private-sector approaches that focus on identifying and then pursuing mutually beneficial solutions. Under Construction -- Not Yet Available
     

• Challenge #3: Assuring Efficiency and Effectiveness
  Good governance requires more than security and willingness to work together. It requires governance processes that allow the many sectors of society to effectively work together in three critical areas:

  • Challenge #3a: Dealing Wisely with Technical Issues by mobilizing the available scientific expertise to effectively identify and assess options for dealing with complex contemporary problems. Under Construction -- Not Yet Available
     
  • Challenge #3b: Making Politics Work through institutions that are capable of making tough but equitable decisions in complex political environments and in cases where consensus is impossible. Under Construction -- Library Resources Available
     
  • Challenge #3c: Fostering Legitimate Governance through transparent and accountable processes that build public trust by demonstrating that the processes are, in fact, worthy of the public's trust.  
     

What's New

Peace Agreements in Africa Study
This is a study on how to formulate peace agreements in Africa that promote democracy and stability.

The Importance of Public Participation in Contaminated Communities
This study documented strategies that improve the outcomes from public participation regarding risk assessment and cleanup in environmentally contaminated communities.

Towards A New Global Economic Compact
This article summarizes Columbia economist Joseph Stiglitz's views on how the world should address the now global economic crisis.

A Comparison of the Yugoslavian and Rwandan War Crimes Tribunals: Universal Jurisdiction and the "Elementary Dictates of Humanity"
This law article compares the two war crimes tribunals' approaches to international law, particularly their interpretation of "universal jurisdiction."