Pathways to Hybrid Government in Hawai'i

A few days ago I posted a piece on Hybrid Models of Governance on thethirdera.com blog, which centered on why hybrid representative/democratic government models are a believable pathway to political innovation. Anyone that might be momentarily nonplussed by a suggested contrast between representative government and democracy, you can catch up quickly with this post that talks about the definition of democracy. Yesterday's post, though, got me thinking about how such a pathway could unfold in a place like Hawai'i.

To start, let's quickly review the four scenario-types described in the Third Era post:

• Crisis-Driven Change at the Center: a national (in the US case, the Federal) government is driven by some form of crisis or a popular movement reaching critical mass to adopt new structures
• Slow Build to the Center: augmenting structures are experimented with at local and district/province levels over many years, and success and socialization lead eventually to adoption at the national level (as people’s expectations for political norms change)
• Proliferation and Diffusion: augmenting structures are experimented with at the local level and gradually spread as other localities mimic the new, more effective structures; hybrids become the norm at small governance scales (localities), but there is no upward adoption at the national level (one explanation could be strong and coordinated counter-narratives at the national level directed at protecting the national-level status-quo)
• Quirky Outliers: after a period of augmenting structures being fashionable and many local governments experimenting with them, most die off or are shut down as the intellectual movement passes its zenith without achieving broad institutionalization, but a few experiments survive as testaments to the idea

Let us choose Slow Build to the Center, and cast Hawai'i's state government as the "center" and the county governments and neighborhood boards as the localities. For key trends to project forward let us use things like continuing basic demographic/age-cohort transitions, proliferation of mobile technology and ubiquitous mobile internet access in daily life, and tightening budget constraints for local governments.  For key emerging issues, we will use things like "crowdsourcing" efforts and "open data."

So, how would we then expect to see hybrid governance structures emerge according to this scenario-type?

To keep it fairly simple, let us just build a timeline for our scenario:

• A local resident creates a Web app called DisPLACE that combines several public data sets to create information-rich maps of Honolulu neighborhoods
• A well-organized neighborhood board starts to use the DisPLACE data maps in their neighborhood meetings; they also use it to annotate their neighborhood issues and recommendations
• The mayor publicly endorses the Web app; public use of DisPLACE spikes; more neighborhood boards start using it
• A college team creates another application called VoteDis using the DisPLACE data that sorts issues and enables residents to prioritize them
• In a future mayoral race, campaign staffs realize that VoteDis enables them to slice resident data and get at specific constituency interests in a much more powerful way
• A well-endowed nonprofit sets up a tracking service that analyzes county council progress against the priorities showcased on VoteDis; they team with local media to run ongoing political analyses and roundtables; other nonprofits latch on to VoteDis for their own advocacy needs
• The Honolulu city council decides to use the neighborhood priorities from VoteDis to set a portion of their own agenda; resident approval and satisfaction starts to rise
• Over a few years all of the county councils begin incorporating both DisPLACE and VoteDis in their deliberations; many state legislators begin to publicly reference them as well
• Over a few more years there is a growing discussion about adapting VoteDis to create a permanent internet-enabled structure to incorporate some citizen-driven agenda-setting for the legislature
• The question of a constitutional convention is called by the lieutenant governor…

This is just a quick example, but it is illustrative of the type of slow diffusion and incremental change we might expect in a Slow Build to the Center scenario.  Essentially, we are looking at the gradual development of tools or processes that are adopted as add-ons to existing political processes.  The O'ahu neighborhood boards, while not possessed of much authority, do have a purpose of increasing citizen participation and do have a degree of flexibility in how they engage with local residents.  They, therefore, are one logical locus of augmentative political innovation.

I will work on another scenario that incorporates a few more elements to explore how new governance structures could logically arise in Hawai'i.

Notes:

1. we used a linear progression for the scenario overall, versus an exponential pattern of change

2. for simplicity we restricted the introduction of new technologies and multiple parallel developments; in a more robust scenario we would weave in a wider of array of logical developments

3. because of the focus on emerging democratic augmentative structures the scenario followed the evolution of just that type of structure and not other, more e-anarchic or plethocratic structures that could easily emerge from the current ecosystem of political innovation

Hawai'i: Choose your own scenario

Do you believe, like good ‘ole Thomas Hobbes, that people are inherently nasty and evil?  Or do you get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the good deeds that spring unbidden from the minds and hands of humans everywhere?

Beliefs like these are critical to how you perceive the future, and they color every judgment about goals, policy, and strategy that you make.  The four scenarios below, all dealing with the future of Hawai‘i, show how different beliefs about how the world works, from theories about the economy to beliefs about human nature, interact to suggest very different futures for our lovely state.

What do you believe?

Two Axes: Two Spectrums of Theories

Using the well-known “2x2 matrix” process of building scenarios popularized by the Global Business Network, the following four scenarios emerge from a 2x2 matrix formed by crossing two spectrums of beliefs about how certain things in life work.

Economic Change: Do you believe that our current economic and employment malaise will end naturally (it’s just a cycle, silly), or do you think something deeper is going on that’s permanently changing the nature of work and productivity?

Human Nature: will physical tribalism (ethnic and cultural associations) always win out in a contest of identities, or can ideational tribalism (identities based on other common values and interests) take root and trump facial features and living next to each other?

By Gradual Turns (Cyclical Economy + Ideational Tribalism)

The clear and unambiguous signs of energy insecurity and natural resource constraints drive residents of Hawai‘i to gradually form a common set of concerns and a clear sense of “being in it together.”  A rise in fairly traditional, but refreshingly cooperative, politics leads to a surprisingly coherent consensus on Hawai‘i’s best pathways to more energy and food security, a consensus that leads to a common vision for the first time in recent memory.  Rallying around this clear and common vision, community leaders and policy makers pressure business leaders into gradually overhauling Hawai‘i’s industries toward both more sustainability and more community-sensitivity.  The coincident upward turn of the economy, following its cyclical path out of the downswing, provides more resources and “breathing room” for business to buy into these changes, while providing law makers with a broader budget to create state-wide incentives.  In this emerging period of plenty, and building on the common vision that people hold, frank but positive discussions between all sectors of Hawai‘i lead to far-reaching changes in how people are educated and in how businesses are allowed to operate.

Harmonious Dislocation (Structural Economic Shifts + Ideational Tribalism)

Government work, long characterized by an ever-growing administrative bureaucracy, is squeezed between the slow advance of automation on the one hand and shrinking public budgets on the other.  This hollowing out of government employment sparks a crisis of economic confidence as labor unions attempt to rally public support for government workers by raising the specter of mass unemployment.  Instead of mass panic, the PR campaign instead triggers a widespread questioning of the future of employment in Hawai‘i.  Starting with a series of new organized labor agreements, an emergent “New Work” movement leads to an unprecedented renegotiation of social contracts between lawmakers, business, and citizens, redistributing technology-driven productivity gains to offset the fewer hours and lower earnings of many workers, redefining employment standards, taxation, and citizen benefits in the process.  Increasingly freed from “wage-work”, people explore other productive activities, giving rise to non-money forms of economics, a proliferation of arts, community, and culture, and ultimately leading to very different economic lifestyles among different types of workers within the state.  For a decreasing percentage of the population, those employed full-time, life continues to revolve around the ever-increasing competitive demands of office and shop.  For the rest, life is becoming more social.  Hawai‘i’s schools begin to evolve away from each other, specializing in very different types of preparation and providing increasingly distinct pathways to these different economic lifestyles.

Waiting it Out (Cyclical Economy + Physical Tribalism)

Given enough time, the economy pulls itself out of the doldrums and growth returns.  As tourism dollars flow in and government budgets slowly fill out, organizations once again begin to hire, creating an irresistible pull for a workforce long starved for opportunity.  The faith of lawmakers and business leaders in Hawai‘i’s mainstay industries is rewarded and a return to policy-as-usual is welcomed with quiet, relieved sighs in koa-paneled boardrooms across the state.  Without significant change in the state’s economy or industry makeup, patterns of socio-economic distribution continue to be shaped by educational experience and broad cultural affiliations, each reinforced now by the steady drivers of immigration from the Pacific and in-migration from the mainland.  The socio-economic-ethnic lines, long perceived but rarely discussed, harden as economic trends and roles become more firmly entrenched.  As the economy slowly cycles through its ups and downs the best predictors of employment and professional status remain cultural and ethnic identity.

Chasing Growth (Structural Economic Shifts + Physical Tribalism)

After years of ineffectual employment growth strategies for the local economy, policy makers finally accept that “the jobs just aren’t coming back.”  Even as state GDP rises, job demand continues to fall behind productivity and growth, presenting a growing state population with fewer viable employment options.  As competition for jobs intensifies, the unemployment rolls expand, and the population continues to grow, a variety of reactions emerge, in particular a rising anti-immigrant/in-migrant sentiment.  Underground “hire kama‘āina” campaigns proliferate across social networks and many organizations adopt requirements that job applicants demonstrate local “cultural competence.”  But as the economic data gets analyzed, experts find that certain sectors have remained largely untouched by either automation (job loss) or significant productivity gains.  In a flash, law makers start dropping sound bites about Hawai‘i’s future being in “difficult-to-automate” (DTA) jobs, leading local pundits to talk about the “Hands-On Economy,” referring to jobs that require the combination of human problem solving with high dexterity and mobility.  Politicians introduce bills to redefine the service economy into a Hands-On Economy, while labor unions quickly begin calling for recognition and protections for the “vital” DTA jobs their members perform.  Many (but not all) health care workers, mechanics, home repair professionals, construction workers, and small scale farmers all see a boost in their prospects and morale, while those seeking work scramble into the DTA sectors and the educational establishment begins its slow, painful turn to supporting these career paths.