The pandemic’s final turn of policy advice
May I, provocatively, reverse the relationship put in the title? Why? Political leadership shows a new face. In fact, the multiple-system crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic made ‘whole-of-government’ approaches indispensable. In response, there are however new players to address, such as digital ultra-capitalism and techno-clusters (Roger de Weck), a reverse trend of de-globalisation (Mark Leonard), changing geopolitics (David Criekemanns), and an enhanced upstream of resilience thinking.
What is needed for truly anticipatory governance are two aspects, the holistic production of political knowledge and processes of optimization of policy advice. Inclusive governance, democratically speaking, is all about a new balance between politics, society, and science. Future management, seen as a task for society as a whole, presupposes that political and scientific leadership are thus increasingly converging.
Towards fact-based knowledge generation
What is policy advice then? The Habermasian distinction between the tasks of enlarging horizons (“science”) and finding solutions for real life problems (“politics”) is still valid. More precisely, the Leibniz Institute for Global and Area Studies summarizes, for its part, that "sound background information for current and strategic decisions provides independent assessments of practical policy and offers new options for decision-makers". Complementarily, the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research considers transparency criteria as decisive in delivering advisory tasks. The question to be posed, however, is more far-reaching.
Drawing on Hans Kelsen Working Papers, Cambridge University (2016), on the sociologic roots of law, one may thoroughly scrutinize whether any normative argument can exist solely on proper ground of evidence. In other words, with Martti Koskenniemi’s “From Apology to Utopia” in mind, every political sentence is interest-driven. This seamlessly goes with the upcoming world of dystopia designed by Julian Nida-Rümelin at the opening of the Salzburg Festival 2021.
Status quo and need for action
Consequentially, the need for more inclusion and a new balance of power in governance is fundamental (IDEA Status of Democracies Report, 22 November 2021). This follows from the challenge of shrinking public space, so proclaimed by the civil society already at the annual meeting of the German Working Group on Peace and Development (FriEnt) in Berlin in 2015. Many civil society organizations face the danger of being closed, repressed or obstructed from executing their activities, as perceived by CIVICUS in Civil Society programming documents of the European Commission, dated 19 November 2021. Indeed, the tradition of science-driven public administration - handling climate change, digitalization of the economy, education, localization, and crisis prevention - diminishes when state bureaucracy is increasingly cut off from its original advisory tasks, even in democracies like Austria. Very much in this spirit, the Bertelsmann’s study on "Europe's Coherence Gap in External Crisis and Conflict Management" (March 2020) identifies four success factors of future governance and ‘whole-of-government’ approaches: (1) adaptation of institutional setups, (2) provision and training of specialized forces, (3) political and administrative leadership, and (4) specific instruments and tools.
Those who only choose their advisors in a crisis situation come too late, a crisis team philosophy convened on short notice falls apart.
What it would take instead
Using the example of the 3C process[1] in the Austrian context, interconnection of decision-making parameters through the involvement of all relevant actors offers a valuable toolkit for innovation. The 3C community is the prototype of an active all-encompassing network: A jointly negotiated policy document, the Vienna 3C Appeal, institutionalizes synergies between government departments, the Parliament, NGOs and science supported by a policy framework, the "Strategic Guideline on Security and Development", adopted by the Austrian Council of Ministers of 4 October 2011. The Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Research figures as a central point of contact for civil society. Examples of civil entrepreneurship on the international scene include the universalization of the APM Convention, responsibility to protect (R2P), and the Human Security Network (HSN).
"Centers of Excellence" (COE), by definition, mediate between higher-level organizational strategy and the daily work processes and are therefore predestined to act at this gateway. Accordingly, information hubs as horizontal links between relevant knowledge producers and the public sector should combine several “wings” to identify influencers and prepare effective response. Ideally, COEs are empowered to steer future labs of universities with internet platforms and independent research institutes to inform public debate (Werther-Pietsch, AIES focus paper 7/2020, https://www.aies.at/publikationen/2020/fokus-20-07.php; idem, TDHJ 3/21, https://www.thedefencehorizon.org/special-editions).
Anticipatory governance requires, as Leopold Schmertzing postulates in my book Powering Universalism (2021), tackling future issues responsibly by all actors involved when the common good is not to be left to polarizing political consulting. Such model would create a bridging function of evidence-based dialogue structures in the public interest, building on a culture of synergies, transparency, serving society as a whole, accountable multilevel fact-finding, and courage for real whole of government systems (Jens Iverson). One cannot expect to resolve competitive strands between silo thinking alone. It seems rather recommendable with a view to sustainability to establish a systemic coupling of evidence and political leadership, so that the state can to produce broadly accepted, legitimate governance.
Living up to the democratic imperative
After all, what is at stake here, is nothing less than constitutionally protected democratic values, such as independence of administrative institutions; freedom of opinion, expression, and research; and, in general, meaningful political participation (Philip Manow). But getting together takes time, trust, dialogue, convincing, dedicated action, and an affirmative institutional environment: the multipolar network.
For sure, scientists are not to be dependent, ignored or isolated any more. Ideas rise and fall, sometimes as Heinz Gärtner rightly reiterates, they live up to their real horizon, or “Wirkungsmächtigkeit”, a category of Ulrich Brand, only when the time is ripe. At this stage, I may extrapolate some of those “changers in mindset” to come: “human centrism”, “multilateral system thinking”, “politics of equidistance”, and “perpetual peacebuilding” (Thania Paffenholz, UWP Guest Lecture on YouTube 13 August 2021, https://youtu.be/bmVkWiDfUjw).
Or, in Roger de Weck’s prophetic words in Die Kraft der Demokratie: "Was (noch) nicht benannt ist, kann trotzdem richtungsweisend sein." (What is not yet named, can nevertheless be trendsetting.) The interface of politics and science, two sides of the same coin.
[1] 3C: coordinated, complementary, and coherent action in fragile situations.
Ursula Werther-Pietsch is Lecturer of International Law and International Relations at the University of Graz, Austria. Furthermore, she teaches at the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich, the Vienna Diplomatic Academy, and the Austrian National Defence Academy. She is Co-editor of The Defence Horizon Journal Special Edition and, Member of the Scientific Commission at the Austrian Ministry of Defence. Her research focuses on collective security; fragility and resilience; multilateral system thinking; anticipatory governance; and human centrism.