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The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome

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One person can create the foundation
For a better future.

Yehezkel Dror's life work provides the stepping stones for a huge positive advance for humanity. Perhaps, even its long-term survival. His Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome is his latest work consistent with "Dror's Law #2 - which he published in his 1971 book Ventures in Policy Sciences, p. 2 - which reads:

"While human capacities to shape the environment, society,
and human beings are rapidly increasing, policymaking capabilities
to use those capacities remain the same."

Dror - as a result of his research, publications, teachings and personal leadership over the past thirty years - has become widely regarded as the world's foremost pioneer of modern public policy studies. His Capacity to Govern work has been in development for years, been published to date in German, Spanish, Portuguese and English and is endorsed and sponsored, in the Foreword to the book by the President of The Club of Rome, which has been known as "The Conscience of Humankind" (p.vii).

Yehezkel Dror has international respect for being one of the few founders of the Policy Sciences academic discipline and being the catalyst, since the 1960s, for the establishment of policy departments in universities and the creation of professional societies devoted to policy, such as the Policy Studies Organization (PSO) where he served as President. So, when Dror published it is taken very seriously. My personal view is that Capacity to Govern should be absorbed by every national and international leader and every policy advisor, consultant, teacher or student.

Capacity to Govern, drawing research covering centuries of data, provides the problem as being unprepared societies and obsolete governance (Ch 3); the mission as being the change from "Raison d'etat," created by Italian Renaissance thinkers, to "Raison d'humanite" -- a term Dror created (Ch 1); the requirements for redesigning governance (Chs 6,7); and the resolution (Part Three). The work describes the imperative and the future steps to make a paradigmatic change, or a "Quantum Leap" (p. 215), to radically improve and redesign the capacity to govern of states, supra-state structures, and global governance. The overall goal is to increase the capacity to influence, or weave, the future for humanity's benefit.

The assumptions and conclusions found in Capacity to Govern are: 1) We are living through an historically unprecedented age of radical global non-linear transformations in demography, science, technology, consciousness, culture, communications, geo-economic and geo-strategic configurations in regimes and in values. Those transformations are sure to accelerate in the 21st Century; 2) Without improved capacity to govern the negative outcomes for society from those transformations have a real probability for catastrophic impacts. Governance must prevent - "... devilish uses of knowledge instruments supplied by science and technology since World War II for mass killing initiated by actors beyond the control of presently available policy structures and tools." Readers should note that Capacity to Govern was written and published well before 11 September 2001;
3) When countries disintegrate evil rulers engage in large-scale crimes against
humanity or prepare serious acts of aggression or populations are subjected to genocide (p.208); and, 4) As long as the United Nations is unable to cope with major crises of global significance, the USA and the European Union, together with other willing states, should take appropriate action. But no single country should do so on its own and such action should be explained and justified before United Nations forums and limited to the minimum necessary to prevent human catastrophes (p.209).

Following is an extraction of sum of the Dror prescriptions: A) "Countries in serious transformation crises should ... be helped to avoid extreme breakdowns, with special attention to states having continental and global significance. But care must be taken not to give one-dimensional and dogmatic advice likely to cause serious social harm" (p.208); B) "Regarding international interventions to prevent evil rulers from acquiring and using mass killing weapons .... my own tendency is to prefer the risks of global over-intervention to those of under-intervention; but global systems are not et ripe for coping with the issue" (p.208). That issue related to Iraq's Saddam Hussein is getting global attention in September 2002; C) "One cannot rely ... on a rapid improvement in the quality of candidates entering politics and reaching top positions. Intense efforts to enhance the quality of the politicians produced by existing selection and promotion processes are therefore required as a `second best' approach" (p.122);
D) Moral democratic rule is preferred. But, "... the maximum advisable scope for direct democracy is quite limited in the foreseeable future (p.111); and, E) "The qualities demanded of senior politicians and governance elites should be radically revised, with emphasis on virtues and character. These requirements should become a basic canon of democratic theory and political culture" (p.101).

Dror's proposals, "A" through "E" above, are illustrative of a very large set he includes in Capacity to Govern. Readers need to absorb the entire set which he describes as: "...formulated in general terms, so that they fit a variety of settings... follow a middle path between the mundane and the utopian ... some proposals are crash programs while others are long range requiring considerable lead times and implementation cycles ... most form clusters that are interdependent, supporting and reinforcing one another ... they were selected according to their importance in terms of impact and feasibility, but inevitably also reflect my own personal interests, biases and limitations" (p.81).

Bob Krone, Ph.D.
15 Nov 2002

Yehezkel Dror's book "The Capacity to Govern" is a Club of Rome report that asks the philosophical question, is the world really ready for global government and if so, how would they go about enacting it? Dror deduces that global government could succeed if more benevolent approaches were taken such as "empowering the people with public affairs enlightenment," which means educating the masses. Dror states "a relatively easy essential first step in public affairs enlightenment is to introduce new types of citizenship courses in high school and pluralistic workshops in public affairs obligatory for all university students."

Dror also feels the mass media is a problem considering that he said, "the mass media present more difficult problems, oriented as they are to audience ratings and catering to the mass market." Of course, he realizes that some mainstream media outlets are used for educational purposes, but what little is out there isn't enough. "The vast majority of voters appear to be frighteningly ignorant of major facts, issues and problems, whether global or national," said Dror. He also states "television currently does little to provide in-depth coverage of major policy issues," which I have to agree with him on.

Moreover, Dror discusses the potential disenfranchisement of the minority verses the majority. He asks if it is ok to impede on the rights of the minority for the sole purpose of benefiting the majority when it comes to acquiring resources and other things beneficial for the world order and its citizenry. He contemplates on who deserves what he calls the "good life." He states, "Acceptance of the right of future generations to choose their notions of a good life involves, first of all, recognizing that they are entitled to prefer ways of life different from our priorities and perhaps repugnant to us. (However,) this conflicts with our deeply ingrained desire to perpetuate our own values." Yehezkel Dror struggles with this issue throughout the book considering the majority may need what the minority possesses. So, how do you enact policies that are altruistic to the minority when the majority suffers for it? I don't feel that Dror comes up with a viable solution. However, Dror does state, "the authority of the Secretary-General of the United Nations should be strengthen so as to have greater executive power to initiate and implement policies, even in the face of reluctance on the part of some of the major powers." This ideology that Dror is purposing has a tendency to strike trepidation in the minds of Rightwing Americans, but is his suggestion sound? It is hard to determine considering the U.S is the leading world power.

In addition, Dror alludes to organized crime and dishonest regimes hindering global governance, but he then contradicts himself in his notes by stating, "I leave aside extreme views of Western intentions as 'conspiracies' such as those by Noam Chomsky."
I felt calling Noam Chomsky a conspiracy theorist was ignorant and out of line considering that conspiracies transpire everyday. Its one of the main reasons that wars take place all over the world, furthermore, let's not forget how the oligarchs of Wall Street managed economic hegemony over the world populace by instigating banker bailouts and corporate fraud. It is interesting to note that in Chapter 18 "Governing Private Power" Dror states, what "is necessary for fulfilling crucial governance task, public power should therefore dominate private power. This presupposes significant upgrading of capacities to govern within an overall revitalization of politics. However, detailed interventions should be kept at a minimum, so as to maintain freedom and to maximize the benefits of autonomous markets, free scientific research, unrestrained mass media, and the autonomy of other non-governmental and private actors and processes." The only way The Club of Rome could enact this kind of thinking/policy is to promote the rebuilding of unions, which were predominately destroyed in the U.S. under the Reagan administration in the 1980's. Therefore, the axiomatic conclusion is that negotiating power has to be put in play, which is essential even though Yehezkel Dror doesn't mention this in his book. Therefore, autonomy of the individual or State can't go very far without a strong union base.

In conclusion, Dror's main point in this book is that "Raison d'humanité must become a main moral driving force and decision criterion increasingly guiding all levels of governance, especially in their effort to weave the furture," but even Dror isn't sure that a one world global government can accomplish this feat. Overall, this is a 4 star read that will keep you engaged.

Other books that give alternative points of view are as follows:

Amy Chua "World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethic Hatred and Global Instability"

Noam Chomsky "Hopes and Prospects"

Plato's "The Republic"

Thomas Friedman "The Lexus and The Olive Tree"

Jean E. Krasno "The United Nations: Confronting the Challenges of a Global Society"

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels "The Communist Manifesto"