Restructuring the Hierarchy of Needs: A Case for Sound Governance in the Middle East

Abstract

Abraham Maslow constructed a hierarchal structure that resembles a pyramid and positioned human needs within this structure. He placed basic human needs for food and shelter at the bottom of the pyramid. Then, he placed security and safety as the next stage in the structure. However, one cannot move to the second step until he has secured access to the first stage. The third stage in the hierarchal structure is preserved to sentiments and belonging. A person who had secured stages one and two in the hierarchal order can now move to this third stage. The progression in the hierarchal order of needs continues, until one reaches the final stage in the pyramid: achieving self-actualization. Progression through needs, according to Maslow, is bottom-up, moving upward through stages that start with attaining physiological needs, moving upward until reaching self-actualization. Public policy builds on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It identifies social programs as stage one in policy construction, moving upward toward security, and continuing until reaching self-actualization in attaining the American regime values. Due to national security, however, public policy often juggles between these steps, placing importance on safety while downgrading other needs. The result is mis-prioritization of various elements in societal needs and the impediment in reaching the actualization of the policy itself. This is especially true in the Middle East where security issues take precedence over other needs in governmental policies. Sound governance based on complexity sciences remedy this defect by reconstructing the hierarchal structure of needs into a multi-dimensional, interconnected network. Within this network there is no starting or ending points. All stages are treated as interconnected parts of one whole that relate to one another through collaborative, interactive and dynamic relationships without control. The symbiotic relationship between the network and its environment enables it adapt to change through mutual causality and feedback loop and attain self-actualization through the dynamics of processes and being in the moment. This chapter reworks Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in public policy according to sound governance based on complexity sciences. It offers a reconstruction of such hierarchy that is complex, multi-dimensional, and benefits from the processes of agent-based model, whereby each need is treated as autonomous agent interconnected with other needs within a dynamic network that is better capable in dealing with change in its environment and better able to adapt, self-organize, and allow for collapse of older structures through phase shifts and morphology in order for newer and more dynamic structures to emerge.