Hybrid leadership councils: envisioning inclusive and resilient governance

Abstract

To address future challenges of planetary decision-making on key ecological and social issues in an increasingly nationalistic world, we propose a new global governance model of technocratic ascendancy that can be integrated with quasi-democratic norms. Our model proposes the creation of a series of self-organized “Hybrid Leadership Assemblies” (HLA) led by “Hybrid Leadership Councils (HLC)” and supported by a number of more specialized Issue Action Committees (IACs) in five key issue areas: Environmental Protection and Climate Change Management, Security from Armed Conflict, Fighting Poverty and Inequality, Managing Population Growth, and Women’s Inclusion. Inspired by the popular environmental slogan, “Think global, act local,” our proposed governance model makes a revived subsidiarity principle central to its re-imagination of global governance as a non-hierarchical system of organization. In addition to creating opportunities to approach challenges at multiple levels of governance, our broadly participative model also makes innovative networking across different groups, levels of governance, and issues integral to solving complex socio-ecological problems.