The Global Revolution and Crisis of Good Governance

The Challenge of Coalition Politics[1]


By Hon. Winston Dookeran

Minister of Finance of Trinidad & Tobago

and Manfred D. Jantzen, Ph.D.

                                                                                                                       


[Editor’s Note: The insights for this article came from four sources: (1) A seminar entitled The Challenge of Coalition Politics in today’s World – Another Approach to Good Governance, sponsored by the Congress of the People on February 26, 2011; (2) Winston Dookeran and Akhil Malakhi, Leadership and Governance in Small States, Getting Development Right, VDM Verlag, 2008; (3) Mathew Bishop, Coalescing for Change? Novel Coalitions in the UK and Trinidad and Tobago, published in The Round Table, February 2011; Winston Dookeran and Manfred Jantzen, Power, Politics and Performance, A Partnership Approach for the Development of Small States, Pending Publication, Ian Randle Publisher, April 2011.]

 

The ideas from these sources allowed the authors to provide a framework for coalition politics in global and local context and explore the following topics: The Global Revolution, Glocalization of Citizens Expectations, Demand and Supply of Good Governance, Good Governance Gap, Political Realignment Challenge, Government Performance Power, The Future of Coalition Politics.]

 

The Global Revolution

 


A global revolution is sweeping our planet and in the process is creating a new Frontier World in which a new social, economic, and political order is emerging. What ultimate direction, content, form, and outcome this revolution will take is yet to be shaped. The path to the future is yet to be constructed.[2] Critical decisions by governments and national leadership are yet to be made.

 

What is clear, while the old order still holds the balance of power and controls the corridors of politics, it now is threatened and declining on its hold on the community of national interests and citizens. The new social, economic, and political order is gaining strength and is just emerging as a new political force.[3]

 

The cry for change is like a trumpet call heard reverberating around the globe. While the driver of this global revolution is information, or more precisely the accessibility of information through a global information communication technology (ICT) platform and local infrastructure, the source is peoples’ expectation for a ‘better life’. This global revolution is releasing an immense amount of social energy, suddenly and unpredictably releasing energy like a volcano exploding from decades of build up pressure, like the pent up energy released from the movements of tectonic plates in the form of earthquakes. The global revolution is resulting in unpredicted powerful transformative events which none of the experts foresaw.[4]

 

What should be made clear at the outset, this global revolution is not led and organized by traditional political interests; it is a genuine bottom-up revolution of un-fulfilled expectations by all segments of society. Furthermore, it is not limited to the so called developing world, second or third.

 

The global information revolution with its political consequences manifests itself differently in different cultures and nations. In the U.S.A. it took the form of the ‘Tea-Party Movement” and was only later absorbed by the mainstream Republican Party in a bloodless transformation. It showed the maturity of the American democratic infrastructure. Similarly, Ireland saw a peaceful transition to coalition government. In the Arab world, it did result in a ‘bloody’ revolution, overthrowing of the current governments as in the cases of Egypt and Tunisia, and civil war in Libya.

 


Glocalization of Citizens Expectation [5]


 

This paradigm shifting information driven global revolution creates a crisis for all governments, authoritarian or democratic alike. This world-wide revolution, while it is global in its dimensions, has profound local economic, social, and political consequences; and in turn local events have global significance. This describes what we mean by glocalization, there are no boundaries between local and global.  Information flows at the speed of light, and is accessible nearly everywhere and at any time and to enough people – individual customers and citizens – to cause deeply unsettling expectations and demands.

 

From an economic perspective, informed local customers have not only global customer expectations, but also demand global performance standards from local business enterprises.

 

The much maligned capitalism and its ‘free market economy’ that according to its opponents created inequality of wealth and socio-economic groups, including poverty, has also provided the drivers for this political liberating global revolution. It is western capitalism that created the world-wide information web based on science and technology. It was fostered and financed by the ‘greedy’ capitalists and their capitalistic institutions and infrastructure.  It is this capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries that created enough wealth in the world and in enough nations that provided both the ubiquitous information - communication technologies from satellites to cell-phones. It is this information web that has set the preconditions for change, by allowing mass participation. It has created the demand for citizen participation.

 

A historical lesson from western European history appears to still hold true, that economic freedom and certain levels of prosperity precede political freedom. Bluntly stated, wealth accumulation and related necessary infrastructure come first. But unlike past revolutions, which were fermented and led by a small political and intellectual elite, the contemporary revolution, because of the information accessibility, emerges from the bottom through self-organization of common interest and a genuine desire for freedom, individual freedom, and desired political participation in governance.


 

Demand and Supply of Good Governance[6]


 

Successful political change depends on the demand and supply of good governance. If a society does not demand good governance, there certainly will not be a supply.

 

There are two aspects which can explain the current global political revolution and accompanying governance crises.  On the one hand is the rising expectation of citizens, created and spread by the globalization of the economic markets. These powerful expectations encompass the demand for quality public goods and services from their government and political parties in power. In addition, one of the unattended consequences of the power of the world-wide information communication network is a demand for good governance - democratic institutions that allow citizen participation and input into decision-making, affecting the life of ordinary citizens.

 

Another of the unattended consequences of the global information-communication network is that this distributive information technology also shifts political power. Information is power; in the past, especial information stamped secret by governments is and was the source of state or government power. The global ICT network allows accessibility and transparency of information by citizens; and consequently is destroying the power based on secret information and knowledge and is shifting the power to the people. This shifting of the information paradigm, giving information power to the people, is a major contributor to global political revolution.


 

Good Governance Gap


 

The good governance gap results from the demand for good governance not being matched by the supply. In many developing countries, citizen participation in government through appropriate political infrastructures, the supply for good governance, is insufficient or worse, non-existent. The more dictatorial and/or authoritarian the government, the more concentrated the power of the state in a single individual, group or party, the greater is the governance crisis, the more painful the transition to good governance. Stated in another way, the greater the gap between demand and supply of good governance, the greater is the likelihood for violence and overthrow of the existing government.

 

The cry for more democratic involvement by citizens in the institutions of government will not go away but rather increase. The demand for personal and political freedom will increase and those in political power must prepare for an accommodation and transition to the sharing of power.

 

The global political revolution, resting on a global technological platform(s), using the highways of information, is shifting the political and social power from the traditional centers of political power to the periphery where the citizens as political customers demand the sharing of power. The end-user is demanding to be served. Consequently, the current global crisis in governance is as much about citizens’ rising expectation and demand for political participation in their governance, as it is about the inability of traditional political leaderships to share power.  The traditional power centers in the form of the state and political parties in power lack the capacity to supply good governance, they have insufficient democratic infrastructure. They cannot support the participatory demands of the citizens.

 

Clearly, the current global revolution is creating a world-wide governance crisis, a new demand by citizens of each country to share in political power and participation in decisions that affect their life. The old and still powerful current paradigm contributes to the unequal distribution of wealth while espousing the opposite; it emphasizes noble ideas like poverty reduction for a rapidly growing global population which it cannot deliver.  In fact, poverty may well reflect much more the information gap, accessibility to information, than simply a distribution of income wealth issue. Finally, there may be a knowledge gap which is not bridged by the traditional media and educational institutions to educate the citizens about the emerging new political paradigm involving people power.

 

The new political paradigm shifts the emphasis to people power, personal and political freedom, and a new experiment in political power sharing.  It is interesting to note that the new global political revolution places a primary emphasis on political participation and individual freedom, and not on wealth redistribution and material benefits. What we may really need to redistribute is political power.


 

The Political Realignment Challenge


 

All existing political systems are forced to realign with the global information environment. Some must dramatically transform, some reinvent themselves, and some are forced to create new forms of governance. All need to accommodate the existence of a youthful population, who not only is in the majority but increasingly information connected and informed citizens in general, making new demands. The citizen of today, in any country, is impatient for immediate result and will not wait for the long-term, however, well intentioned solutions.

 

In the past, only business was taken to task for not delivering and meeting customer expectations; now the informed citizens question their government’s performance. Furthermore, the global information platforms and its highways have given interested stakeholders and citizens the power not only to questions the government’s delivery of public goods and services but demand political power, in the form of participation in political decision that affect their life. Citizens want performance from their government, they want results NOW, and they also want to participate in the process of governing at community and national levels.


 

Government Performance Challenge


 

This is a precarious time for political leaders and political parties in power. There is a profound shift from political power to performance power in government. Traditional politics is about getting elected and achieving government control and in most cases keeping the political machinery to stay in power. As a consequence, the winning party, the party in power becomes the government. Hence political elections were about attaining political power and in the more undemocratic countries to use the power of the state to stay in power.  This old paradigm politics is not about how to achieve good governance to serve the people but rather to serve the party. In this sense, it is likely that a nation can be without a real functioning government that delivers outcomes aligned with national and people’s needs.

 

 The global information revolution has shifted the paradigm, from electoral politics to government performance. While electoral politics is necessary, from the informed citizen’s point of view, election politics is the affair of the political parties and is operational politics, it is not of ultimate concern of the citizen. The citizen is less concerned who wins but who delivers. Good governance supersedes party politics

 


A New Look at Coalition Politics


 

Citizens around the world have lost faith in their governments to do the ‘right thing’ by placing the needs of citizens and the country first.  Citizens in most countries have low regard for politicians; they no longer trust their politicians and the political system to deliver what is promised in elections. In authoritarian societies, government could not and would not deliver personal freedom.

 

Consequently, in all nations, the new informed and information connected citizen is demanding direct participation. The one-party only of the authoritarian state and the traditional-two party dominance of the democratic regimes no longer seem to adequately serve the increasingly complex and diverse national interests and communities in a society. Many citizens ‘feel left out’, having little or no voice representing their interests. The old political mindset of a dominant two party political system - imposed from the top - is that the winner gets all the state’s power and the loser gets to play opposition without power.

 

A new political mindset is emerging, that of coalition politics; driven from the bottom by informed and connected citizens. While there are many different definitions of coalition politics,[vii] we want to place an emphasis on coalitions of interests, may they be groups, communities of shared interests; networks of stakeholders with similar interests; or simple citizens sharing similar needs, demands, and values for a better life.  In the most recent North African and Middle East political revolutions that rid themselves of the dominant one-party system, self organizations by citizens as well as groups and communities of interest at the grass root level have become the new political force.

 

The dominant parties have imploded and fragmented into splinter groups; and in some cases this process led to the formation of new political parties. These new parties have as their political purpose not the one-dominant party model, but rather promote inclusivity by joining existing interest groups.

 

In the past it has been argued that only a two party system with one winning party and one opposition party will provide the desired national stability. The new political paradigm of political coalition reasons that the coalition unity, considering the increasing diversity of interests in a society, is the best way of offering the necessary governmental stability and the best way to deliver performance to the people.

 

It is the new demand-driven mindset by the people regarding their government and the capability of the government to deliver, that results in governmental stability. It promises a healthy foundation for nation development and a better government by putting country first above party politics.

 

The global revolution demands not only a new political mindset capable of solving today’s glocalized problems, but bringing together many different interests coalescing for change.[viii] The one-world information environment has created a new frontier that requires also a new political paradigm that allows participation of the 21st century informed citizenry.

 

Conclusion

 

Coalition politics is the politics of today. Many countries of the world have forged coalition of interests, sometimes a coalition is explicit and sometimes it is implicit. Coalition politics is based on inclusion and today the whole world is under the challenge of bringing the politics of inclusion – include everyone, include the poor, include the dispossessed. This is what coalition politics is all about – across race, across class, across jobs.

 

Coalition politics and coalition governments may well be the next evolutional step, a transition from the old Westminster polity to a hybrid that takes critical features of the Washington presidential model.[ix] This new hybrid of coalition government may limit the power of the Prime Minister and dominant political party. Coalition politics require a new political mindset with different use of political power and strategies to achieve good governance. Coalition politics may well be the future. A new political model for good governance in the context of today’s world is yet to be constructed but the foundation is emerging.

 



Endnotes

The insights for this article came from four sources: (1) A seminar entitled The Challenge of Coalition Politics in today’s World – Another Approach to Good Governance, sponsored by the Congress of the People on February 26, 2011; (2) Winston Dookeran and Akhil Malakhi, Leadership and Governance in Small States, Getting Development Right, VDM Verlag, 2008; (3) Mathew Bishop, Coalescing for Change? Novel Coalitions in the UK and Trinidad and Tobago, published in The Round Table, February 2011; Winston Dookeran and Manfred Jantzen, Power, Politics and Performance, A Partnership Approach for the Development of Small States, Pending Publication, Ian Randle Publisher, April 2011.

The ideas from these sources allowed us to provide a framework for coalition politics in global and local context and explore the following topics: The Global Revolution, Glocalization of Citizens Expectations, Demand and Supply of Good Governance, Good Governance Gap, Political Realignment Challenge, Government Performance Power, The Future of Coalition Politics.

 

[1] A seminar entitled The Challenge of Coalition Politics in Today’s World – Another Approach to Good Governance was sponsored by the Congress of the People, Operation Centre, Charlieville, Trinidad and Tobago, on February 26, 2011. It consisted of three sessions dealing with coalition politics in general and the case of Trinidad and Tobago in particular. The seminar was chaired by the author who is a senior advisor and senior lecturer, Business Development Office, University of the West Indies; Session leaders were: Clyde Weatherhead, Director of Research, Congress of the People; Dr. Hamid Ghany, Dean of the Faculty of Social Science, University of the West Indies; Professor Tomothy Shaw, Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies; Winston Dookeran, the political leader of Congress of the People.

[2] Winston Dookeran, the political leader of Congress of the People in his brief concluding remarks on the Politics in the New Frontier, in the above mentioned seminar, challenges his party to provide the leadership for coalition politics and construct the future for Trinidad and Tobago.

[3] It could be argued that this is the case of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

[4] Dookeran & Jantzen, in a forthcoming book Power, Politics, and Performance, A Partnership Approach for the Development of Small States. See Introduction on relationship between power, politics and performance in the context of global information environment. Chapter 1 explores the power of information, the dynamics of a one-world-information environment.

[5] Chapter 1 of the previously mentioned book explores the power of information, the dynamics of a one-world-information environment.

[6] Dookeran & Malaki, Leadership and Governance in Small States, Getting Development Right, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008 in Chapter 3, Politics & Development.

[vii] Clyde Weatherhead, Director of Research, Congress of the People, in the same seminar, sponsored by the Congress of People, in his session, Coalition Politics and the People’s Partnership, after discussing the various definition and current applications of Coalition Partnership as a number of penetrating question including is there a future for Coalition Politics in Trinidad and Tobago and can it become the norm?

[viii] Matthew L. Bishop in a recent article, Coalescing for Change? Novel Coalitions in the UK and Trinidad and Tobago. (The Round Table, Vol. 100, No. 412, 55-63, February 2011) compares the two elections that took place in May 2010 in the context of the Westminster polities in which coalition governments took power and asks whether such coalitions are set to become a regular feature of a more mature Westminster model.

[ix] Dr. Hamid Ghany, Dean of the Faculty of Social Science, University of the West Indies, suggested that the Westminster system may well be evoluting and taking on the content if, not the form of Washington presidential system, by limiting the power of both the Prime Minister and dominant political party. In his session on Coalition Politics and Constitutional Reform he urged that Coalition Politics requires a different political mindset with different use of political power and strategies to achieve good governance.

 

About the Authors:

 

The Honorable Winston Chandarbhan Dookeran has made his mark in the twin republic of Trinidad and Tobago as educator, politician, and public servant. Most passionate about good governance and currently is the political leader of the Congress of the People, a Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance, and has acted as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on several occasions. His distinguished academic career and numerous publications on economic development in the Caribbean left a remarkable impression on the international stage.

 

He graduated with a baccalaureate degree in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Manitoba, Canada; and at the age of 26 received his M.Sc. in Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, United Kingdom. In 1991 he was conferred a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) by the University of Manitoba. His career in Economics has taken him from UWI Lecturer, Central Bank Governor, to Senior Economist with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, to the Executive Board of the Inter-American Development Bank, and Governor of the Caribbean Development Bank. He played a significant role in the formation of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA). Mr. Dookeran’s introduction to politics started at 22 when he was elected President of the University of Manitoba Student Union and upon his return to Trinidad he entered active politics in 1981, where he later assumed the position as Deputy Leader of the National Alliance for Reconstruction, whilst also charting the economic recovery of Trinidad and Tobago as Minister for Planning and Mobilization. In 2002 he returned to active politics where he became a member of the 8th Republican Parliament. Mr. Dookeran repeated this success story in 2010 for the Congress of the People, which is part of the first ever coalition government in Trinidad and Tobago, which was, contrary to the customary modus operandi, formed before the elections; and on May 28, 2010 he was appointed Minister of Finance. Mr. Dookeran has been a long standing advocate for ‘new politics’ – a mantra for good governance; consensus building; direct democracy; nationhood; public integrity; protection of rights, freedom, and dignity; the battle against corruption; and the application of sound and inclusive development which acts to draw people out of dependency.

 

Winston Dookeran is widely published on Caribbean economic development and has contributed articles and interviews on economics, finance, and development to numerous international professional journals. As a result of his keen insights into questions of public policy and the economic challenges of developing countries, he became to be respected throughout the Caribbean as a leading developmental economist. In addition, he has published Choices and Change: Reflections on the Caribbean; The Caribbean Quest: Directions for Structural Reform in a Global Economy (co-editor); Uncertainty, Stability, and Challenges – Fiscal and Monetary Policy in a Small State Perspective. In 2008, together with Akhil Malaki, he published Leadership and Governance in Small States: Getting Development Right. His upcoming book is likely to be his most influential: Power, Politics, and Performance: A Partnership Approach for the Development of Small States.

 

Mr. Dookeran has time and again shown his regard for principles and consensus building and rejection of opportunism. He embodies the new multi-disciplinary statesman of the Caribbean – one who stands for his principles above self-interest.

 

Manfred D. Jantzen is a Senior Advisor and Lecturer at the Business Development Office, the Office of the Principal of the University of the West Indies. He is currently also the Special Advisor to the Minister of Finance, Trinidad and Tobago and a management and leadership coach; working on transforming Trinidad’s Judiciary with Chief Justice Ivor Archie. Dr Jantzen is a founding director of the Foundation for Politics and Leadership. Amongst the many interventions in business and other organisations in Trinidad and Tobago over the last sixteen years, he has helped in transforming a major political party, the United National Congress, which is now in coalition government under the umbrella of the People’s Partnership. Previously, he was the Senior Resident Consultant and Lecturer with the University of the West Indies Institute of Business (1994-2003) and currently is Senior Advisor and Lecturer, attached to the Office the Principal of the University of the West Indies with the Business Development Office. He was instrumental in designing the Master’s programme in the Public Administration in Social Science Faculty for which he now coordinator and advisor.

           

He graduated with a PhD from the University of Wisconsin and is an economic historian by training. He has held university teaching positions in Germany, Italy, and the United States where his last position was Associate Professor of Management at Loyola University of Chicago, United States of America. He has been a human resource manager and been a consultant and business advisor in the United States and the Caribbean and is currently working on a publication entitled Solution Leadership, A Guide to Strategic Change which has formed the basis for an executive leadership programme for the leading Caribbean conglomerate, ANSA McAL and the Strategic Management and Leadership Master’s programme at the University of the West Indies.



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