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 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 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 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, [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 [3] It could be argued that this is the case
of [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 [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 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 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 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 Manfred D. Jantzen is a Senior Advisor and Lecturer at the Business
Development Office, the Office of the Principal of the University of the He graduated with a PhD from the [ BWW Society Home Page ] © 2011 The Bibliotheque: World Wide Society |