The paralysis of modern democracies is often blamed on polarized politics. But there are structural causes for paralysis as well. These structural defects predated and fostered extremism and must be fixed for democracy to work again. Governing sensibly is impossible without a new operating framework activated by responsible humans.
Read MoreFormer EPA General Counsel E. Donald Elliott traces Philip Howard’s and Common Good’s efforts to streamline infrastructure permitting. “Every successful reform needs a sponsor, someone who is committed to seeing it through thick and thin over the years that it takes to get things done,” he writes.
Read MoreComing into the new year, it is vital to come to grips with the disease that most threatens American democracy—nearly universal distrust of its governing institutions. The anger and polarization rivening society are symptoms of distrust.
Read MoreWhat can we do about our country? That’s the question I hear most often. Washington is mired in a kind of trench warfare, with no prospects of forward movement. And Americans today can be divided into two camps: discouraged or angry. Americans are retreating into warring identity groups as extremists demand absolutist solutions to defeat the other side. It’s nighttime in America.
Read MoreWhat can we do about our country? That’s the question I hear most often. Washington is mired in a kind of trench warfare, with no prospects of forward movement. And Americans today can be divided into two camps: discouraged or angry.
Read MoreBy opening the door to a new party, Yang once again reveals solid leadership instincts. But a new movement requires a tougher, more focused platform. A list of centrist do-good reforms is unlikely to elicit the public passion needed to dislodge the current parties. Yang himself is a bold and disarming figure; his party must be as well. A new party needs a clarion call that can galvanize popular support.
Read MorePresident Biden’s breathtaking $5 trillion infrastructure agenda — about $50,000 in debt for each American family — is stalling on broad skepticism on both the goals and means of spending that money. … There’s a deal to be made here: Use this moment to overhaul how Washington spends money.
Read MoreAuthority in America has been broadly replaced by a procedural framework. People with responsibility — including university presidents, principals, public officials and business managers — believe they can't enforce any values unless explicitly set forth in a rule, or can be proved by objective evidence. Who are they to judge?
Read MoreIn Sludge, Sunstein shines a light in the bureaucratic darkness, and, by calling for “sludge audits,” adds his moral authority to the growing demand to clear out the bureaucratic underbrush.
Read MorePublic frustration has boiled over in recent years in populist movements on all sides, including the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Channeling this anger into a coalition for change would provide common ground not only for environmentalists, but parents, caregivers, business leaders, police reformers and many others.
Read MoreSince the 1960s, the main political dividing line in the United States has been over the scope of government. Democrats have called for more public services and more regulation to address current challenges. Republicans have called for de-regulation and fewer services, backed by ample evidence of public failures, inefficiencies, and overreach. But government keeps getting bigger and generally more inefficient, without dealing with past and present needs.
Read MoreWashington is overdue for a spring cleaning. Only Congress has the authority to do this. But neither party has a vision about how, or even whether, to fix broken government. Congressional leaders are so dug in arguing about the goals of government that they have no line of sight to how laws actually work.
Read MoreMost political leaders and reformers see government failures as a management problem. In reality, those failures result from something more like a philosophy problem. That problem does not concern the scope of government or the goals of public policy, but the belief that governing decisions should be guided by prescriptive rules, rather than by human judgment acting within proscriptive boundaries.
Read MoreThe conviction of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd may elevate trust in American justice, but it will do little, by itself, to repair trust in police.
Read MoreBreathtakingly ambitious: That’s how many observers describe the $2 trillion infrastructure proposal unveiled by President Biden last week. It contains scores of programs aimed at updating America’s obsolete infrastructure and addressing climate change.
Read MoreIt’s time to rethink the role of public employee unions in democratic governance. Public union intransigence has contributed to two of the most socially destructive events in the COVID-19 era. Rebuilding the economy after the pandemic ends also will be more difficult if state and local governments have to abide by featherbedding and other artificial union mandates.
Read MorePhilip K. Howard is not surprised. He is a lawyer who thinks there are too many lawyers and too much law, and that both surpluses are encouraged by misbegotten ideas about ideal governance. One such idea is that ideal governance is a sensible aspiration. In the Yale Law Journal (“From Progressivism to Paralysis”), he explains why “Covid-19 is the canary in the bureaucratic mine.”
Read MoreThe Biden administration can reverse this dangerous decline of trust by launching an independent commission to report on why government performs so poorly. By focusing on public operating systems, the commission could address broad discontent in ways that transcend party lines.
Read MoreThe Progressive Movement succeeded in replacing laissez-faire with public oversight of safety and markets. But its vision of neutral administration, in which officials in lab coats mechanically applied law, never reflected the realities and political tradeoffs in most public choices. The result, after fifty years, is public paralysis. In an effort to avoid bad public choices, the operating system precludes good public choices. It must be rebuilt to honor human agency and reinvigorate democratic choices.
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