Adaptive Governance - Global Networks and Global Challenges

Victor Galaz Stockholm Resilience Centre Stockholm University

non-regimes

Global Networks (very large-scale)

Polycentricity

International Institutions

Three forces that are reshaping the

Planet

The Anthopocene Planetary Boundaries

“The Great Acceleration

Political shifts towards networked forms of governance

Mass-Self Communication

Information Revolution

What are the long term institutional and organizational implications of information

technology in the Anthropocene?

Mass Self-CommunicationDecreasing costs for information

Bubonic Plage, Surat (India)1994

In 1994 the spread of bubonic plaguein the city of Surat deaths of 57people, significant economiclosses, and social and politicaleffects. Over 300,000 peopledeserted the city (in two days!)

Late warnings, information overload and collapse

Development of web crawler GPHIN at Health Canada (1995)

ProMED - moderated e-mail list hosted by the International Society

for Infectious Diseases (1994).

“atypical pneumonia”, “unknown respiratory disease”

PNEUMONIA - CHINA (GUANGDONG): RFI**********************************Date: 10 Feb 2003From: Stephen O. Cunnion, MD, PhD, MPH<cunnion@erols.com>

This morning I received this e-mail and then searched yourarchivesand found nothing that pertained to it. Does anyone knowanythingabout this problem?

"Have you heard of an epidemic in Guangzhou? Anacquaintance of minefrom a teacher's chat room lives there and reports that thehospitals there have been closed and people are dying."

--Stephen O. Cunnion, MD, PhD, MPHInternational Consultants in Health, IncMember ASTM&H, ISTM<cunnion@erols.com>

“All of the sudden, we had a very powerful system that brought in much more information from more countries, and we where able to go to countries confidentially and validate

what was going on, and if they needed help, we provided help. And we provided help by bringing together many different

institutions from around the world that started to work with us.”

Breaking down of the information pyramid

Supernetworks

Collective IntelligenceTwo new phenomena

Supernetworks“Networks of Networks” - interconnected at

multiple levels; information technology plays a key role; complex system

Global supply chain networks, financial networks, knowledge networks and power grids

(Nagurney et al 2006).

There is a bigger "networks of networks" […]. In GOARN you have CDC, MSF and Red Cross. Which you also have in the different coordination groups for meningitis vaccine and yellow fever vaccine. Or in global polio eradication. These are enormous, but some are very small and, you would

bring in the global influenza with laboratories and national influenza centers. But that is the “network of networks” which has no substance, no defined substance. It's there, the function, but in a highly chaotic, very undefined way.

Patrick Drury, GOARN/WHO.

Southern Cone EID Surveillance Network

Asian Rotavirus Surveillance Network

European Centre for Disease Control,

EpiNorth

US-CDC

Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN)over 120 actors and others!

International Institutionsinternational agreements, conventions, rules governing the activities of the members of international society (Young).

Global Networksglobally spanning information sharing and collaboration patterns between organizations, including governmental

and/or non-governmental actors (Galaz 2014).

Polycentric coordinationself-organizing relationship between many centers of

decision-making that are formally independent of each other (Galaz 2014)

Galaz et al 2012 in Ecological Economics

Steering?

David wanted to take the GPHIN business and what WHO was doing, and develop a "network of networks". These would

be highly unformalized, highly unstructured, as chaotic as possible, because if we allowed it to coagulate or set down at any part of the WHO, the apparatus of the organization, […] would start to drag it down […]. All of these rules would just

slow down what was trying to be done.

Patrick Drury, GOARN/WHO

We have the international level, the WHO and the FAO. And at the national level we try to bring together agriculture and

human health ministries. […] group involves academics, and a few key people in the agencies, such as Stephan from the FAO, Pierre […] from the WHO, OIE […]. You have focal points in

the agencies, and you have focal points in NASA, and from 4 or 5 different universities.

Jan Slingerbergh EMPRES/FAO

That network is a little bit loosely defined, but flexible and effective, you know. When there is the need, everybody jumps

in to action. I think the way it works is highly commendable perhaps, because it’s not fringed or wrapped up in an

organizational structure. People just make it work because they know each other. And it’s not a larger group to get lost in, the flexibility is there. I believe this is key to the success.

Wouldn’t it be great if we actually could map these networks?

Hyperlink analysis of major players in EID early warning and response

NOTE: Illustration!

UN Agencies Cluster

US Gov Cluster

WHOFAO

ECDC

Red Cross

ECDC International Red Cross

What makes them work?

Q: What if you are facing some uncertainty of the disease? How do you coordinate your networks?A: Each time we have a suspecting case of fever, or something very wrong, the first thing we do, is that we contact WHO. Immediately. […]. So there is immediate collaboration, so we call them and "send you the sample with the first plane”, or the first car or whatever. So, “please go on with your laboratory and tell us what's going on". That is systematic.

Q: So that is not formalized?No, no, but it's not personal. WHO knows that we will always call them if we are suspecting things or something is very bizarre.

Dan Sermand, MSF

Formal within organization rules, budget, responsibility

between organizations - partnerships, memorandum of understanding, etc

Informal social networks, linked through institutional role

+ personal history

Coordination - Is that it?

Collective Intelligence - large, distributed problem solving through

information and communication technology. Distributed activity is

emergent and collective, rather than orchestrated.

Adhoc Virtual Network for SARS Etiology

13 laboratories in 9 countriesDaily telephone conferences

“The good thing is that it isn’t flu. Then well, what is it?”

ProMED

1994-2006 #25 054 postings (total)

#373 postings included ”Request for information”

How Decreasing Costs of Information Processing and Mass Self-Communication

Support Adaptive Governance

Supernetworks and Collective intelligenceThey build on the combination btw ICT and social

networks and polycentric order.

ocean acidification

climate changemarine biodiversity

Strategic selection of 20 interviews with key policy actors at the international level

Galaz et al. 2011, Ecological Economics

Existing international partnership

Theoretical approach: ‘polycentric

governance’, network theory

Very complex institutional setting

Networks and polycentric

coordination?

Robust international institutions will have a very difficult time to evolve

FAOICES

World BankIUCN

UNEP

WorldFish Centre

UNESCOGlobal Forum on Oceans

Coasts and Islands

UN Ocean

PacFaGPA-MarineICRI

INCOP

Galaz et al. 2011, Ecological Economics

FAO

UNDP

OECD

World Bank

Evolving network, with patterns of information sharing, coordination, and conflict resolution. Affected by changes in complex institutional setting (climate, biodiversity, marine

regimes)

Main conclusions

Evolving coordination patterns, emphasis on information sharing + lobbying -> tension

Highly centralized to 3 core international organizations

Increasing degree of formalization

Negative institutional interactions

Galaz et al. 2011, Ecological Economics

Galaz et al 2012 in Ecological Economics

Global networks International institutions

Earth system “tipping points”

Incentives Interactions

Enforcement

Adaptability

Galaz 2014

THANK YOU

victor.galaz@stockholmresilience.su.se