With the pace of change accelerating and technologies growing to global scale more rapidly than ever before, and with those emerging technologies carrying political implications, interest in more agile approaches to policy making appears to be growing. Both a recent commentary in LiveMint and a white paper from the World Economic Forum advocate agile governance.
Although the concept of agile governance is still evolving, it includes approaches such as systems thinking and design thinking as ways to respond to the challenges of governing amidst the rapid technological changes that characterize the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In addition to embracing agile principles, agile governance includes non-governmental entities in the policy making process.
Examples of agile governance approaches include policy labs, regulatory sandboxes, using new technologies in the governance process, promoting governance innovation, crowdsourced policy-making, collaboration between regulators and innovators, public-private data sharing, and direct representation in governance. Ideas for involving non-governmental entities include industry self-regulation, collaborative governance ecosystems, and the development of ethical principals by technology leaders.
From the perspective of research labs and centers, the prospect of agile governance approaches suggests new ways to communicate with and participate in the policy making community. Instead of just issuing technical reports and papers, there may be new avenues for more fulsome participation and idea sharing. I have previously suggested ideas for automating policy and automating educational practice and building on these could be fruitful. Of course, labs will need to develop the capacities and the talent to engage in these new more agile ways.
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