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forging better results through collaboration’

Recent Media

 

Indie Reader, the independent reviewer of self-published books, has given Remagining Government - Part 1 a "4-Star" rating, saying that it "provides a solid view of why people have soured on their leaders and points the way toward how democracy might work better in the future... If there is anything the left and the right can agree upon these days, it is that government isn’t working. Christopher Wilson drives this point home relentlessly in his new book, Re-imagining Government, a broad look at all the reasons our leaders are failing us, and the institutions set up centuries ago to serve people are nowhere near performing the way they should be. See the whole review ( here). Top 20 Best Reviewed Books of October 2018 - IndieReader

 

Speaking at at the Fourteenth Annual “On the OrganizationConference held at Oxford University, 4-6 August 2014, Mr. Wilson said the impact of Internet connectivity on humanity and human organizations will have a significant impact on today's governments. “Having become connected to a world of innumerable differences -- in terms of language, ethnicity, understanding, perspectives, values, beliefs and assumptions – we have created a profound basis for social friction. Today’s fundamental challenge is how to take advantage of those differences to increase human welfare through collective innovation and creatively working together, while mitigating their divisive effects.” 

According to Mr. Wilson this amounts to a fundamental governance question, one which he believes will inevitably and radically transform our governing institutions. “While this connectivity has dramatically increased social complexity and the potential for social disorder, our governance models have not kept pace.

That said, if the Internet is making the old governance model obsolete, what will take its place? To me it seems that as government evolves, in many ways it must begin to resemble the Internet itself -- connected, networked, open, inclusive, permissionless, facilitative, collaborative, trusted, learning, innovative and adaptive – becoming a platform for human cooperation.”

He spoke of the challenges to public management and leadership and tried to identify the organizational frameworks, skills, and mechanisms that would be needed to support a new model of government driven by collaboration, participation and stewardship. In particular, “we will need to explore the fundamental social problem of distributed governance identified long ago by Hayek -- the problem of the utilization of knowledge, resources or power which are not given to anyone in their totality.”

 

Reality Bites: Picking up the Clerk’s Collaboration Challenge, Canadian Government Executive, December 2012

 

Nova Scotia decision to eliminate ‘minority’ ridings headed for legal challenge, Kathryn Blaze Carlson, The National Post, Dec 9, 2012

 

The Nova Scotia government is headed for a legal challenge over last week’s decision to stamp out minority ridings that aim to ensure Acadian and black representation in favour of population-based ridings, provoking discussion around whether ethnically based districting has any place in today’s political landscape — there or anywhere. The ridings are believed to be the only such seats in Canada, but by abolishing them the provincial government would be only partway down the path toward shedding its special treatment of minorities in elections.  I’m surprised those kinds of districts still exist,” said Christopher Wilson, a senior research fellow with the University of Ottawa’s Centre on Governance. “Our governance process has evolved over time … In this day and age, we just wouldn’t do that.” Mr. Wilson contended that the practice divides Canadians along bloodlines rather than uniting them around common social, political or economic interests.

 

"Liberals abdicating legitimate policy space for a popularity contest, a political version of reality TV", The Hill Times, 19 November 2012

 

 

last updated 1 November 2018