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11.3 Resilient Governance
11.3.1 Uncertainty and Governance
High levels of uncertainty require a different strategy formulation process that pays
particular attention to its risk and benefit. The command conventional and control
approach fares the worst in such environments. It assumes government agency’s
unilateral imposition of previously determined regulations, which has undergone
rigorous examination of the public decision-making processes. Whenever the environment surrounding the regulation changes, the government agency has to revisit
the configuration of regulations by conducting a “rational” analysis, propose an
alternative set of regulations, and go through the rigorous (and often time consuming) public decision-making processes. Such closed and stringent systems cannot fit
with the rapidly changing environment, leading everyone into a terrible situation.
Mutual-gains policy formulation and other kinds of deliberative processes, however, can also be even more time consuming especially if they have to do the discussion from the scratch every time the situation changes.
Under the high level of uncertainties, it would be quite difficult for the stakeholders to come up with a comprehensive agreement because there are so many question
marks regarding what might happen in the near future. For instance, how far can we
be confident that there will be no severe weather conditions that can harm the production of feedstock? We might know how likely it is, but we can’t no definitely
whether it will happen or not in a foreseeable future. Do we know exactly when new
robust innovations for biofuels production will be available? It is advisable for the
stakeholder group to stay away from debating over these questions because we simply don’t know when it really happens.
An alternative is to shift the focus from decision-making processes to institutional developments while maintaining the principles of mutual-gains and/or deliberative discussions. Under the high level of uncertainty, strategy does not have to be
finalized, but the working group of stakeholders and/or selected members of the
public needs to be set up so that they can reconvene quickly and periodically after
new information or situation comes up.
This means a creation of institutional mechanism for dealing with the everchanging situations. The mechanism must be structured as an open system that
allows flexible reconfigurations of participants and agenda in order to avoid the
capture of the process by a few powerful interest groups.
11 Roadmap for Building Sustainable Strategy Options
11.3 Resilient Governance
11.3.1 Uncertainty and Governance
High levels of uncertainty require a different strategy formulation process that pays
particular attention to its risk and benefit. The command conventional and control
approach fares the worst in such environments. It assumes government agency’s
unilateral imposition of previously determined regulations, which has undergone
rigorous examination of the public decision-making processes. Whenever the environment surrounding the regulation changes, the government agency has to revisit
the configuration of regulations by conducting a “rational” analysis, propose an
alternative set of regulations, and go through the rigorous (and often time consuming) public decision-making processes. Such closed and stringent systems cannot fit
with the rapidly changing environment, leading everyone into a terrible situation.
Mutual-gains policy formulation and other kinds of deliberative processes, however, can also be even more time consuming especially if they have to do the discussion from the scratch every time the situation changes.
Under the high level of uncertainties, it would be quite difficult for the stakeholders to come up with a comprehensive agreement because there are so many question
marks regarding what might happen in the near future. For instance, how far can we
be confident that there will be no severe weather conditions that can harm the production of feedstock? We might know how likely it is, but we can’t no definitely
whether it will happen or not in a foreseeable future. Do we know exactly when new
robust innovations for biofuels production will be available? It is advisable for the
stakeholder group to stay away from debating over these questions because we simply don’t know when it really happens.
An alternative is to shift the focus from decision-making processes to institutional developments while maintaining the principles of mutual-gains and/or deliberative discussions. Under the high level of uncertainty, strategy does not have to be
finalized, but the working group of stakeholders and/or selected members of the
public needs to be set up so that they can reconvene quickly and periodically after
new information or situation comes up.
This means a creation of institutional mechanism for dealing with the everchanging situations. The mechanism must be structured as an open system that
allows flexible reconfigurations of participants and agenda in order to avoid the
capture of the process by a few powerful interest groups.
11 Roadmap for Building Sustainable Strategy Options