University of Sussex : Global Studies lecture by Prof Joseph A. Camilleri on Governance in an Era of Transition - 18 November 2010
Abstract
Human evolution indicates a marked tendency to complexification. Important landmarks along the way include: the development of language, agriculture, writing, advanced metalworking, the flowering of a universalist ethic during the Axial Age, and the more recent cultural, scientific, transportation and industrial revolutions that have ushered in the Modern Epoch.
In the current transitional phase, the tendency towards complexification, and especially increased social reflexivity, has reached new heights, with radical implications for governance.
The emerging system of governance is holoreflexive in the sense that data-gathering, analytical and planning functions and capabilities are increasingly required to handle the management of highly interconnected flows which impinge on every sphere of human experience. Holoreflexivity is required to devise responses that surmount the limits of existing (Modern) institutional arrangements.
For some, this transition points to a globalist or globalising ethic – and corresponding institutional project – that more effectively captures the interests of the species as a whole. But we are discovering that the adaptiveness of the whole cannot be advanced at the expense of the well-being and preferences of the parts – the political communities and their respective cultural, ethnic, religious, or civilisational orientations.
In this era of transition we are seeing, perhaps for the first time in human evolution, incipient, often competing and even contradictory attempts to devise a set of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioural responses that can reconcile the needs of the whole with the interests of its constituent parts. This attempted reconciliation, which lies at the heart of the holoreflexive enterprise, calls for a thoroughgoing reconceptualisation of the ‘international’.
Bionote
Prof Joseph A. Camilleri is Professor of International Relations and founding Director of the Centre for Dialogue, La Trobe University.
Recent books include: Worlds in Transition: Evolving Governance Across a Stressed Planet (Edward Elgar 2009), Regionalism in the New Asia Pacific Order (Edward Elgar 2003), and States, Markets and Civil Society in Asia Pacific (Edward Elgar 2000).
Prof Camilleri is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and chairs the Editorial Committee of the scholarly journal Global Change, Peace and Security. He serves on numerous international boards and advisory councils.
He has researched, lectured and given evidence to government and other enquiries on issues of governance, human rights, cultural and religious dialogue, development, environment, and security. He is the recipient of several national and international grants and awards, including the Order of Australia Medal.
On 22 November 2010, Prof Camilleri also spoke on Governance in the Era of Climate Change as part of the Department of International Relations Research in Progress seminar series. The discussant was Jan Selby (Sussex).