The most miserable places on the planet are the ones without competent, accountable and ethical governments. But even in the happier places, too many public institutions weigh heavily on the public they exist to serve and are too slow, unresponsive and attached to opaque processes and rules.
The dominant metaphors used to think about government are equally heavy. We talk of ‘building’ institutions. Consultancies propose elaborate pyramid-like organograms, weighing down on the people at the bottom. The public are more likely to imagine government as a monstrous Leviathan (Hobbes), a mysterious castle (Kafka), or a vast machine, than as a friend or servant.
Ideas of lightness and light provide an alternative and may be more useful for designing the next generation of institutions.
I've written a piece on Substack which explores what that might mean - and how values of lightness, openness, speed and flexibility are already being embedded into new institutions across the world (including the many now being documented for the UNDP’s Istanbul Innovation Days) and how these could be guides for more effective, and likeable, governments in the future.
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