The procedures through which governments make decisions and take actions (or not take actions) can be very important for many issues, including global catastrophic risk. In other words, while global catastrophic risk ultimately depends on what governments do or don’t do, this can depend heavily on how governments decide what to do or not do. There is no one-size-fits-all best decision procedure for global catastrophic risk; instead, it is important to understand the nuances of how to craft decision procedure on a case-by-case basis. This also holds for decisions and actions not involving governments, but here we’ll focus on governments.
To take an extreme example, a small corner of the research literature on global catastrophic risk debates the merits of consolidating power into a highly centralized world government [1]. On one hand, such a government could enforce a worldwide ban on dangerous technologies, restrict environmental pollution, and stop countries from fighting major wars. On the other hand, the same government could invite a litany of abuses, even becoming a global totalitarian regime so oppressive it would be a catastrophe in its own right, with no external power to outcompete it or keep it in check.
This discussion of centralized world government has largely been an exercise in intellectual theory. The world is not currently consolidating power into a world government, nor is there any indication that it will do so anytime soon. The United Nations does have some global authority, especially via the UN Security Council, but it is sharply limited and held back by intense disagreements among its members. However, the more general matter of how much to centralize power is of very immediate practical relevance, if not at the global scale, then certainly for national and local governments. As we will see, the same also holds for other dimensions of decision procedure besides centralization.
In the United States today, there is a prominent policy debate on government procedure oriented around the concept of abundance. Abundance advocates aim to reform procedures to enable governments to build, permit, incentivize, or otherwise provide an abundance of certain things such as housing or clean energy. One of its core motivations is the catastrophic risk posed by climate change and the accompanying need to redesign government procedures to produce an abundance of climate-friendly infrastructure.
The current abundance conversation is largely focused on specific subsections of US politics, but the issues it raises are quite general and worth considering for policy on global catastrophic risk. And so, while this article interested in the general relationship between government procedures and global catastrophic risk, it takes a closer look at the abundance debate.
A Complex History
Research on abundance tells a story of US political sentiment swinging over the years back and forth between favoring centralization and decentralization [2]. During the early-to-mid 1900s, sentiment favored centralization, culminating in the major public works of the New Deal era. Starting around the 1960s, the public became more concerned about government abuse of power, such as from its actions in the Vietnam war, “urban renewal” projects that built highways through vibrant but vulnerable neighborhoods (including the Cross-Bronx Expressway shown above), and industrial policies so toxic the Cuyahoga River caught fire. This sparked an anti-establishment backlash, changing government procedures to restrict government action and build in more community input.
As I discussed in a recent article, the 1960s also brought a significant decline in public participation in US democracy, with policy advocates shifting from grassroots public mobilization to insider lobbying and litigation. Somehow, the same era brought both a decline in democratic participation and a rise in community input.
Though seemingly contradictory, these two trends are both parts of the same story. For starters, legacy organizations for democratic participation came to be seen as part of the problematic establishment, especially due to their often being segregated by race and gender [3]. Furthermore, those new procedures for community input created good opportunities for professional insider organizations, such as nonprofits and business groups, which had the staff time and skill to navigate the often-arcane input processes. It helped that the anti-establishment sentiment was especially strong among the growing ranks of the college-educated, who were often comfortable leaving behind the more working-class participatory groups in favor of the more professional insider organizations. Finally, the legacy participatory organizations were often themselves structured democratically, with their own elected officers; here I speculate, but participation in these democratically structured organizations may have cultivated some trust in democratic American government, until participation in them declined.
The net effect of all this was a shift in power away from grassroots public mobilization and from government agencies to insider advocacy organizations, especially those advocates seeking to block action.
The legacy of these changes can be felt today. The US struggles to build housing and infrastructure due in large part to extensive procedural hurdles that were initially designed to reign in abuse of power but now serve to block worthwhile projects from getting done. There are other important factors at play, such as zoning laws that forbid high-density housing, but legacy procedures aimed at impeding the abuse of power also play a major role. We now suffer the consequences with high housing costs, a particular shortage of housing in quality transit-friendly neighborhoods, and deteriorating infrastructure that’s failing to address climate change. Abundance advocates might not be right about everything, but they are right about this [4].
Dimensions of Government Procedure
One mistake abundance advocates sometimes make [5] is to frame everything in terms of centralization, whereas three dimensions of government procedure are at play:
1) Centralization: The extent to which decision authority is concentrated within specific government agencies, or within specific individuals in those agencies.
2) Speed: The extent to which decisions can be made quickly. For example, requirements to conduct careful studies or collect community input can slow decisions down.
3) Activeness: The extent to which procedures favor action instead of inaction. Procedures favoring inaction may have many veto points, or require a high degree of consensus to act, or a supermajority, in contrast with procedures in which action happens as long as someone wants it to happen.
At its core, abundance isn’t about centralization per se, but instead is about more action more quickly. This can sometimes be accomplished via centralization, enabling singular government actors to push new projects through to completion, but it can also sometimes be accomplished via decentralization, for example by removing centralized zoning laws that restrict what land owners can build on their lots. For their part, anti-establishment opponents of government abuse of power may favor decentralization, slower speeds, and inaction, while people who just don’t want things to change (e.g., NIMBYs) may just want slow speeds and inaction, and will take whatever degree of centralization would deliver that.
What often goes overlooked is that abuse of power cuts both ways. Yes, centralized government authorities can cause harm by bulldozing highways through neighborhoods inhabited by the most vulnerable residents of the city, but local community groups can also cause harm by blocking new housing in areas that desperately need it. We may be less accustomed to thinking of abuse of power by local community groups, but they do often have the power to block housing projects and that is a power that is commonly abused to the detriment of the broader public. And, because increasing the urban housing supply is an important way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, blocking it also increases global catastrophic risk.
Designing Government Procedures
Given all this, what should government procedures be?
I think the clear answer is that there is no single universal procedure that minimizes the abuse of power and delivers the best results for the public, including for reducing global catastrophic risk. Instead, decision procedures must be designed on a case-by-case basis to balance action and inaction, centralization and decentralization, speed and thoughtfulness, and other factors. For example, transportation and electricity grids may require a more centralized approach because they involve interconnected systems spanning entire regions. In contrast, housing can be more decentralized, with decisions made even on a lot-by-lot basis, though there can still be a role for more centralized housing policy to address issues that aren’t adequately handled locally, such as if local decisions are dominated by NIMBYs [6].
An extreme example is the launch of nuclear weapons. The US and Russia both maintain hair-trigger alert, meaning the weapons can be launched by presidential order as soon as incoming attack is detected. This makes it easier for either side to conduct a retaliatory second-strike, which arguably strengthens deterrence, reducing the probability of intentional nuclear war. However, it also makes it easier for nuclear weapons to be launched in response to false alarms, increasing the probability of inadvertent nuclear war. Whatever the best nuclear weapons launch decision procedure may be, it is clear that it involves issues and factors very different from housing and infrastructure—hence, no single universal government decision procedure for everything.
Ultimately, no procedure can substitute for evaluating the merits of different policies and raising awareness about them. We can have the best decision procedures in the world, but if everyone’s getting the substance of the policy issues wrong, it won’t yield good results. So we still need to analyze global catastrophic risk and have public conversations about it; ditto for other issues. However, decision procedures are still very important for what actually happens, and so they must be an important element of efforts to study and address global catastrophic risk. Likewise, efforts to reform decision procedures should take into account their implications for global catastrophic risk.
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[1] For example Bryan Caplan, The totalitarian threat.
[2] See Marc Dunkelman, Why Nothing Works.
[3] See p.4-5 of Theda Skocpol, Voice and inequality.
[4] I’ve been advocating for more urban housing since 2004. It’s intriguing to see this become a national policy issue. I do have some major concerns with the “abundance agenda”. First, abundance is only good for some things—for example, we should want an abundance of clean energy, but not an abundance of traffic congestion. Second, much of the abundance conversation is targeted narrowly at the US political left (including the factions we call liberals and progressives), whereas the underlying issues are important for everyone across the political spectrum. And third, abundance is sometimes presented as if it should be the primary focus for major politicians and political groups, whereas many important issues are not ultimately about abundance. As political rhetoric, “abundance” seems fine for policy nerds like me, but I doubt it would resonate deeply with wider audiences, as much as I would personally love to see political campaigns talking about urban zoning laws and transmission line permitting procedures.
[5] For example, in Why Nothing Works.
[6] The need for more centralization for transportation and electricity systems was a big takeaway I got from Why Nothing Works, which has detailed descriptions of long-distance electricity line projects stymied by opposition in one particular segment, such as the Massachusetts-to-Quebec NECEC line opposed by Maine, the story of which is also presented here.
Image credit: Famartin
