Topic

Public governance

Commentary

What are syndemics, and why do they matter in health governance?

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how health crises are interconnected with political, social, and economic factors. Syndemic theory explains how overlapping health and social issues, like poverty and violence, worsen each other. Applying this concept to future health governance could improve decision-making by considering broader societal impacts and fostering resilience.

What is the Collingridge dilemma and why is it important for tech policy?

The Collingridge dilemma highlights the challenge of regulating new technologies due to limited early knowledge and entrenched systems later. Experimental governance offers a solution through early, continuous collaboration between stakeholders, fostering transparency and trust. This approach helps co-develop accountable and equitable technologies while addressing societal risks.

Let’s rethink: A vision for digital platforms

Digital platforms have the potential to support meaningful governance and strengthen civil society. By leveraging their precision, transparency, anticipatory abilities, and capacity to incentivize behaviors, platforms can play a central role in addressing societal challenges like climate change and inequality. However, conscious efforts must be made to steer platforms away from solely benefiting businesses and toward empowering citizens, fostering pluralism, and enabling collective action. The next few years are critical in determining how platforms will shape the future of governance and civil society.

The climate crisis is a governance crisis

Governance must evolve to effectively tackle the climate crisis. Current systems, rooted in the industrial era, are inadequate for addressing the scale of transformation required. Empowering individuals, ensuring coherence in climate action, and delivering meaningful policies are essential. Additionally, global collaboration and systemic change are critical for achieving sustainable solutions and addressing the climate emergency.

Towards systemic innovation: how foresight can help organizations transform

Across private and public sectors, key industries such as food production, energy, transportation, communication and materials, all face a series of significant challenges. The sustainability gap is vast, as a result of what we call transformative failure. The solution is transformations that are not only economically viable but also consider…

DLT in public sector: Moving from transparency to accountability

Decentralized Ledger Technologies (DLT) hold a tentative promise for positive public sector transformation. They could improve capabilities to deliver services and answer societal challenges, and thus, increase societal trust. To turn promise into reality, Demos Helsinki is contributing to an EU-funded project called TOKEN. How can Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs)…

Publications

Digitaalisen yhteiskunnan korjausopas – REPAIR-tutkimushankkeen julkaisu

Strategisen tutkimuksen neuvoston rahoittama REPAIR-tutkimushanke käsittelee algoritmisten järjestelmien murtumia. Hankkeen uudessa julkaisussa Digitaalisen yhteiskunnan korjausoppaassa tarkastellaan kuuden tutkimustapauksen ja kahden toimintamallin avulla murtumien vaikutuksia, niiden korjaustyötä sekä mahdollisuuksia oppia niistä.

Towards long-term governance – From future awareness to action

How can countries strengthen their capacity for long-term governance and ensure that future generations are taken into account in decision-making? In this white paper, we highlight ways to promote anticipatory governance based on the views of key Finnish stakeholders. By translating the Finnish experience into a broader context, we aim to provide universally applicable strategies for advancing long-term governance and promoting intergenerational justice.

Generative Shared Intelligence: A direction for governments in the uncertain environment of the late 2020s

The notion of a “polycrisis” has become a defining feature of contemporary governance, and traditional administrative methods are increasingly inadequate. In this publication, Professor Sir Geoff Mulgan’s concept of “Generative Shared Intelligence” offers a model for addressing multidimensional problems in governance, emphasising the need for more flexible and collaborative structures designed for the sole purpose of sharing intelligence.

Projects

South Sudan builds long-term thinking while addressing present needs

Without a shared vision of the future, decisions made today may inadvertently lead us down the most familiar paths, not the right ones. 

Circular Economy Green Deal – a steering instrument for collective action towards circularity

The Circular Economy Green Deal is a novel Finnish steering instrument that catalyses collective action for systemic change towards circularity based on voluntary commitments. Demos Helsinki had the honour of leading the co-creative process that led to the creation of the Circular Economy Green Deal.

KT4D: Fostering democracy through knowledge technologies

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can undermine democracy via the cultural disruptions they create, the power dynamics they shift, their tendency toward opacity, and the speed at which they change. The KT4D project investigates how democracy and civic participation can be facilitated in an era of rapidly changing knowledge technologies — such as AI and big data, thereby mitigating the risks of such technologies and identifying how they can be used to reinforce democratic governance and trust in public institutions.

People

Themes