Week 4 - Sustainable Governance

By the time I logged in for my first PhD class it was crystal clear in my mind. The paradox of undignified housing, poverty penalty and exclusion in life cycle risk management mechanisms has nothing to do with the formula's and mathematics. It lies squarely in resolving operational and social bottlenecks that create barriers of access for especially the urban poor. Less science, Less Numbers, More Sociology, More Governance.

Undertaking Governance has opened my understanding to the missing link in understanding how resources are shared, down to every individual in society, and the goods are made available sustainably!

Politics = The process of who gets what, when and how? (Laswell -1936)

WHO - (Legitimate) Power, Laws

WHAT - Interests (personal, group, public / common good)

HOW - process moral or legal laws.

Politics is then a process to attain political power for utility to achieve good for ALL in society (whether they are personal, group or common goods). However, with the diversity of personal and group goods, the focus, and therefore the entirety of Politics is about how to attain the good society with emphasis on Public Good [squarely my question on affordable housing and basic services]

The challenge in the 'underdeveloped' communities can then be described as a lack of discipline and understanding of the indispensability of the public good.

By building a road (public good), the farmers interest (group good) is strengthened and the desire of the farmer to drive a sleek car (personal good) is supported. The converse may not work. The desire of the farmer to drive a sleek car (personal good) by the rich may lead to the building of a road. But it may not necessarily be optimally designed and mapped to meet the need for a road to transport farm produce for the neighborhood (group need). By extension highly unlikely to meet the need for a road to open access for all (public good).

Politics at the end of the day is about money, infact an extension of the definition is to add the words "a competition about...." before "who gets what, when and how". "How much should be spend on dignified human living?"

However, and this was my big AHA. Diving deeper into the question of politics and subsequent ideas of democracy ("Mob Rule" - Who is going to do it?) and Governance (How do we hold them accountable for what they distribute - "TARPR") - is incomplete if we do not inject the underlying values, ethical and moral acceptance lens to help us think differently e.g. social teaching of the church, UN basic human rights - under the umbrella of THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS. which I call HUMAN COMPASS REFLECTIONS