After the Pandemic: Experimental Governance and the Foundational Economy

Kevin Morgan

doi:10.4468/2021.1.05morgan

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to outline the convergence – an intellectual as well as a political convergence – of two concepts that will play a critically important role in fashioning a more inclusive and more sustainable model of development in the post-Covid world. The first concerns the concept of the Foundational Economy, which offers a new lens through which to view and value social and economic activity by highlighting the significance of a range of goods and services that loom large in terms of meeting human needs. The second concerns the concept of Experimental Governance, which offers a multilevel framework in which to understand place-based social innovation, a framework which overcomes the shortcomings of principal-agent models of collective action as well as the binaries associated with top-down versus bottom-up theories of change.

Highlights

COVID-19 has triggered hopes and fears for the post-pandemic world
To re-imagine the world anew we need new concepts, new frames and new values. All three of these requirements converge in the concept of the Foundational Economy, a radically new approach to place-based development
Current discussions about industrial strategy in OECD countries rarely mention the FE, despite the fact that the supply of these services is critical to rising living standards and social wellbeing (Heslop et al, 2019)

Summary

The Foundational Economy1

COVID-19 has triggered hopes and fears for the post-pandemic world. Hopes that a new world is possible; fears that the old world will re-assert itself, albeit with more debt, higher unemployment and greater inequality. □ «Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. To re-imagine the world anew we need new concepts, new frames and new values. All three of these requirements converge in the concept of the Foundational Economy, a radically new approach to place-based development. The FE refers to the basic requirements of civilised life for all citizens irrespective of their income and location It includes material infrastructure – pipes and cables and utility distribution systems for water, electricity, retail banking – and providential services – education, health, food provisioning, dignified eldercare and income maintenance. □ For example, the British Labour MP Rachel Reeves has written about the Everyday Economy: «Researchers at University College London are calling for Universal Basic Services; civil society think-tanks in the UK and the US have championed Community Wealth Building; and the LSE researcher Ian Gough makes a compelling plea for the satisfaction of human needs as the only viable measure for negotiating the trade-offs between climate change, capitalism and human wellbeing» (Reeves, 2018)

Experimental Governance

Findings

The Case of Wales