EFFECTIVE OR INCLUSIVE DECISION-MAKING? NORMATIVE AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE GOVERNANCE TRADE-OFFS IN PLANETARY DEFENSE
Abstract
As in other areas of governance, the format of the decision-making over carrying out a planetary defense mission will have to choose between effectivity and inclusivity. The way this trade-off is addressed has many implications.
Both inclusivity and effectivity carry their own sets of benefits and negatives, which have been well-explored by social sciences on different governance levels, global, regional, state or, local. A smaller amount of actors can decide quicker and technical expertise and scientific authority has more importance for the successful mission than popular opinion.
Yet, exclusive decision-making comes at a cost of ignoring or unintentionally misrepresenting the interests of the excluded, especially in issues concerned with international security, and lowering the diversity of opinions as a source of better problem-solving. This paper shines a light on what exactly does this trade-off between effectivity and inclusivity in international decision-making over planetary defense look like.
In this attempt, it builds on the author's participation in the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), specifically within the Work Plan Activity 5.8. To unpack the trade-off specific to planetary defense, the paper looks at the governance dilemma between effectivity and inclusivity from both normative and empirical approaches, in order to provide both prescriptive and descriptive points of view.
From the normative standpoint, we deploy a context-based approach developed by international theorists Pietro Maffettone and Luke Ulaş. This context-based framework analyzes factors of issue criticality, motivational landscape, and institutional development of the governance area to offer the most suitable trade-off.
The empirical approach analyzes global preferences between effective and inclusive governance. Specifically, we evaluate datasets from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) database (2017-2020) to provide a sociological analysis of global governance preferences from across of 80 countries.
The paper is organized as follows. Firstly, it introduces the theoretical background of the context-based approach.
The second part focuses on the normative evaluation. It evaluates the three factors in the case of planetary defense, its time-sensitive nature (criticality), voluntary format (open membership of SMPAG) and degree of institutional development (existing United Nations, IAWN, and SMPAG, and other international frameworks for planetary defense), and reflects them in the background of recent global governance developments (pandemic effect, rise in space activities, power rivalry).
The third part is based on data analysis of trade-off preferences for global governance from the WVS data, providing an empirical evaluation as a way to balance the subjective normative approach. Lastly, both approaches are summarized and synthesized to offer a comprehensive overview of the trade-off between effective and inclusive decision-making in planetary defense, as an important global governance issue affecting the way a decision to act is made.