Workshop and Discussion on Children of a Modest Star: Governing in the Planetary Age

Location: Virtual

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From pandemic management to climate change, the nation-state is ill-equipped to manage the underlying causes of planetary-scale disruptions and the consequences for local communities. This failure of states to govern effectively in turn produces a crisis of legitimacy. Solving these twin crises requires a fundamental reimagining and restructuring of our governing institutions. In this talk we will argue for allocating governance authority to the smallest scale institutions that can effectively manage a challenge so that local issues are addressed by local institutions and planet-wide issues are addressed by planetary institutions. Drawing on the number of disciplines, we call this new governance architecture planetary subsidiarity, and suggest how it could help resolve numerous planetary challenges.

The event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life, the Berggruen Institute, the USC Spatial Sciences Institute, USC Department of History, and the USC Spatial History Research Group.