The Governance Genome: An Analytical Framework for Comparing Systems of Public Governance
Abstract
The article offers an operational synthesis of four theoretical traditions – the Aristotelian typology of regimes, Arrow's impossibility theorem and Condorcet's jury theorem, the theory of legitimacy (Weber, Easton, Lipset), and Metcalfe's network law – into a unified formalized model of governance systems. The central construct is the "governance genome" – an eight-parameter vector that quantitatively describes the informational and managerial properties of a system. The term "genome" is used in this article as a metaphor for a minimally sufficient set of parameters; proper genetic modeling is the subject of subsequent publications. Based on the genome, a multiplicative decision quality function Q and a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for the dynamics of social development S(t) and "error debt" D(t) are derived.
The stationary state D* = (1−ε)·E₀/ε is established analytically. Particular attention is paid to the practical diagnosis of governance systems: proxy indicators for parameter estimation, a diagnostic table, a "horizon test" for evaluating effectiveness depending on the time horizon, six practical rules for reforms, and anti-recommendations are provided. The article contains an empirical illustration using the example of decentralization in Ukraine.
Downloads
References
Aristotle (~350 BCE). Politics. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Hackett Publishing, 1998.
North, D.C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cam-bridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511808678
North, D.C., Wallis, J.J., & Weingast, B.R. (2009). Violence and Social Orders. Cam-bridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0-521-76173-4 NBER Working Paper (попередня версія): https://doi.org/10.3386/w12795
Arrow, K.J. (1951/2012). Social Choice and Individual Values (3rd ed.). Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300186987
Condorcet, M.J.A.C. (1785). Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des déci-sions rendues à la pluralité des voix. Paris: Imprimerie Royale. Digitized: https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-3791
Weber, M. (1922/1978). Economy and Society. Eds. G. Roth & C. Wittich. University of California Press. ISBN: 978-0-520-03500-3 → Книга – DOI не передбачено; рецензія в Cam-bridge: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050700093736
Easton, D. (1965). A Systems Analysis of Political Life. John Wiley & Sons.
Lipset, S.M. (1959). Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 53(1), 69–105. https://doi.org/10.2307/1951731
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J.A. (2012). Why Nations Fail. Crown Business.
Fukuyama, F. (2014). Political Order and Political Decay. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Metcalfe, R.M. (1995). Metcalfe's Law: A Network Becomes More Valuable as It Reaches More Users. Infoworld, 17(40), 53–54.
Briscoe, B., Odlyzko, A., & Tilly, B. (2006). Metcalfe's Law is Wrong. IEEE Spectrum, 43(7), 34–39. https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2006.1653003
Ostrom, V., & Ostrom, E. (1999). Polycentricity. In M. McGinnis (Ed.), Polycentricity and Local Public Economies (pp. 52–74, 75–103). University of Michigan Press.
Arends, H., Brik, T., Herrmann, B., & Roesel, F. (2023). Decentralization and trust in government: Quasi-experimental evidence from Ukraine. Journal of Comparative Economics, 51(4), 1356–1365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.08.002
Arends, H., Brik, T., Herrmann, B., & Roesel, F. (2023). Ukraine's resilience: How an administrative reform boosted social capital and trust in Ukrainian communities. CEPR/VoxEU, 30 August 2023. URL: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ukraines-resilience-how-administrative-reform- boosted-social-capital-and-trust
Keudel, O., & Huss, O. (2023). Polycentric governance in practice: the case of Ukraine's decentralised crisis response during the Russo-Ukrainian war. Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, 39(1), 10–35. https://doi.org/10.1332/25156918Y2023D000000002
Brik, T., & Murtazashvili, J.B. (2022). The source of Ukraine's resilience: How decen-tralized governance brought the country together. Foreign Affairs, 28 June 2022. URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-06-28/source-ukraines-resilience
Bakumenko, V., Bilousova, O., & Bilousov, V. (2020). Principles for evaluating the ef-fectiveness and efficiency of public administration reforms. Public Administration and Regional Development, 7, 286–308. https://doi.org/10.34132/pard2020.07.14
Dakos, V., et al. (2012). Methods for detecting early warnings of critical transitions in time series. PLOS ONE, 7(7), e41010. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0041010
Reason, J. (1990). Human Error. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139062367
Page, S.E. (2007). The Difference. Princeton University Press.
Transparency International. (2025). Corruption Perceptions Index 2024. URL: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024
OECD. (2023). PISA 2022 Results (Volume I). https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en
Coppedge, M., et al. (2024). V-Dem Dataset v14. https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemds24
Guriev, S., & Treisman, D. (2022). Spin Dictators. Princeton University Press.
