Less is More: The Moral Virtue of Policy Minimalism
Journal Title: Journal of Globalization Studies - Year 2011, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
There are many forces that drive hyper-optimism concerning the governments' ability to redesign and reengineer societal systems in individual societies as well as at the global scale. However, societies and the international community are very resistant to deliberate change. So the hyper-optimism in the sphere of societal engineering leads to squandering of scarce resources, especially moral and political capital, that could be used to generate some change if the goals were properly limited and the efforts much focused. All grand designs aiming at jump from the world as it is to a world as it ought to be (according to the particular designer) are doomed to fail. A minimalist approach is much more realistic than the hyper-optimism of progressive ideologies. Minimalism suggests that once security is established and consolidated one can experiment in forming additional layers of cooperation and institutionbuilding. Attention should be paid to various limited efforts that test new approaches and that may lead to beneficial changes in international relations.
Authors and Affiliations
Amitai Etzioni
Keywords
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