Governance
What makes a state actually work, when should it step in to regulate, and how does it hold together under strain? Confucius, Hannah Arendt, Elinor Ostrom and Ibn Khaldun answer from four very different traditions, separated by centuries. They rarely meet in the middle. Read on to see where they divide.
- Debates
- 49
- Council voices
- 42
- Last debated
- 1 October 2026
The council in action
What would they do about governance?
Each thinker’s concrete moves, drawn straight from their debates.
HA
Hannah Arendt
Explore Arendt →- Protect the institutional press as a guarantor of shared factual reality in democratic politics.Was Trump's approach to governance sound?
- Protect collective self-governance practices continuously during wartime; do not defer them until after the guns stop.During wartime, should a nation's political discourse give greater prominence to protecting cultural and democratic institutions alongside military defense, rather than letting military priorities dominate the conversation?
- Prosecute the dismissal of federal prosecutors as institutional hollowing, not routine personnel action.Do Trump's policies and approach to government pose a threat to American democratic institutions?
HS
Helmut Schmidt
Explore Schmidt →- Create regulatory frameworks for AI systems before capabilities mature beyond democratic control.Should AI be regulated?
- Build integrated information systems linking federal, state, and European institutional levels.How can Western democracies reduce bureaucracy?
- Identify and publicly defend independent fiscal institutions against party and coalition pressure to dismantle them.How can democracies govern for the long term instead of the next election?
EO
Elinor Ostrom
Explore Ostrom →- Build AI governance institutions at multiple scales, incorporating mandatory participation by communities living under the systems.Is AI going to kill us all?
- Apply graduated sanctions to AI developers who race ahead of collective agreements, mirroring proven commons governance structures.Is AI going to kill us all?
- Replace external oversight bodies lacking user participation with locally accountable, user-governed data institutions.With an increasing grip of technology and state surveillance, how can a “Brave New World” scenario be avoided?
IK
Ibn Khaldun
Explore Khaldun →- Redirect coalition solidarity toward building state cohesion rather than spending it against cooperative institutions.Was Trump's approach to governance sound?
- Treat the populist movement's cohesion as thinner than it appears; probe its internal fractures before conceding institutional collapse.Do Trump's policies and approach to government pose a threat to American democratic institutions?
- Invest in shared rural institutions that rebuild asabiyya before scarcity dissolves collective will.What happens if there are fewer and fewer farmers and war breaks out, causing food to become scarce?
AS
Amartya Sen
Explore Sen →- Measure AI governance success by capability losses suffered by the least advantaged, not by aggregate safety metrics.Is AI going to kill us all?
- Refuse policies that reduce a person to a single identity; fund civic institutions that reinforce multiple, overlapping affiliations.How should the German government deal with regular terrorist attacks by muslim immigrants?
- Fund independent institutions that translate slow, dispersed harms like pension debt into visible, citizen-facing information.Can democracy still solve long-term problems?
Browse by topic
Recurring dilemmas
Institutions & the state
28 debatesCan the machinery of the state still deliver, and how should it be reformed when it cannot?
- Is AI going to kill us all?
- How can democracies govern for the long term instead of the next election?
- What happens if there are fewer and fewer farmers and war breaks out, causing food to become scarce?
- Is NAR movement a serious threat to democracy
- Can democracy still solve long-term problems?
- Governments struggle to think beyond the next election, how to change that?
Regulation & its limits
12 debatesWhen should the state step in to regulate, and when does it overreach?
- Is AI going to kill us all?
- How can the EU benefit from the US-China AI race?
- How can Europe develop AI capabilities while reducing its dependence on the US?
- Can capitalism survive an AI-driven economy?
- Should AI be regulated?
- How can the EU reduce its dependency on US and Chinese AI?
Governing in hard times
4 debatesHow should institutions hold up under war, crisis and deep division?
- Is NAR movement a serious threat to democracy
- During wartime, should a nation's political discourse give greater prominence to protecting cultural and democratic institutions alongside military defense, rather than letting military priorities dominate the conversation?
- What actions must be taken today to ensure the future of next generations?
- How do we strengthen democracy?
Related themes