Fiducial Governance

If we are to tackle the pressing problems of governance effectively in the new millennium, we need to reconsider the roles that heads of state could play in a form of politics suited to this new era. Such politics should be aimed at strengthening the trust that the citizenry places on those in public authority. To realize such politics, constitutional designers will need to continually shuttle between the levels of theory and practice. In this essay, the author attempts to construct an appropriate theoretical framework. In companion works, the author and his colleagues attempt to work within this framework in the development of reform proposals in particular regimes. A fiducial form of governance and politics will allow the restoration of a numinous space at the center of public life, but in the emerging state, this numinous space will have to be tightly constrained by norms of democratic legitimacy. The form of politics that will be required will not supplant the familiar partisan form that will continue to be preponderant in democratic regimes, but it will discipline this more familiar form. Some of the new semipresidential regimes are beginning to show ways in which this new form of governance might work. In particular, as leaders of this new dimension of democratic politics, heads of state could play a corrective role and could be supported in this activity by councils of state, heading up appropriately recognized monitory branches of governance. The emergence of a network of councils of state of this nature could open opportunities for more effective global governance.