What is the phenomenon of ungoverning?
What is the phenomenon of ungoverning?
A few months before Donald Trump entered the White House, Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead, renowned professors of political science and governance at American universities, Nancy Rosenblum, 80, a professor of ethics and governance at Harvard University, and Russell Muirhead, 60, a politician and head of the governance department at Dartmouth College, USA, published a book titled ‘Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos’.
The word ‘ungoverning’ can be roughly translated as ‘ungovernment’.
The aim of these professors in writing this book was and is to explore how a government can be ungoverned. Just last week, both professors jointly published a detailed article under the same title on the Foreign Affairs website.
Although their intended target is the current U.S. government and Trump himself, the characteristics and features that these two professors define and the introduction of the term ‘ungovernment’ into the political science lexicon for the first time apply to countries where opposition parties and groups neither care about national interests nor the future of their country.
Rosenblum and Muirhead provide comprehensive definitions of ungoverning a government or ungoverning a state.
Although from the perspective of these two analysts, Trump and the Republican Party seek to ungovern the U.S. government, in our country, Iran, there are other groups, parties, and individuals pursuing this policy.
While hopes of lifting sanctions are budding in our country, suddenly extremist groups emerge trying to dry up these buds. In this regard, one must see why their interests lie in the continuation of sanctions or even the continued severance of relations with the U.S.
What happens is the disillusionment of the people, which is the very goal pursued in ungoverning.
In fact, according to Rosenblum and Muirhead, ungoverning exploits the wave of despair created in the functioning of government bureaucracy.
Its goal is not institutional reform but rather de-structuring. Essentially, ungoverning a government takes shape through the deliberate disruption of the usual order among the people.
A clear example can be seen in the issue of the law on modesty and hijab or internet filtering. Other instances can also be cited where these groups, by confronting institutions and popular ideas, attempt to ungovern the government.
Another method these groups use to ungovern the government is attacks on the government’s capacity for efficiency. In fact, through these attacks, they aim to reduce the government’s ability to develop and implement policies that statesmen believe improve national public welfare.
From the perspective of Rosenblum and Muirhead, the directives issued by extremist groups for ungoverning a government or ungoverning a state can include the following:
1. Reduce the existing government’s capacity by diverting and bypassing ministries and institutions.
In this regard, you can look at the economic policies that the government is trying to implement while opposition groups seek to counterattack. The government is trying, for example, to join the FATF because it is a global treaty that even Russia and China are members of, and only Iran and North Korea are excluded from it. However, opposition groups benefiting from Iran’s non-membership in the FATF have launched various oppositions against Iran’s joining without providing convincing reasons. When asked what hefty costs Iran pays for non-membership, they even try to divert this question.
2. Comprehensive attacks on executive experiences and specialized subjects. In this context, just look at the attackers and their chosen subjects. Interestingly, one of these attackers, for example, demanded a debate with the Minister of Economic Affairs regarding the FATF.
They lower the level of debate to such an extent that a specialist feels embarrassed to sit in the debate. What happens in these types of debates is that the non-specialist starts making slogans while the opposing specialist is forced into silence.
3. Comprehensive attacks on routine executive methods. The government is forced to take a series of actions to improve the livelihood of the people, actions that can endanger the interests of influential groups, for example, combating fuel smuggling.
How can it be so easy to steal airplane fuel through two kilometers of piping without influential groups being unaware of it? When the government acts to counter it, opposing groups enter from another angle and attack the government or its head under various pretexts.
4. Making people indifferent to the reduction of government capacity. Extremist groups fear the presence of people everywhere, from elections to supporting the government. Therefore, they try in every way to make people indifferent to the actions taken by the government.
Their actions include reducing the government’s executive capacity. The head of the government promised to lift the filtering, but they prevent its implementation. The government promised to lift the sanctions, but by attacking the government’s foreign policy, they want to prevent subsequent actions.
They try in various ways to set the people against the government by enforcing the law on modesty and hijab.
Ungoverning the government or ungoverning the state has a long history in Iran. Extremist groups, with the crises they create, aim for nothing but ungoverning the government. National interests are not important to them; what matters to them is that the government becomes ungoverned.
If this happens, they have achieved their goal, but ungoverning the government also has severe consequences, including setbacks in development, harder livelihoods, and the loss of Iran’s position in the regional geopolitics, among the risks that could be imposed on the country.
