More-than-human governance experiments in Europe

There is a growing network of people and places exploring and practising how governance and policy design can draw on more-than-human intelligences.

‘More-than-human’ was initially coined by David Abram in his 1997 book The Spell of the Sensuous. The term refers to the animate earth and the impossibility of separating our human- ness from our relationship with it. Our exploration related to governance has been around how we might meaningfully consider our relationship with the living world when taking decisions.

We have undertaken a short exploratory research project to learn who is conducting new governance experiments in Europe to begin to map the field, learn from best practices, and share these findings. We convened a day-long learning exchange in the Netherlands on 18 June 2024 with many of the people involved in the projects that we discovered. This paper synthesises the findings and outcomes.

Key takeaways

While most of the practitioners did not know one another, there was a striking similarity in the language that most were using to describe the work that they’re doing. Sometimes the words or terminologies used were emphasised as being intentionally chosen, often in opposition to commonly used terms in the world of governance. The words and concepts that we noticed coming up over again include: entanglement; ‘living’ documents / bills / contracts; relationships and relationality; protocols, as well as reciprocity and care.

There were three main types of approaches to applying the idea of more-than-human governance in practice, sometimes with an overlap:

• Rights-based;
• Representation-focused, and 
• Artistic.

We identified four key groups we felt were missing from our initial research and discussions:

• Indigenous voices;
• More non-specialists and artists;
• A few critical voices, and
• People using technology in novel ways that reshape our relationship with the living world.

We sense that this is both an emergent and interdisciplinary space. In connecting with people and organisations engaging with this work, it seems that this is not so much a recognised ‘field’ as a community of practice or practices, at an emergent stage. Most of those attending the convening noted that through the event, they had made contact with and learned about work that was unknown to them previously.

There was a sense of solidarity and allyship that those present were keen to lean into.

At the same time, there was also some note of scepticism expressed about whether this should become a ‘field’.

We found that those working on these ideas come from a wide range of disciplines and angles, and are often collaborating with one another across those lines.

Ways forward

We identified numerous opportunities and challenges for the future of this practice. The opportunities largely centre around the possibilities that emerge from a growing number of people who are beginning to become better aware of one another’s work to support and collaborate with each other, with a desire to catalyse it further. The challenges revolve around making these ideas and this work inclusive to a wider array of people and the risk currently posed by it being seen as elitist, niche, or out-of-touch by many people who feel like politics is failing both humans and the natural world. 

Other challenges include the funding needed for further experimentation and evaluation, as well as the tensions raised by the various approaches and that it remains far from obvious how or if one can or should meaningfully involve the more-than-human world in governance.

Five next steps that we feel would be useful both for our own work, and the growing community of practitioners in this space entail:

1. Greater exploration of and conversation with Indigenous voices and wisdoms - in Europe and beyond;
2. Research into past practices, such as medieval animal trials and other practices that are little known today;
3. An exploration of the technology angle, about how AI advances are creating new opportunities for communicating more directly with the living world and the legal and political implications of this trend;
4. An exploration of the principles or foundational frameworks that could be codified into governance practices that could make a shift in the direction of a new relationship between the human and more-than-human - for example, the acknowledgement that humans are not separate from nature.
5. Further spaces for conversation, exploration and sharing - in person and possibly online - with a broader range of constituents. This should include constructive conversations with critics or sceptics of these approaches to lean into the tensions, and sharpen the practices as well as the intellectual reasoning behind them.

What's next?

We welcome further reflections and connections to other work exploring these questions in European contexts, including work that draws inspiration from indigenous or global practices. We will continue to reference further examples on our website. Our hope is that these explorations create new connections and collaborations.

Within DemocracyNext, we hope to continue exploring what these ideas may mean for our own work on democratic innovation. For Arising Quo, this project is part of our strategic learning about signals and opportunities for transformation, which will play into future grantmaking of Arising Quo and possibly that of other wealth holders.

For further background context, DemocracyNext CEO and Founder Claudia Chwalisz wrote a short pre-convening reflection paper on her relationship with nature and the more- than-human world, and its intersection with governance and democracy.

How to cite this paper: 

Chwalisz, Claudia and Reid, Lucy (2024), “More-than-human governance experiments in Europe: Trends, opportunities, and challenges", DemocracyNext.