A Social Commons Ethos in Public Policy-Making

In the business ethics literature, a commons paradigm orients theorizing toward how civil society can promote collaboration and collectively govern shared resources, and implicates the common good-the ethics of providing social conditions that enable individuals and collectives to thrive. In the context of representative democracies, the shared resources of a nation can be considered commons, yet these resources are governed in a top-down, bureaucratic manner wherein public participation is often limited to voting for political leaders. Such governance, however, can be motivated by values of solidarity and stewardship, and a bottom-up approach to participation, in ways that are consistent with a social commons ethos (Meyer and Hudon in J Bus Ethics 160:277-292, 2019). We employ an inductive methodology focused on successes and possibilities, using data from interviews with 93 policy-makers and national-level government leaders in 5 democratic countries, and observational and archival data. We reveal how governments can operationalize a social commons ethos in decision-making. This approach to governance involves stakeholder engagement that is Broad, Deep, and Continual (BDC). In this model, leaders engage a wide breadth of stakeholders, engage them deeply and meaningfully throughout the decision-making process, and sustain this engagement in a continual manner. Implications for governance of non-governmental bureaucracies are discussed, including the normative and strategic benefits of engaging stakeholders in this manner.