Political Design Papers

One of the core projects for Manoa futures students, and an unfortunately rare opportunity in current education, is to design an operational political system set roughly 30 years into the futures. To begin, students are to choose the location and size of the community. These places could exist now, like the island of Palau, or the system could be designed for a possible colony on the Moon or Mars (the focus of Dator's undergraduate political design course). Students must start from foundational principles they determine, such as the nature of human beings, a cosmological worldview, and the core values of their society. For example, the US Constitution and governance design is based on a Newtonian worldview and the belief that humans are inherently greedy, power-seeking beings, and so a system of divided and balanced branches of government was the design solution.


Students also examine and are required to address in their designs the six major complaints about governance as it is generally practiced today. These are that government is bureaucratic, patriarchal, undemocratic, violent/murderous, unfuturistic, and repressive.

A tall order and (speaking from experience) an exceedingly challenging project, but one that should be undertaken frequently and at all levels of education and across disciplines.

Below are a selection of final projects from this Spring's Political Design course. These students would love to get feedback on their work.

Ross Chergosky (chergosk@hawaii.edu) forthcoming

Tutii Chilton (tutiic@gmail.com) Palauan Governance Palauan%20Governance.pdf

Shelley Hartling (shelleyhartling@hotmail.com) Synergy synergy.pdf

William Kramer (wkramer@hawaii.edu) Nation of the Horizon
Nation%20of%20the%20Horizon.pdf

Liza Lockard (lockard@hawaii.edu) forthcoming

Sean McNamara (seanmcna@hawaii.edu) Governance Design for the Hawaiian Archipelago sean673final.pdf