NPC Working Paper on Relational Governance as an Approach to State Reconstruction - A Case Study of the Presidential Climate Commission 2023

“We will undertake our just transition in a way that opens up the possibility of new investments, new industrialisation and that, above all, creates new jobs. The Presidential Climate Commission is guiding much of this work, and, in doing so, building a new model for inclusive and collective decision making, incorporating the individuals, workers, and communities that are most affected in the transition.” (The Presidency, 2023) This study of the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) was undertaken in order to better understand this “new model for inclusive and collective decision making”. It has revealed the dynamics of collaborative decision making across a diverse polity, the responses of key state actors and what agency for change looks like in practice. This study explores how the PCC enacts its mandate to facilitate a national social consensus on a Just Transition, as well as provide expert knowledge to plan and coordinate this massive national project. We are less interested in policy content of the work of the PCC – namely the Just Transition – and more interested in the governance modalities that the PCC has managed to pioneer. We are of the view that this is just one example of a number of initiatives that point the way forward beyond the ‘wasted nine years’ of state capture that has left many of our institutions more fragile, more ineffective and less able to respond to growing complexity (Callaghan, Foley & Swilling, 2021). Indeed, following on from this case study, our aim is to examine the reconstruction of state agency like SARS, the governance arrangements pioneered by intermediary institution like PPGI and the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership (EDP), and a SOE like the DBSA. This not about documenting ‘good practice’ that must be emulated. Rather, it is documenting learning practices that have resulted in positive outcomes that are suggestive of the relational governance approaches that will help rebuild pot-state capture institutions. We make the case for relational governance as an approach that addresses growing institutional complexity and a loss of state capability in South Africa but also elsewhere in the world (Andrews et al, 2017). Governments will need to ensure that state institutions collaborate with each other via innovative partnerships that include diverse sectors of society.