On Collaborative Governance

Where does collaborative governance fit within the sprawling spectrum of models for structuring collective action? Taxonomy is among the most instinctive, and the most treacherous, of human activities. Both the task itself, and its hazards, may be most visible on taxonomy's home turf of biology.

Consider, for example, the problem of classifying furry herbivores with longish ears, a hopping gait, impressive fecundity, and anxious dispositions. The description holds for rabbits, hares, coneys, pikas, African hyraxes, and (less precisely) for kangaroos, wallabies, and a number of other animals. Should we consider this collection to be an integral category, or simply as disparate instances of convergent evolution toward what is, after all, a pretty sensible design for creatures a little ways down the food chain? And if it is a distinctive class, what niche does it fill within the animal kingdom? The ancient Hebrews lumped rabbits with camels, as ruminants with uncloven feet and hence not kosher. 1 Linnaeus, the father of modern biology, categorized rabbits and their ilk with rodents, based on similarities of dentition and diet. In the 20 th century the distinguished taxonomist George Gaylord Simpson also linked rabbits and rodents, though he conceded that this designation was “permitted by our ignorance rather than sustained by our knowledge.” 2 Amherst biologist Albert E. Wood framed one of the more plaintive titles in the hard sciences for his mid-century Evolution article "What, If Anything, Is a Rabbit?" 3 Many of Wood's colleagues took up his question in subsequent decades, with inconclusive results. (Only with the advent of DNA analysis did scientists learn that rabbits are less related to rodents than they are to whales, and share recent ancestry with the primates. 4 The rabbit turns out to be far removed from the squirrel, in other words, but a rather close cousin to you.)