Decentralisation
Tofflers Add A New Wave

By Mukti Rijal

THE world today is changing rapidly. New ideas and concepts have supplanted the traditional pattern of thinking. We have already entered a new millennium. The new century is set to witness colossal changes in political frontiers. In fact, the shifts occurred in 1990s have brought in a wave of transformation. The changes have created confusions and many uncertainties as well. Newt Gingrich an intelligent US politicians gives a portrayal of the consequential changes facing the world saying "Politicians, columnists and academics all seem confused by the scale of change.’’

Gingrich has been an admirer of the futurologist as Alvin and Heidi Tofflers. Tofflers wrote important books, which have been read widely and commented even critically. The most thoughtful books they authored are the Future Shock and the Third Wave. Future Shock called attention to the acceleration of change that was threatening to overwhelm people everywhere. They analysed the change that often disoriented individuals, business communities and governments. In the Third Wave, the Tofflers placed the information revolution in historical perspective. They, according to Gingrich, correctly understand that development and distribution of information has now become the central productivity and power activity of human race.

Tofflers have brought out a new book titled ‘Creating a New Civilization’ in which they have enough to shed light on the politics, democracy and decentralization. Democracy and decentralization are buzzword in the world today. According to Tofflers, the Third Wave revolution has a big share of its impact in moulding politics of the contemporary times the diversity and complexity of Third Wave socirty blow the circuits of the highly centralized organizations. Third Wave organizations push as many decisions as possible down from the top and out to the periphery.

Tofflers are an ardent advocate of decentralization and diffusion of decision-making locus and power. He writes "To cure today’s decision logjam, resulting from institutional overload, we need to divide up the decisions and reallocate them-sharing them more widely and switching the site of decision making as the problems themselves require’’. The institutions of government must correlate with the structure of economy, the information system and other features of the civilization. Today we are witnessing a fundamental decentralization and regionalism of production and economic activity. We are undergoing a fundamental demassification of communications as the power of central network wanes. We are seeing a stunning proliferation of cable, cassette, computer and private electronic mail system all pushing in the decentralized direction.

According to Tofflers, the issue is not decentralization opposed to the problem of centralization. The issue is rational allocation of decision making in a system that has overstressed centralization to the point at which new information flows are swamping the central decision-makers. Tofflers in their book Creating a new Civilization caution: "Political decentralization is no guarantee of democracy’’. But they add "There is no possibility of restoring sense, order and management efficiency to many governments without a substantial devolution of central power. We need to divide the decision load and shift a significant part of it downward.’’ Toffler plead for a widest possible debate over the need for a new political system attuned to the needs of a Third Wave civilization. No one knows in detail that what the future holds or what will work best in a Third Wave society. For this reason we should think not of a singular massive reorganization roof a single revolutionary or cataclysmic change imposed from the top. We should think of thousands of conscious, decentralized experiments that permit us to test new models of political decision making at local and regional levels. In this respect Tofflers caution for the benefit of the present day politician. The sooner we begin to design alternative political institutions based on the three principles as minority power, semidirect democracy and decision division the better our chances are for peaceful transition. Tofflers add "If ther is the blind attmpt to block such changes and defend political obsolescence there is possibility of bloodshed’’ .

In Nepal, we have embarked upon the process of decentralization of power. However, the strategy relating to decentralization is not formulated. Flexibility and diversity is the heart and soul of decentralization and devoution on of power. Decentralization cannot be advanced by relying on the traditional and worn out institutional basis. We should think of the challenges of new century and create flexible and decentralized institutions responsive to new situations.

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