The Case for Co-Governance
Co-governance is a collection of participatory models and practices in which government and communities work together through formal and informal structures to make collective policy decisions, co-create programs to meet community needs, and make sure those policies and programs are implemented effectively.
With co-governance, community members are not solely asked for feedback or input after decisions are made. They are partners in defining problems, setting priorities, allocating resources, and establishing systems of accountability.
When rooted in racial justice, co-governance centers a systemic analysis of the problem and its racialized root causes and seeks to grow the leadership and power of people who are most harmed by structural racism and systems of inequity.
Co-governance can take many forms across contexts, including executive and legislative branches of government. A few familiar examples include:
- Civic assemblies
- Participatory budgeting
- Community oversight boards
- Co-enforcement models
What is the case for co-governance?
- Co-Governance Combats Authoritarianism: Authoritarianism is enabled by an environment that erodes the relationships, institutions, and shared commitments that democratic societies rely on. Co-governance is a direct antidote to this unraveling. By creating structured opportunities for communities to engage in civic solutioning, deepen political and systems knowledge, build durable and accountable organizations, and strengthen their commitment to mutuality, co-governance replenishes the social infrastructure that democracy depends on.
- Co-Governance Builds Civic Trust: Millions of people, particularly those who have been historically excluded and harmed, have concluded that government cannot and will not work for people like them. Repair of this kind of broken trust requires more than changed outcomes; it requires a change in the way we get to those outcomes. Co-governance offers a different pathway by honoring the social contract more fully.
- Co-Governance Helps Communities of Color Build Power: Racial equity is not achievable through representation alone. Co-governance can create structures that bring more people impacted by structural racism into genuine partnership with governing institutions as co-architects of policy and practice solutions, not token voices.
- Co-Governance Delivers Better Outcomes for Everyone: Co-governance works practically, measurably, and durably. When communities are genuine partners in designing and implementing policy, the results are more responsive, effective, and resilient than what top-down governance produces alone. Co-governance helps institutional leaders and public agencies develop stronger policies, make better budget choices, improve implementation, and course-correct when things don’t go as planned.
- Co-Governance is Proven: History and Practice Show it Works: Co-governance is not a utopian aspiration. It has deep roots in human political history and is being practiced with measurable success in contexts around the world and across the United States. Indigenous governance traditions have long embodied principles of shared decision-making and relational accountability that contemporary co-governance frameworks draw upon and must honor. Co-governance is not one-size-fits-all. Its forms must be adapted to the specific contexts, histories, and communities where it takes root.
- Co-Governance Builds Legitimacy by Making Democracy Something You Do, Not Just Something You Receive: When people feel that the political system is not designed for them and believe the outcome is determined before they arrive, they disengage. Research and lived experience consistently confirm that people who have experienced this kind of civic trauma do not simply need to see different results. They need to experience a different process to know that the change is real. Co-governance creates visible, recurring evidence that participation yields real influence. Over time, this transforms political identity. People move from understanding themselves as subjects acted upon by government to citizens who act, shape, and share ownership of what the nation produces.
