Shared Values, Principles, and Norms
Overlapping voluntary consensus of all actors under the incompletely theorized agreement
WHAT IS IT?
Values, principles, and norms need to be shared to establish and maintain SHG. Shared means that actors agree on these values, principles, and norms in their genuine overlapping consensus. In health governance, values are priorities that unify diverse actors toward common directions. Examples of shared values are justice, equality, and fairness. Principles serve as guidelines or rules directing us towards common goals. Values and principles serve as "focal points" and "coalition glue" holding actors together in working towards common goals. Norms are socially reinforced behaviors and practices, which provide shared understanding for actors to stick to their common goals. The Health Capability Paradigm and Provincial Globalism are health justice theories providing shared values, principles, and norms to support effectuating SHG.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Shared Values, Principles, and Norms serve as key social motivations for actors to cooperate. Social motivations are types of motivations that prompt people’s actions by socializing them into group ties, trust with values. This is contrasted with the instrumental motivations of rewards and punishments. The empirical evidence demonstrates that social motivations are as effective as instrumental motivations, if not more. Having shared values, principles and norms will motivate people to align themselves to the broader group’s objective. As specified in the principle of conditioning for cooperation, humans do not always cooperate – not because of human nature, but because the right conditions for cooperation are lacking. Creating and maintaining health requires the robust, genuine commitment of and to each actor, which requires social motivations. The social motivations of shared values, principles, and norms play a role in establishing such conditions for cooperation.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
All actors involved in health governance share values, principles, and norms that they together have constructed. At the global level, they are contained in Global Health Constitution (see the application section). The shared values, principles, and norms reflect the overlapping consensus among all involved actors. When some values, principles, or norms need revision, the constitution will be modified accordingly.
HOW DO WE DO IT?
The voluntary overlapping consensus of all actors is the foundation for shared values, principles, and norms. The first step is to start acknowledging the values, principles, and norms that could be shared in health governance. There is no need to reach a complete agreement at all levels. Using the concept of Incompletely Theorized Agreements (a principle in the Health Capability Paradigm (HCP) and Provincial Globalism (PG)), we can value overlapping points and move forward from those points of consensus despite the presence of some disagreements. The important thing is to acknowledge the overlaps for all the involved actors as shared and valuable in collective governance.