Meta-Governance for Privacy: Designing Institutional Legitimacy

Abstract

This paper critiques compliance-driven approaches to privacy and AI governance, arguing that current regulatory frameworks are structurally inadequate to address the relational and systemic harms embedded in digital systems. Drawing on the work of Elinor Ostrom, Sheila Jasanoff, and Amartya Sen, the paper advances meta-governance as a civic infrastructure capable of coordinating institutional responsibility, participatory oversight, and democratic legitimacy across actors and systems. It critiques Australia's regulatory paradigm-anchored in penalties, audit cultures, and consent regimes-for reproducing power asymmetries and civic disempowerment. Instead, it proposes a shift from privacy as an individual transaction to privacy as a condition of democratic participation. By integrating commons governance principles, anticipatory ethics, and civic design, the essay argues that true digital trust cannot be legislated through punishment alone. It must be built through institutional coherence, shared responsibility, and the right to be enabled. The paper closes with a call to reimagine privacy governance not as harm containment, but as institutional care-anchored in mutual agency and collective stewardship of our digital lives.

Keywords: meta-governance, privacy governance, civic legitimacy, commons-based institutions, digital infrastructure, participatory oversight, polycentric governance, AI ethics, institutional capability, Australia James Cook University, College of Business, Law and Governance