Locating foresight and participation on the time-power continuum. These polarities combine to produce four quadrants.Democracy is not at risk of being torn apart, but eroded from within – this is the consequence of a global order in which the limits of the neoliberal consensus with its free markets and formal, often centralised governance, has been tested and found wanting.
Naturally, governing requires trade-offs between competing interests. Growing diversity within societies has led to attempts at multiculturalism, pluralism and calls for naïve tolerance, as public leaders attempt to lower the tensions inherent in the competing interests and conflicting norms that have to co-exist in this new normal. These complexities have put the project of a democratic global order under strain and given rise to populisms and reversals of historic integrations and partnerships, in favour of short-term and parochial identity politics. The problems besetting the EU is but one example, and poses the risk of failure of the institutional and policy capacity of states to cope with this brave new world.
While ‘Foresight’ and its methodological base is not a panacea to address all social ills, it does offer a new approach to some of the gordian knots that confront policy-makers. How does one ‘consult one’s constituency’, if it has itself become a plurality of contending voices? How does one plan for the future, when diametrically opposed forces amount to unresolved tensions that make long-term anticipation difficult, if not impossible? Foresight, as an approach to thinking and planning, to policy-making and governance, offers a new start.
