Politics

Congress (9)
Legislator (15)
Legislature (7)
Parliament (53)
Political science (11)
Politics (52)

Synopsis: Politics:

Political feasibility is an important prerequisite for policy makers'acceptance of FTA conclusions and moulding expert opinions into good conclusions remains an elusive goal. 4. Tales from the frontier The contributions to this session had a fairly common theme in that they focussed on the establishment of databases and the associated data collection,

While on the one hand (over-)optimistic expectations may be important to increase the momentum of a topic in public or political discourse,

This situation indicates that the political setup around an AF project can be rather sensitive

Hidden agendas and political bargaining position cannot be discussed in an open, not to mention public, setting. This holds for private firms as well as for government bodies.

and Practice, Elsevier/John Wiley, New york, 1985.21 Y. Dror, Uncertainty, Coping with it and with political feasibility, in:

Research and Energy in Swedish Politics, Akademilitteratur, Stockholm, 1984.28 K. M. Weber, Foresight and portfolio analysis as complementary elements in anticipatory policy-making, in:

as well as various projects for industrial firms, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Committee for the Future of the Parliament.

as well as the political capital invested in regulatory management systems now established in most OECD countries. Second, there is a growing interest in exploring how regulatory policies can be based more evidence

It introduces, among other things, a clear separation of responsibilities between the EC legislator and the European standards bodies CEN,

the political decision structures and the public administration. Based on the tradition of regulatory impact assessments and foresight exercises, we define regulatory foresight as strategic activity undertaken by governments

'The diversity of the above areas suggests that foresight process impacts should be interpreted through the lenses of epistemology, sociology, political science, management science and organisational theory.

as well as the interaction of the system with the broader socio-technological-economic-political environment. Available online at www. sciencedirect. com Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 539 557 Corresponding author.

and impacts (both direct and indirect) and with the broader socio-technological-economic-political environment.

Changing political circumstances and the turnover of senior foresight managers or members of foresight directorates were mentioned also as factors adversely affecting the positioning of foresight in the policymakkin arena.

which echoed political discussions that were occurring more widely in Sweden at the time, did not manage to attract the same level of publicity

as well as the interaction of the system with the broader socio-technological-economic-political environment. The model presented in Fig. 3a

consultancies) or exploited in political/societal processes for advocating/pursuing certain views or interests (NGOS, trade associations).

'as these policy fields are competing for the same set of scarce political, intellectual, organisational and financial resources);

Thus, it is a major political and policy issue and not only because of the recent enlargements, as it has been issue for a non-negligible part of the EU15,

Socio-technical regimes create advantages for system development as they tend to reduce the costs of knowledge generation and the political costs of decision making 13.

infrastructure planning has to incorporate an explicit political dimension as well as a wide range of actors with diverging interest positions.

The variation of interests and in parallel potential conflicts increases with the consideration of political side effects of more radical solutions 36 as well as with different political and societal situations in context scenarios.

but do embed not explicitly the planning in political decision making processes and are not explicit with regard to different stakeholder preferences 38,42, 44 51.

In the recruitment phase, the decision makers commission supported by the process facilitators a core team of approximately half a dozen representatives from the political decision making bodies

context factors like economic, demographic and settlement development, future political culture and environmental regulations. They select the most influencing

The report of the core team is handed finally over to the political decision makers in a final presentation accompanied by the workshop participants.

Strategic decisions are taken by political delegates who rely on advice from their operators, consulting engineers and regional and national regulatory bodies.

Political actors of the region were keen on developing a perspective for the future of the sanitation system to avoid singular investments,

They assumed that the current political resistance against the merger option would be quite important,

the political decision making process approved this plan that first foresees an intensified collaboration of joint human resource management leading to joint ownership of facilities

Political opposition along the way to a merger was expected but could not consistently be addressed in the conventional planning framework.

The authors'involvement in technology assessments studies commissioned by the Parliament of Finland, development of proactive risk assessment methodologies for different corporate risk management purposes (identiffyin the vulnerability of corporate and process actions, managing the risks in occupational, industrial and environmental safety, managing business risks, etc.),

A systematic and Fig. 2. A systemic framework for methods 10.1 For instance, the TA studies carried out by the US Office of Technology (OTA) in 1974 1995 primarily served to inform Congress

and acting towards the future success and exclusively on the current success. The process begun from very general phenomena of politics, society,

which have political, ecological, social, technological and economical effects in society. 3. 4. Positioning the projects according to some important dimensions Könnölä et al.

i e. the members of the Finnish association of graduate engineers TEK, young people studying at the senior secondary school level, political decision-makers and business decision-makers.

young people studying at the senior secondary school level, political decision-makers, and business decision-makers. The member group of TEK consists of the organisation's elected union representatives, the council members of the board of trustees,

The third group Politicians consists of members of the Finnish Parliament's Committee for the Future, provincial leaders,

Political decision-making takes place in an environment characterized by ambiguity of problems and a multitude of conflicting interests between different stakeholders,

The barometer instrument has become an established point of reference among cabinet members, parliamentarians and politicians. Wide interest in the technology barometer is indicated e g. by numerous articles in newspapers and professional journals.

Despite the political nature of these decision-making processes, the experience gained so far frombarometer clearly indicates that the instrument providing this kind of qualificationsmay influence

The feedback and requests from policy-makers for further information regarding the results of the barometer indicate that there is a call for means of bringing the expertise of the technoscienntifi community to the use and utilization of political decision-makers.

For example, political changes and elections, and also transformations in national innovation policies could be triggers of the new barometer exercise.

The process is linked not to any particular political goal. The results can be put to use for different strategy building activities on different levels

Political and institutional context factors need to be treated with greater care in the future. Making better decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty does

but also political will and more stable institutional settings and organisational capacities to build up trust and experience with adaptive, flexible process formats.

Scenario planning Decision support Political and institutional context Evaluation 1. Introduction Policy-makers and business leaders often face strategic decisions with uncertain future outcomes.

technological, economic, ecological and political trends has become sort of a mainstream practice, too 6. Our analysis underlines the need to treat political context factors

and the institutional embedding of scenario planning with greater care than it has been done so far. Making better decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty requires not only rigorous analysis. Even well-constructed,

if there is no political backing or if relevant specifics of the policy-making process have not been taken into account.

1) endow a dedicated centre to become a source for high quality, timely reports for Congress;

Methods that work well in developing scenarios for small groups, well known to the scenario developers, may not work well in developing scenarios that can be used by large organisations or in broad political debates 37.

Scenario planning can easily clash with established routines of political decision-making which are informed by policy path-dependencies.

The level of political difficulty is higher for these forms of scenario-based decision support, as they touch upon a number of vested interests around policies,

Participants were ask to rate the importance of a number of different success factors (see Fig. 2). Political factors, the level of user-involvement,

which is appointed by Parliament and is the only parliamentary committee specifically dedicated to general future concerns in a member country of the European union,

prepares a statement in response. At the same time, the procedure has included a series of Regional Future Forums.

It is not remarkable to diagnose a limited impact on political decision-making when the governance conditions for scenario planning are developed not rightfully.

in particular because Finland involves a modus of interaction between government and parliament. Several studies point to the need of central coordination and a high political backing, ideally at cabinet level or head of government level,

which require some form of enactment. This can be combined with developing networked, small, flexible, task-oriented, managerial teams in government's executive branch.

However, there is no uniform approach as diverging political and administrative cultures as well as overall traditions and styles of policy-making and administration will heavily influence the design of institutional arrangements.

Whether the intention is to challenge mind-sets of political decision makers or to drive specific decisions

and Wild Cards in Global Politics, Brookings Institution Press, WASHINGTON DC, 2007.38 T. Ling, Decision making in the public sector, in:

Integrating the Environment for Sustainability, Edgar Elgar Publishing, London, 2008, pp. 114 133.42 Scottish government, National Planning Framework 2 SEA Annex to the Environmental Report:

10.1016/j. techfore. 2009.07.013 Contents lists available at Sciencedirect Technological forecasting & Social Change stretching into social, ecological, political and value matters.

Expert or advisory committees are created frequently for political purposes, in Foresight narrow consultation needs to be recognised as a possibility

For inclusivity these three questions are interrelated in social, technical, economic, ecological, political and value/norm (acronym STEEPV) aspects of society.

All foresight has political dimensions simply because it is either agenda setting or is pounced upon as a means of prioritizing activities private and public.

The political machinations that follow Foresight are known well enough to be called‘common ground 'and include the call for sponsors to‘champion'the outcome of Foresight to see its outcomes through the labrynthine political undergrowth to some form of implementation.

Indeed, the requirement for a‘championing department'is now common practice in the UK Government's Foresight activity.

The political view of Foresight was revealed in a short succinct article by The british politician Enoch Powell 8:

The more recent episode surrounding genetically modified organisms (GMO) is a practical example of Powell's view and of political meanderings.

and political agenda has emerged, giving increasing prominence to ecological concerns and to new social movements.

Establish a baseline from what has been attempted to make Foresight programmes more inclusive in recent years The policy (or political) requirements:

so that the study process is credible in the‘political'world of the sponsoring agency or institution.

Foresight sponsors have the task of bridging the outcome into the political world so that they must ensure that inclusivity addresses the influence that the distribution of behavioural styles has on the study's credibility,

The Politics of Expert Advice: Creating, Using and Manipulating Scientific knowledge for Public policy, Edinburgh University Press, 1993.6 J. Stiles, Neural plasticity and cognitive development, Developmental Neuropsychology 18 (2)( 2000) 237 272.7 D

increased political and public scrutiny, and the need to explore and develop recommendations for what one could call good nano-practice.

'which is associated with the inherent characteristics of specific social groups from socioeconnomic cognitive and political perspectives.

and are a central interface between politics and research. Compared with basic funding to universities, the funding for research and innovation councils and targeted research programmes is a more dynamic instrument, suitable for interaction with national science and innovation policy.

and objectives for foresight The rationale for carrying out public foresight exercises is often related to the political goal of increasing economical competitiveness by means such as technological or societal innovation.

Large parts of the science community often associate such terms with administration, bureaucracy, political intervention in science and similar, negatively associated terms,

Traditional alternatives to rational-analytical models of decision processes are political models and anarchical models (e g. the garbage-can and muddling-through models).

Decision-making in organisations is often a result of political negotiation between different interests or powers.

The methods used in this approach to strategy formulation are, among others, stakeholder analyses, networks, negotiations, political games, alliances and power bases in expertise (i e. academic reputation.

Delphi studies and other judgemental methods can be perceived as a systematic way of dealing with political interests,

In many contexts political interests are as legitimate as‘neutral'expectations about future developments. In this perspective the premises for foresight might be that:

The context is not related to any particular understanding of science or technological development but to powers and political interests in the affected areas of science and technology;

The strategies and micro-politics of research programmes can thus play a central role in some cases a key role in the broader strategies and developments of science and research systems.

but the Ministte for Economic and Business affairs through the Energy Authority had overall political responsibility

but rather are a construction of meanings or from political negotiations. There is no clearly defined time horizon in either case.

Upward Government minister, parliamentary politicians Downward Programme Management system operators (PSO actors) Energy production companies Energy-technology companies Scientists Approaches Key scope Science

Foresight processes must be designed to give legitimate room to such political negotiations between interests and powers.

Also for the political entities (Ministries chamber of commerce, etc. more immediate issues prevailed and seemed to be the main focus for them. 6. Foresight impacts Given the wide scope of participation in foresight exercises,

6. 1. Sense-making and the construction of political ownership As the main S&t policy body in Luxembourg,

At the same time, the MCHER also came to understand that choices were now largely political in nature.

and networked character of political decision making and implementtatio (Smits 2002; Smits and Kuhlmann 2004. Initially, the prevailing technocratic and linear process models of policy making (e g. in terms of formulation implementation evaluatiio phases) were replaced by cycle models,

Already in these cycle models, policy learning is seen as an essential ingredient of political governance.

because it implied a serious effort of trying to overcome the strict departmentalisation of political and administrative responsibilities,

and innovation thatwas blessed by the highest political levels. In fact, when the research programme was started at the end of 2004,

but there were less clearly defined political responsibilities in place for dealing with them. As a consequence, they should be addressed by all panels. 3. 3. Viennese RTI strategy goes public:

The process started with a kickoff event(‘opening session')in the City hall with prominent proponents from politics,

it has acquired an official status. The official and political character of the document also has its downsides,

in order to ensure widespread political consensus and avoid the formulation of contentious issues that might put into question the agreement by other councillors.

and explicitly left some of the more controversial long-term issues out (e g. issues of political governance).

One of the reasons for that success must be seen in the close linkages between those implementing the process and the responsible political decision makers.

including social, cognitive and political dimensions. By creating a specific image of young people the project leadership resolved issues of stakeholder interests and futures literacy before they received their contributions.

or a political entity with predefined power or influennc in the project but young people between 14 and 19 years of age.

cognitive and political dimensions we associate with a specific social group. Whereas Fombrun discusses howa company should take care of its own image

The project proposal written by the municipal administrative leadership underlined the powerful position of the political representatives in the vision project:

Thus the resulting visions were defined already as those desired by the political leadership of the municipality of Lundal.

977 the interests of the political representatives, both as contributors to the future pictures and as the ultimate recipients of a vision proposal:

Social-economic, cognitive and political stakeholder image construction The initial justification for involving young people in the vision project

To avoid political discussions about unrealistic use of municipal areas resulting from the young Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 978 S. Jenssen Figure 2. Illustration by German cartoonist

Once we have discussed financial conditions, time and the political premises for such processes, it is difficult to imagine deeper analyses of possible visions.

and students to engage in social and political debate. The municipal leadership suggested that the YPCC could use these future pictures as a basis for their own visions, values and goals.

the future visions were redirected'to being used by the young people themselves, arguably with less political and operative impact.

which they constructed an image of this group as authentic stakeholders regardless of their knowledge or possibilities to influence political decision making.

Political Their future ideas are unstructured basically and non-reflexive The contributions would need narrative structure and other actors'input too fantastic ideas will be erased!

The administrative and political leadership's construction of a specific stakeholder image and the preconditioning of the young people's contributions is a good example of exactly this performative way of exercising rhetoric and representative power in a municipal planning process.

as steering and decision-shaping and of politics as decision-making (Johnston 2002). Foresight as well as governance is seen often as consisting of networking

they are involved in the practical reality of political and social agents competing for the right to represent future developments.

Stakeholder image construction is a political issue in foresight. In the case of Lundal's visioning project,

the contribution of young people eventually mirrored existing political programmes. The final question is:‘‘How could this be different?'

The notions of active citizenship and community involvement have become increasingly promineen in political discussions and policy practices within planning and future oriented governance (Stukas and Dunlap 2002;

Anthropology and the politics of significance. Social Analysis 41, no. 3: 107 38. Jenssen, S. 2007.

In the Parliament, this report is debated extensively by the Committee of the Future which produces a written response to it;

both the Government's report and the Committtee'response are debated then in a plenary session of the Parliament (see, e g.

which has been debated in the Parliament in late 2008.4. Axes of balance in Finnsight Although formal evaluation of Finnsight has been carried out,

Developments in parliamentary technology assessment in Finland. Science and Public policy 28, no. 6: 453 64. Salo, A,

Recently also political science approaches have been advocating the idea that innovation in the environment of the political system needs a corresponding increase in complexity of the political system or

and pursuing political objectives by influencing the environment. If such congruence of structures does not occur,

and their institutional environment asking for institutional change and strategic political action. In an early attempt to explore dependency between field dynamics and Foresight success

-the arena of strategic orientation of research, borne by the political governmental authorities, deals with the elaborating of the vision of the future of the system,

it involves Government and Parliament. -the arena of programming in between the governmental and the research performing actors, deals with (1) translating the objectives of the former in specific scientific priorities

EU Parliament European commission Council (Competitiveness Council) institutional triangle Board of the intergovernmental research institutions (CERN, ESA...

Arenas of governance Foresight objective Priority-setting Networking Building visions Strategic orientation Macro policy priority setting National/EU level stakeholders networks Overall political

(ERA), European commission, Luxembourg, 2008.19 D. Braun, Special issue on‘‘The political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies'',Science and Public policy 35 (4)( 2008.

such as regulatory or political dynamics...S ense-and-respond firms must excel at sensing subtle change earlier

Politics! Regulation! Culture! Consumer behavior! Public opinion! Business processes! Science! Technology. The breadth of scope inherent in the diversity of the categories represents one of the most important strengths of the scanning process.

Politics and philosophy are definitely fair game, but political or philosophical arguments simply waste the group's time.

Lively exchanges of opinion are not uncommon. Frequent calls by the meeting facilitator for new clusters of abstracts or discussion topics are necessary to mine the month's abstracts as thoroughly as possible for signals of change.

or straightforward political lobbying. In the process of generating the list it is likely that the types of information needed to make decisions will also be collected.

An easy option in political terms is to apply prioritisation only to growth in budgets

and a disconnection between the development and application of new technologies and the societal and business issues which are wanted by the public and their political representatives.

and political expediency, combining in an unholy melee, in common with many other policy initiatives. Similar conflicting forces will affect many smaller-scale FTA ACTIVITIES, in private organisations as well as in the policy sphere. 4 DEMATEL=decision making trial and evaluation laboratory, a structural modelling technique;

however, a dozen less-qualified books by political or management gurus and even from countercultural or radical thinkers that are hyped up well beyond their deserts.

Often, something like the STEEPV approach in which people are asked to identify factors and issues under the headings social, technological, economic, environmental, political,

Experts (engineers, designers, social analysts, political actors) are seen as possessing particularly valued-and sometimes privileged knowledge.

but in human societies it has perceptual and physical components infecting matters relating to society, science and technology, economics, ecology, politics and value/norms:

Risk and perceptions of it are closely related to fear making the proper understanding of the real physical nature of risk of prime importance to framing regulations where the politics of fear may intrude irrationally.

and implements regulations in ways that are a political art as much as a science, underlain by the question of equity:

Political confusion has never been far away as the OTA and the PAU have C. Cagnin et al./

/Futures 43 (2011) 279 291 280 both been disbanded under changing political regimes. Most recently, foresight studies have stormed onto the scene to become a global phenomenon.

It explains the involvement of stakeholders in sharing responsibility for the political, economic and juridical decisions in a dialogue process with the political authorities.

Governance and regulatory concepts imply a modified description of what regulation is and how it works, where the regulatory limits of state authority and the potential of society to influence

‘growth'economics that subjugates social, cultural, political and environmental matters towards the consequences of economic growth.

and institutional-political: the interdependencies among the major elements are suggested in Fig. 2. The social response to sustainability,

A Framework for Speculation on The next Thirty-three Years, Macmillan, 1967.8 Lindblom, Politics Markets: The World's Political-Economic system, Basic books, 1977.9 Y. K. Sheng,

What is good governance? United nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (2008.

and Web research guides we are finding less use of the Library of Congress classification system, a system

so for example, James Hanson's presentation to the US Congress in 1988 about possible global warming on the horizon,

political and military region Different environmental abuses Reversal of globalization and growth of anti-globalization India and China create increased demand for petrol and minerals Increased widespread diseases

governance in dealing with critical issues Escalation of terrorism and political instability Increased global unrest related to resource shortage and affordability Nationalist and nativist backlash prevents the world from realising globalization

and response of the US toward China's growth Kyoto protocol full implementation Political resistance to economic globalization and deregulation Rising economies demand for energy, electricity drives modernisation

and moon Rights to robots Energy 9 Russia turns off gas oil for political purposes Solar energy price descants Shift to hydrogen energy Wrong prediction of oil prices by IEA Ecology

materials and food Democratisation of China Sunspot theory of climate change Privatisation criticised more China implodes due to several political conflicts Diverse opinions on environmental issues Geopolitics

Based on experience of formal evaluation of foresight programs, it was claimed that‘‘lack of success had very little to do with the quality of the work that has been done and much more to do with initial and subsequent political positioning''.

Political interventions into this field have many effects within the system, but also various impacts outside the transportation sector.

notwithstanding that political rhetoric tends to feed the impression that risk and uncertainties can be excluded or a least controlled.

a crucial basis for the political decision to realise the project, would have been worsened significantly. A structurally closed method alone, here the CBA, is not able to cope with such a known unknown.

Keywords Delphi method, Environmental politics, Government policy, Scenario planning, Sustainable development, Strategic planning, Forecasting Paper type Case study Introduction Since the 1990s each new Finnish government has prepared a comprehensive foresight report

as they deal with deeply habitual behaviour and complex connections between social, political, environmental and economic factors.

and approved in the government and by Parliament in October 2009. A year after that, the government commissioned an evaluation on the effectiveness of the preparation process that would comment on the general progress of the process as well as the usability of this kind of foresight work in policy planning.

and two external evaluations one being the official statement given by the Committee for the Future in Parliament (2011),

especially in a political context, is understandable. However, it somewhat undermines the very thing one is trying to achieve by futures research methods

kohti va ha pa a sto ista Suomea, Parliament Report by the Committee for the Future, Helsinki (in Finnish.

Dunlop, I. 2009), Club of Rome activities of Australian members, Club of Rome General assembly, 24 october, Amsterdam.

< Back - Next >

Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011