Governance and Public Management

Strategic Foundations for Volatile Times

Charles Conteh, Thomas J. Greitens, David K. Jesuit, Ian Roberge

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781134496884
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The key difference between success and failure for most governance systems is adaptation, specifically the ability to resolve the existing social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges that constrain adaptation. Local, regional and national systems differ in how they are designed to organize effective participation and create innovative ideas for missions, goals, strategies and actions. They also differ in how they build the effective coalitions needed to adopt, guide and protect strategies and actions during implementation, and how to build competence and knowledge to sustain implementation.

This book presents the strategic foundations for government's role in fostering and adapting to societal transformation in a volatile world. It shifts the focus of the discipline from an overtly retrospective analysis to a prospective analysis, incorporating the role of foresight techniques and instruments. Above all, it stimulates debate about the practical implications of governance as an emergent future-oriented framework of public management.

This challenging book aims to facilitate dialogue and discussion between academics and practitioners, and encourage advanced students to take a new perspective on Public Management during these volatile times.

Part I

Developing prospective in public management

2 Foresight

Transforming government

Ian Roberge

Introduction

Foresight has developed over the last 50 years as a full-fledged field of study. Foresight emphasizes the study of futures extrapolated from current trends and prospects. Projects provide insight into possibilities years ahead so that action can be taken now to help attain the desired future. Foresight is not predictive; rather, it provides actionable intelligence for governments to improve decision making and policy choices.

Yet, public administration scholars have paid little attention to foresight, even though governments around the world make use of it to varying degrees. There are many examples of how governments use foresight and of its potential worth (Canada, see Roberge and Dinning 2013; Finland and Singapore, see Kuosa 2011; Netherlands, see Habegger 2010; at the local level, see Molin 2012 on Lyon [France]). The United States’ National Intelligence Council regularly considers the future in its global trends reports (National Intelligence Council 2012). The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has its own International Futures Program (Stevens 2011). Even policy makers acknowledge that foresight promises substantive benefits (Rijkens-Klomp 2012). Clearly, foresight can make important contributions to better governance, improving policy processes, decisions, and even, potentially, outcomes. There are, however, impediments to foresight implementation in government (Roberge 2013). This chapter intends to go further still by considering the changes needed to create a foresight government. The chapter is not theory driven; rather, it is interested in the broad changes required to make government forward looking instead of reactive. Put differently, it is concerned with transforming government in the twenty-first century.

This chapter, thus, will provide the first broad sketch of foresight government. What would a government intent on foresight look like? What would be its key characteristics? How would it be organized, and how would decisions be made? What are the impediments to moving forward with such an agenda and how might they be overcome? How might foresight government make use of new information technologies? The chapter proposes three priority axes on which action is needed to create a foresight government. First, foresight needs to be supported by values of democracy and transparency. Second, governments must have strong policy capacity. Third, the implementation of foresight government requires new institutional structures to foster vertical and horizontal coordination and collaboration in and across governments, as well as with actors from across society. The chapter also makes five recommendations for moving to a foresight-based government. While each recommendation on its own is not radical and reflects current trends and practices, taken together they fundamentally reshape the way we govern ourselves.

The rest of the chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section, there is a brief discussion of foresight. In the second section, the three axes for change are developed. The recommendations, emerging from a reflection on the most prescient elements of the analysis of each axis for change, are presented in a table in the conclusion.

This study is drawn from the existing government and academic literature on public administration and foresight, integrating lessons from both traditions. The research also involved ad hoc interviews conducted in the summer of 2010 with government foresight practitioners in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and the European Union. Canadian interviews were conducted in person or over the telephone. British, Australian, and European interviews were conducted via email. The objective of each interview was to gain a broad appreciation of current foresight practices across governments.

Foresight

Before proceeding further, foresight as a concept must be explained. First, it is important to understand that foresight requires a significant shift in how we think about the world and its problems. When a government considers a policy problem, it looks to act in a way that will make a difference in the future. Yet, public administration is generally geared to studying how a decision was made in the past. In the rationale of any policy or program, assumptions about the future are, of course, made, but these are rarely explored by researchers and practitioners. Decision makers likely do not realize that their perception of the future influences their choice or even the options considered, above and beyond their comprehension of the problem that they are trying to resolve. Governments, thus, generally appear reactive rather than proactive, which has policy consequences since civil servants are regularly faced with problems that could have been avoided or at least mitigated if action had been taken earlier. “The use of a foresight model …[permits] long range advice on issues of national importance, highlighting areas of research where an early and timely response can really make a difference” (Australia, Office of the Chief Scientist interview 2010). Foresight allows government to be forward looking, giving decision makers the tools and the intelligence needed to make informed decisions. At a minimum, foresight is an essential component of the rational process of decision making.

Foresight – referred to at times as strategic foresight – provides possible accounts of the future so as to encourage decisions and actions that will lead to a desired end. Foresight is systematic and anchored in practices of good social science research, as opposed to general intuitions about the future. Foresight uses many existing and accepted social science research instruments to draw conclusions about prospects including literature reviews, expert panels, questionnaires and surveys, interviews, brainstorming and workshops, forecasting, scenario building, trend extrapolation, the Delphi technique, environmental scanning, system mapping, emerging issues analysis, and SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Governments already use many of these instruments – economic forecasting is an obvious example – and usually recognize the significance of foresight, whether they refer to it as such or not.

Foresight, as envisioned in this chapter, however, goes beyond many of the current methods used by governments and private sector actors to consider the immediate future. What separates foresight from strategic management, prospective policy evaluations, and other attempts in public administration to consider the immediate future is that it is concerned with what the world may be in 10, 20, or even 50 years from now. Strategic management, in contrast, is generally interested in resource allocation in the short term. A wiser approach from an organizational perspective would be to conduct a foresight exercise to determine long-term trends before proceeding to a strategic management exercise to allocate limited resources to achieve short- to medium-term objectives in light of known long-term possibilities.

Why should foresight government be favored? Simply put, there are many reasons to believe that foresight can improve processes, policies, and outcomes. As Slaughter, a well-known foresight expert, notes, “Post-conventional futures work is not for the faint-hearted but it does suggest a range of constructive responses to a world currently set on the path to oblivion” (Slaughter 2006: 24). Though this view appears particularly gloomy, it makes clear that foresight can help to provide responses to challenging and longstanding policy problems. The policy agenda changes when we start considering the problems of tomorrow rather than simply the problems of today. The argument is not that governments should stop being concerned with daily issues, many of which are very important. Rather, policy considerations and options differ drastically when a long-term view is adopted. In The Future, Gore (2013) adopts such a perspective, analyzing drivers of change and their implications for our collective future. Though broad, this type of analysis is useful to determine desired ends and the avenues by which to attain shared and common objectives.

Foresight may also help in minimizing the impact of a potential crisis (whether in areas of security, finance or health, among others). Crises rarely appear out of nowhere and, in most cases, there are multiple signs that fundamentals may not be as stable as thought. By envisaging all possibilities, foresight allows decision makers to consider both the best-case and worst-case scenarios and to act accordingly. Foresight, it is important to remember, is not about predicting the future. Foresight clarifies eventualities from the probable to the unlikely. Foresight will not automatically lead to optimal decision making, but it can lead to better decision making based on a range of possible futures. Governments, of course, could and will at times get it wrong, but because their actions are geared to the long term, adjustments and corrections may be made along the way. As the rest of the chapter argues, there are multiple benefits to turning government into a foresight-based enterprise.

As noted at the beginning of this section, foresight requires an important intellectual shift since public administration researchers and practitioners are used to thinking about the past and the present, and not about the future. From an interview with a representative from the Office of the Chief Scientist in Australia:

The biggest challenge our participants have encountered is in moving beyond problems and solutions of the present. Some groups have found it difficult to present ideas that are visionary and to not repeat the same ideas and arguments that have already been heard over and again ad nauseam by Government. Foresight thinking is challenging, people are used to think [sic] about the problems and big opportunities of the present, but thinking about the future in an open way is something that is surprisingly difficult.

(Australia, Office of the Chief Scientist interview 2010)

Current institutional structures and practices are not geared to foresight thinking. The changes proposed below, though not exhaustive, provide the starting point for transformation in order to make government forward looking and proactive and to instill better mechanisms of governance.

Axes for change: recommendations for public administration

This section considers three axes for change: democracy, policy capacity, and institutional structures, leading to recommendations for creating foresight government and transforming public administration in the twenty-first century.

Democracy

The first area for change relates to democratic practices, openness, transparency, and inclusiveness. Foresight is most effective when it is the result of broad-based consultation and deliberation. Mack (2013) refers to foresight as a form of dialogue. A foresight-based government, therefore, should foster debate. The objective is not to arrive at a consensus, but to allow for a plethora of views, analyses, and opinions to be aired and heard. According to a representative of the Knowledge for Growth (KfG) unit of the Joint Research Centre (Directorate)– Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC–IPTS) of the European Commission, “foresight processes bring about the advantage of facilitating different actors to share ideas and many times diverging points of views and, in this way, to achieve more inclusive decisions as well as enabling the system to be better prepared for continual change”(EU JRC–IPTS interview 2010). Potential futures can be identified through the breadth and depth of the public conversation. Such dialogue, in turn, generates a climate of trust and confidence, a sense of belonging, and shared purpose. As Jesuit notes in his chapter, both process and outcomes matter in generating trust in government. Beyond daily polls and news snapshots, politicians and administrators can, thus, make decisions that are informed and are based on the collective will of citizens.

Foresight is democratic, but how might it be institutionalized in government? What does it entail in practice? Across the world, there are both broad and narrow examples of how governments can adopt a forward-looking approach to governing in a democratic way. Australia 2020 took place in 2008 and it represented a broad, inclusive consultation by the government to determine prospects, possibilities, and preferences for the country’s future (for more information on the initiative, please see Australia 2008). Unfortunately, the global financial and economic crisis partly derailed the exercise and the implementation of many recommendations. Canada has a long tradition of Royal Commissions, though they may be less popular than in the past. The Royal Commission on Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (Macdonald Commission), appointed under the Trudeau government in the 1980s and active until the Mulroney years, painted a portrait of Canada with orientations that were to remain relevant for years after its conclusion (Laidler and Robson 2005). The Macdonald Commission is often credited with generating the momentum necessary for the ensuing Canada–US Free Trade Agreement.

Projects do not need to be as broad and far-reaching as those just identified. Jury deliberation simulation, case study research, and other methods can be used to determine the preferences and interests of citizens. There are many ways in which to engage what some have called mini-publics (Fung 2003). Policy Horizons Canada (PHC), the Canadian federal government’s foresight shop, published a report in October 2012 entitled Driving Policy on a Shifting Terrain: Understanding the Changing Policy Environment Amid 21st Century Complexity. The project brought together 20 government officials from 12 departments and 30 outside experts. PHC itself had nine employees working on the project. The report provides a compelling view of the factors at play in shaping our collective future (Policy Horizons Canada 2012). A project of this kind begets important and needed debates.

While undertaking such projects regularly may slow down decision making, it also serves to reinforce trust and confidence between officials and citizens. Strachan (2012) posits, in fact, that public servants must become their own watchdogs, by which she means that they must become responsible for building and sustaining the democratic infrastructure that will allow them to interact regularly with the public. Citizens are much more likely to be engaged if they feel that they are taken seriously; engagement clearly is more than simply commenting on a policy or a proposal. Whether large or small, foresight projects will be most effective when they are open, providing information and data freely to all who are interested, and disseminating results widely. Government foresight conducted in this way will create opportunities for debate and even greater accountability.

To reach the widest possible audience, governments also need to make greater use of new information technology. The use of new information technologies, still underexploited in the bureaucratic environment (Laforest 2013), can be maximized to facilitate communication and coordination irrespective of location. Most notably, governments should make better use of open-source technology; open-source software allows anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to contribute to, build upon, and improve a particular project whether technological or otherwise. Legislation can be written using...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface: overview and aims
• Introduction
• Part I: Developing prospective in public management
• Part II: Collaboration and conflict
• Part III: Deliberation and trust
• Conclusion
• Index