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A wide spectrum of recent futures-oriented, English-language literature on human rights and democracy is surveyed. Human rights and democracy are seldom mentioned together, and the literature on each of these two important concerns is profoundly fragmented. An appreciative framework for integrative thinking is created here. The future of both human rights and democracy is found to be profoundly...
This article examines the origins, dimensions and implications of Africa's crisis. It draws attention to the impact of historical experiences, the distortions and disarticulations of that experience, and to the coalitions, contradictions, crises and conflicts inherited at independence. It looks at postcolonial alignment and realignment of social and political forces, the crisis of accumulation and...
There has been considerable debate in recent years regarding the direction in which environmental business strategy can be expected to develop in the future. This article seeks to investigate the extent to which firms have sought to change the basis of their strategic decision making, from a shareholder value paradigm to one reflecting an environmental focus. The results of a 1994 survey are reported...
This essay is a response to the dominance of short-term thinking in Western culture. It begins with a critique of the minimal, or fleeting, present and then explores some possibilities for extending what might be meant by the present . It suggests that considerable utility may be derived from a more careful and considered use of particular timeframes. It is doubtful whether questions of sustainability,...
This article explores the importance of recent and current research into popular images of the future. It begins by reviewing the main literature on adults' and young people's views of the future and then goes on to describe the findings of a recent UK research project. This examined how 7-18-year-olds see the future at personal, local and global scales. The responses of different age groups are...
Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus, Cyberia, and Playing the Future, explains how sensationalism in the media tends to promote our culture's natural, unexpressed agendas. This is an optimistic appraisal of the seemingly banal and exploitative fora of tabloid television, Court TV and Cops . Such low-brow media, when approached from an evolutionary perspective, reveal themselves as the...
This article examines three issues. The first is the pervasiveness of technology use and the impact of technology use on performance in the Canadian manufacturing sector. The use of advanced technologies, particularly labour-enhancing ones, is found to be widespread. A strong connection between technology adoption and superior performance is also found. The second section examines the relationship...
During the period from 1990 to 1995, a large fund for support to development in working life existed in Sweden: the Work Life Fund. Established as a temporary organization, it distributed about 10 billion Swedish crowns for development purposes. By the end of this period, close to 25 000 projects had been launched. The Fund, therefore, presents us with both a large and extensive set of experiences...
If recent political interest and media hype is to be believed, the information society is at last upon us, and could signal the end of work as we know it. But what evidence is there of how these new information highways will change work? In this article, based on recent case-study research, a set of messages about how organizations are applying and responding to the new advanced communication...
Two themes form the starting point of this essay: the increasing amount of time available for leisure activities, and the increase in the number of abandoned industrial areas, both consequences of deindustrialization. One result of these processes is that leisure time is being spent in abandoned factories, including those which have become cultural centres. Leisure time is becoming increasingly...
Despite the complex changes which the economies of the most industrialized countries have undergone, current interpretations of the evolution of the economic system remain extraordinarily simplistic. The popular view has been that Fordism , at the heart of the continued development of the capitalist world since World War II, is no longer the driving force of the economy. This article challenges...
In recent years, analogies taken from the natural world, and from evolutionary theory in particular, have been increasingly applied to problems outside the field of biology. The growing interest in issues of sustainability has not escaped this trend and the application of evolutionary analogies to issues of sustainability is discussed and its benefits outlined. Furthermore, a conceptual tool for...
Interest in telecommuting is growing among workers, employers, transportation planners, communities, the telecommunications industry, and others. But actual levels of telecommuting appear to be increasing slowly, although there is little reliable data on trends. The future of telecommuting depends on whether employers provide the opportunity to telecommute and whether workers take advantage of this...
This article reviews a struggle to bring in futures-centred systems thinking into present complexities inherited from the past. This thinking is meant to inform actions that better obtain conditions for system viability in light of high degrees of uncertainty. A number of theoretical and practical challenges are analysed, allowing the description to be usable in other, similar situations.
The ultimate objective of the modern Turkish republic was to be recognized as a European state. The Cold War structures enabled the realization of that goal. Turkey's Europeanness was defined according to its geostrategic position; it became a reliable ally for the West as a buffer state against the former Soviet Union. The disappearance of the Cold War structures have brought the importance and...
Given all the intellectual excitement surrounding the new ideas on complexity, it is easy to overlook the fact that the apparent simplicity of the past was often more a function of the constraints put on the framing of the issue or problem at hand, both conceptually and in policy making, than it was a reflection of any inherent properties. Revisiting several case studies helps to illustrate the point...
What would the world system look like from a cultural perspective? How would it function? These questions are assuming greater and greater importance and urgency as the present system breaks down and culture increasingly becomes a potent force in community, regional, national and international affairs. In an attempt to answer these questions, an initial cut is taken at piercing together a cultural...
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