The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Social science is enmeshed from the outset in an interaction between individual agents, collective action and analytical response. The desire to implement policy and create a preferred outcome provides further complication. There is a fundamental confusion between knowledge in the system and knowledge about it. Classical market analysis divorces the two; in practice agents use both. Moreover, they...
Traditionally the natural sciences, particularly physics, have been regarded as the Gatekeepers of Truth. As such the legitimacy of others forms of knowledge have been called into question, particularly those methods that characterise the ‘softer’ sciences, and even the arts. This paper begins with an extended discussion concerning the main features of a complex system, and the nature of the boundaries...
Instead of modelling socio-economic situations as mechanical systems with fixed, predictable behaviour, we now see that socio-economic systems are really complex systems, in which various possible structural changes can occur giving rise to a range of different possible futures. This necessary future uncertainty automatically imposes an uncertainty on the precise pay-off that any particular action...
This paper discusses the role of complex systems models as both embodiments and sources of knowledge in the context of strategic decision-making. Models are frequently seen as one way of gaining knowledge of the future. Advances in the simulation of complex adaptive systems enable models to increase knowledge of system behaviour, but may also indicate the limits of such knowledge. The relationship...
Scenario Planning has been around for more than 30 years and during this period a multitude of techniques and methodologies have developed, resulting in what has been described as a ‘methodological chaos’ which is unlikely to disappear in the near future (A. Martelli, Scenario building and scenario planning: state of the art and prospects of evolution, Futures Research Quarterly Summer (2001)). This...
This article focuses on future-oriented knowledge within regional innovation networks. Concrete regional tools and institutional settings aiming to enhance knowledge creation and management in such networks are needed. To enable planning for the future, there is a need for regional visionary capability. Resource-based futures research may make an important contribution in reducing the insecurity that...
This paper examines the variety of time horizons used by futures researchers. It summarizes responses from a survey that asked future researches (1) how far ahead they think about the future, (2) why they choose their time intervals, and (3) the importance of being clear about time intervals for the future. Findings reveal that time horizons differ and are generally shaped by the nature of each futures...
This paper argues that imprecise probability can be used to describe uncertainty about scenarios. Scenarios are conceptualized as written descriptions of potential future worlds that are based on assessments of economic, political, social, technological, and environmental trends [This description of scenarios follows that provided by Peter Schwartz. P. Schwartz [9], The Art of the Long View, Doubleday,...
Scenarios represent future possibilities or descriptions of ‘what might be’. This paper generates a series of possible futures based on an identified policy priority, namely the encouragement of increased levels of small business activity. Counterfactual thinking is used to challenge this policy objective and to formulate alternative possibilities. Specific consideration is made of the nature of the...
Despite the indifferent responses to the second and third instalments of ‘The Matrix’ series, the trilogy is nevertheless a valuable contribution to popular debate about the human implications of a rapidly emerging technoculture. In this essay, I will develop a reading of the Matrix scenario, not so much as a cautionary warning about the folly of developing intelligent machines, but as a reflection...
Global sustainable development is the overarching challenge for social and economic policy today. The paper elaborates the concept of sustainable development, identifies some of the levers and policies that might help attain it, describes a modeling system used for analysis, and presents the results of evaluating the impacts of policies and an integrated scenario built upon them.Particular attention...
The greatest misconception about nation-building is that violence is always the ultimate form of defeating injustice and fighting a dictatorship. But during the last century, Mahatma Gandhi and many others have proven that nonviolence can be a powerful force which is capable of going beyond nationalism. Gandhi's profound analysis of the notion of ‘civilization’ places many new and important questions...
In the process of state formation and nation building, states organize the production, organization and distribution of social knowledge to construct national collective memory. The tendency is even more pronounced in newly independent states that struggle to build new identities by discarding earlier belongings. When new states are formed by amalgamating diverse regional entities into a single and...
The peculiarly American study of the ‘non-Western’ world—going under the rubric of interdisciplinary ‘area studies’—is in crisis. Its origins date back to the postwar and Cold War period and may be best understood as a political and policy-driven scholarly endeavor that flourished in the 1960s, 1970s and well into the 1980s. There have been many critiques from both within and outside the field. This...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.