Governing in the knowledge society

Citation

Blackman, C. (2002), "Governing in the knowledge society", Foresight, Vol. 4 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/fs.2002.27304faa.001

Governing in the knowledge society

Governing in the knowledge society

One of the things the Internet has done has been to accelerate the rate of change in all aspects of our lives – we now even talk about "Internet time". Combine this speeding up of society with governments who are here today and gone tomorrow and perhaps it is not surprising that much of an administration's time is spent on responding to events and the short term.

But as David Rejeski and Carly Wobig point out in their article in this issue, the most worthwhile accomplishments of government can take decades to achieve. No government can afford to ignore the future and it is especially disappointing that the USA, home to many of the leading thinkers on the future, currently has little or no national focus on the long term. Therefore it is encouraging to read about the Foresight and Governance Project at the Wilson Center that is intended to stimulate the government to think 50 years ahead and set a series of long-term goals.

Rejeski and Wobig report on the first phase of the project which identified some long-term goals and prioritized them. These goals, developed in conjunction with the Millennium Project, are deliberately bold and audacious, and there are similarities between these and the Millennium Project's own 15 global challenges.

However, as I said in my last editorial, I am sceptical of simple goal setting exercises. The identification of goals is all very well but implementation is another matter altogether. The Wilson Center project, however, at least attempts to identify barriers to achieving its goals, the three biggest barriers it cites being lack of political will, leadership and vision. The trouble is that when an objective is framed in general terms, it is easy for everyone to agree but when you break it down to the level of detail necessary to really do anything, there will be conflict rather than consensus. As Andy Hines points out in his Hinesight column in this issue, decision makers are naturally sceptical of futures thinking and if the vision does not accord with what voters want then it is not surprising if the political will for change is missing.

For instance, we all think that eliminating "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) is a good idea on which we can all agree, don't we? Well, most of the world seems to agree that Iraq's WMD should be eliminated, but what about Pakistan's or India's nuclear weapons? Or Israel's? Or America's? It's a wonderful vision but I doubt that eliminating US nuclear or chemical weapons is something that would gain the support of the American electorate. The reality is more complicated than simple slogans allow, and I hope that exercises like those conducted by the Millennium Project and the Wilson Center will be able to drill down much further into this. Perhaps futures studies can learn from other fields such as conflict resolution and mediation in this regard.

More generally, the future role of government in the knowledge society is a theme addressed by Hearn and Rooney in this issue. They argue that the twenty-first century requires post-autistic government, concluding that:

Government has a necessary role as a coordinator (mediator, organiser, transformer), providing leadership and resources for communities. Above all, in leading knowledge-based economies government must be social, even gregarious, rather than dryly rationalist, because the fundamentals of knowledge-based economies are social and cultural.

This means that governments have to create the space in which people with social and cultural agendas may gather and speak. Perhaps it is through focusing on such a process that long-term objectives will emerge – bold and audacious, yes, but realistic and achievable too.

Colin Blackman