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Through an examination of macro-historical studies on the governance of Iran, the purpose of this study is to identify the most significant and important events and trends in the rise and fall of Iranian governments and introduce alternative futures in a range of possible, plausible and preferable forms of future governance. To carry out a foresight study of alternative futures of Iranian governance, the authors used futures studies, based on the detection of the most critical driving forces, which are also the most important uncertainties. Futures studies as an interdisciplinary field of study help to identify the events and trends that affect political change and offer scenarios of four alternative futures for the governance of Iran: Smart and Stable Government, Authoritarian Development-oriented Government, Irrational Government and Irrational Breakable Government. The authors believe that Iran’s endeavors to promote democracy, taking the changing international trends into account, make a more trustworthy future for Iran both possible plausible.

Based on macro-history approach and by using “shared history”, future triangle and then scenario planning, the future of Governance in Iran has been analyzed.

Whenever the government has distanced itself from the public and has neglected the trend of international change, it has been faced with a period of collapse and annihilation. And whenever these two important factors are understood, the result is a trend of development and growth. Therefore, the most favored image of Iran’s future relies on the maintenance and promotion of public participation and on increasing attention to the sustainable realities of international relations.

The complexities of events and trends affecting the rise and fall of previous governments of Iran make it necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach to understand the events that have emerged or are emerging in its governance. In this study, from futures studies point of view, transformation of governance has been studied.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the institutional factors affecting the reform of public sector in Morocco. In particular, this study focuses on the adoption path of one such reform, in which Moroccan municipalities had to adopt economic and development plans (EDPs).

The paper’s methodology adopts a qualitative approach. In particular, the paper adopts a mix of primary and secondary sources to analyze the historical development of the EDP reform in the Moroccan context, and the institutional factors involved in the implementation process. It contributes to the existing literature in two ways: it defines a tentative model that combines two approaches (new and old institutional theories); and it contextualizes the proposed model in the Moroccan context by examining the institutional process of implementing the reforms.

The reform that introduced EDPs in Morocco was the result of a collaboration between the Moroccan government and international donors. The introduction of EDPs was impeded by institutional features of Moroccan society. Therefore, the implementation of EDPs in Morocco did not change taken-for-granted ways of thinking, nor did it remove institutional restrictions and barriers. Municipalities were not affected by the modernizing effects of the reform. They are managed as traditional administrative structures, with very little capacity for organizational and management innovation.

The paper contributes to the debate on the adequacy of new public management (NPM) in less developed countries (LDCs), and in particular with regards to the use of strategic plans in Moroccan municipalities. In doing so, the paper attempts to define a tentative framework that combines new institutional and old institutional theory. The framework proposed helps to explain how NPM in LDCs was diffused and how institutional characteristics could hamper or foster the implementation of NPM reform.

To outline and present a generalised scheme for using “layered methods” in foresight work.

A number of different approaches to “layering” in futures studies and foresight work are examined and synthesised into a generalised scheme. The place of layered methods in foresight work is also examined, and the role of perceptual filters in interpretation is discussed.

A schema of four major “strata”, each potentially containing multiple sub‐layers, is developed. The strata range from, for example, short‐term trends in the shallowest level, through to long‐term macrohistorical forces at the deepest level.

The generalised scheme enables the practitioner to progressively move to greater levels of understanding as new layers of meaning are uncovered or constructed, as appropriate to the specific nature of the particular foresight engagement. The scheme also represents a template from which purpose‐built interpretive frameworks can be constructed, as needed, in foresight processes and work.

This paper provides a new, generalised and integrated approach to the use of interpretive frameworks in foresight work.

Volume 22 of Research in Economic History contains six papers. Three are on agriculture and two on macro issues related to the Great Depression. A concluding paper examines trends in interstate migration in the United States.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a Coasian interpretation of a model of sustainable development for Hong Kong that incorporates three segments, namely economy, society, and environment.

The approach is analytical, using concepts of property rights informed by Coasian neo‐institutional economics and Yu's ideas on the Schumpeterian process in innovation.

First, the sustainable development criteria must be non‐dictatorial, decentralized, and compatible with market economics. The emphasis is contractarian rather than legislative or administrative. Second, the essence of segment cooperation is to create a win‐win situation rather than an “integrated” rent seeking game, which will likely result in more values being created. Third, the requirement that it be progressive over time implies that programs and policies that are duplicative need to be avoided, and innovations are to be encouraged. Fourth, the requirement of satisfying only two aspects of the three segments of cooperation implies a less stringent standard of making stepwise improvements, and thus makes entrepreneurial efforts more likely. Last, the three segments of cooperation, if practiced simultaneously and improved over time, can achieve most, if not all, the principles in the Rio Declaration without aiming at a specific principle in the Declaration.

This paper should focus on a “win‐win” rather than a mutually exploitative approach to public participation in sustainable development promotion.

This paper should assist policymakers and politicians in understanding how sustainable development may be conceptually modelled.

The paper is the first paper that defines for Hong Kong a model of sustainable development on the basis of Coasian economics, and contrasts it with other proposed models.

This study investigates Rokkan's research programme in the light of the differences between case- and variables-based methodologies. Three phases of the research process are distinguished. Studying the way Rokkan actually proceeded in the research within his Europe project, we find that he follows the protocols of case-methodologies such as grounded theory. In the second phase of the research process, however, he constructs variables-based models as tools for his macro-historical comparisons. To get to variables from the sensitizing concepts coded in the first phase, Rokkan defines his variables as close to cases as possible: variables as nominal level typologies, types as variable values. He thus faces two interrelated dilemmas. First, a philosophy of science dissonance: he legitimates his research only with reference to a variable-methodology, while his research is thoroughly case based. Second, a paradox of double coding: using variable-based models in the second phase, the status of the knowledge available in the first phase memos is degraded. Rokkan cannot decide between the two main solutions to these dilemmas: The first solution is to discard his heterogeneous data, instead working only with homogeneous data that opens up to more consistently variables-oriented research. The second solution is to replace the notion of variables/variable values with typology/types, thereby returning to cases, pursuing comparative case reconstructions in the third phase of research. The study concludes in favour of the second solution.

The transformations in the existing forms of governmentality and power regimes are deeply rooted within the political economy of advanced neoliberalism, having profound implications in the governance matrix. The new rationalities and instrumentalities of governance involve ‘governing without government’ (Rhodes, 1996) following the delegitimisation and deconstruction of the Keynesian Welfare State and the gradual enactment of what Jessop (2002) calls the Schumpeterian Competition State. This chapter throws open the play field for competing standpoints on governing the mega corporates. Various theorists consider that there is emptiness within the existing global regulatory armoury concerning the operational activities of TNCs. The convolution of ‘steering’ in this poly-centred, globalised societies with its innate uncertainty makes it tricky to keep an eye on the fix of ‘who actually steers whom’ and ‘with what means’. There also appears to be huge disinclination to spot systemic technical description of the evolving modern institutional structure of economic regulation in a composite and practical manner. Thus, the complexity of international issues, their overlapping nature and the turmoil within the arena in which they surface defy tidy theorizing about effective supervision.

This brings in the wider questions dealt with in the chapter – Is globalisation then a product of material conditions of fundamental technical and economic change or is it collective construct of an artifact of the means we have preferred to arrange political and economic activity? The new reflexive, self-regulatory and horizontal spaces of governance are getting modelled following the logic of competitive market relations whereby multiple formally equal actors (acting or aspiring to act as sources of authority) consult, trade and compete over the deployment of various instruments of authority both intrinsically and in their relations with each other (Shamir, 2008). The chapter also looks into these messy and fluid intersections to situate the key actors at the heart of processes of ‘rearticulation’ and ‘recalibration’ of different modes of governance which operates through a somewhat fuzzy amalgamation of the terrain by corporates, state hierarchy and networks all calibrating and competing to pull off the finest probable’s in metagovernance landscape. Unambiguously, this chapter seeks to elaborate on an institutional-discursive conceptualization of governance while stitching in and out of the complex terrain a weave of governances for modern leviathan – the global corporates.

This article investigates social history in Hong Kong and compares their community transformation with two Tin Hau temples in Hong Kong, namely the Sai Kung Tin Hau and Hip Tin Temple and Shaukiwan Tin Hau Old Temple.

The paper is conducts a historical comparison to evaluate the vitality of traditional regions in Hong Kong with particular attention to the extent and intensity of its religious practice.

The paper fills a gap in the literature by comprehensively investigating Chinese temple related societies and communities. Most previous studies of Chinese temples and their rituals have treated them in isolation from their political contexts, emphasizing topics such as iconography over details of temple communities and their relationships with other elements of the social structure.

The research works from the point of view how the religious situation reflects important social characteristics and transformation of Shaukiwan and Sai Kung which were contemporary urban communities.

Various economic growth theories propose a view of globalisation resulting in economic convergence. However, others suggest economic divergence (i.e. a widening gap between global rich and poor) and others still, different patterns of development. Hence it is necessary to validate such globalisation hypotheses with sound quantitative data.

The paper proposes the “Global Change Data Base” (GCDB) that includes an analytical tool (AT) providing correlations between primary and secondary data (by country by year) from the fields of population, agriculture, economy, energy and human development.

The AT is able to first test the hypotheses on global development and globalisation and second to suggest new hypotheses on the mechanisms of globalisation. Results can be used in curricula of Global Studies worldwide.

These data analysis has still to be complemented by sociological, political and economic theories providing insights into global restructuration processes and structural transitions through globalisation.

“Forward-looking” as an emerging scientific discipline is supported by the proposed detailed analytical methods, namely by providing quantitative, in-depth techno-socio-economic megatrends.

The perception of globalisation might be rendered more inter-subjectively traceable by the GCDB.

Up-to-date means of forward-looking are less detailed regarding economic sectors and energy sources compared to the proposed GCDB.