Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword: Realising Hope
- Introduction: Building Better Futures
- 1 Making Globalisation Work
- 2 Energy: A Better Life with a Healthy Planet
- 3 Are Major Wars More Likely in the Future?
- 4 The Future of Work
- 5 Digital Technologies: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
- 6 Cities to the Rescue: A New Scale for Dealing with Climate Change
- 7 The Future of Global Poverty
- 8 Transcending Boundaries: The Realistic Hope for Water
- 9 Health Systems: Doomed to Fail or About to Be Saved by a Copernican Shift?
- 10 Seeding the Future: Challenges to Global Food Systems
- 11 The Great Livestock Trade-off: Food Production, Poverty Alleviation, and Climate Change
- 12 Rethinking Economics for Global Challenges
- 13 Leadership and the Future of Democratic Societies
- 14 Prototyping the Future: A New Approach to Whole-of-Society Visioning
- Five Principles of Realistic Hope
- Epilogue: From the Eclipse of Utopia to the Restoration of Hope
- Acknowledgements
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Endorsements for Realistic Hope
14 - Prototyping the Future: A New Approach to Whole-of-Society Visioning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword: Realising Hope
- Introduction: Building Better Futures
- 1 Making Globalisation Work
- 2 Energy: A Better Life with a Healthy Planet
- 3 Are Major Wars More Likely in the Future?
- 4 The Future of Work
- 5 Digital Technologies: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
- 6 Cities to the Rescue: A New Scale for Dealing with Climate Change
- 7 The Future of Global Poverty
- 8 Transcending Boundaries: The Realistic Hope for Water
- 9 Health Systems: Doomed to Fail or About to Be Saved by a Copernican Shift?
- 10 Seeding the Future: Challenges to Global Food Systems
- 11 The Great Livestock Trade-off: Food Production, Poverty Alleviation, and Climate Change
- 12 Rethinking Economics for Global Challenges
- 13 Leadership and the Future of Democratic Societies
- 14 Prototyping the Future: A New Approach to Whole-of-Society Visioning
- Five Principles of Realistic Hope
- Epilogue: From the Eclipse of Utopia to the Restoration of Hope
- Acknowledgements
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Endorsements for Realistic Hope
Summary
Abstract
Slovenia made a commitment to a comprehensive new vision and development strategy that would meet the shifting needs of society and service new international commitments on sustainable, inclusive, and responsible development and growth. Rather than moving faster and alone through the usual, expert-led review process, the Slovenian government courageously embarked on an ambitious, whole-of-society, participatory foresight initiative. The Vision of Slovenia is a ‘provotype’ – a provocative prototype introduced in the early exploratory phases of the design development process to cause a reaction. It has caused a reaction, it has provoked and engaged many, and, most importantly, it has opened up a path of imagining possible futures of a nation and a country.
Keywords: vision, democracy, social contract, trust, provotype, strategy, Slovenia
The future is only scary if we try to avoid it.
– Simon SinekThe global trust deficit
Democracies around the world – even the richest and oldest – are struggling with an ironic and growing challenge. Even though democracies are designed to reflect ‘the will of the people’, citizens in these countries are growing increasingly distrustful of their governments. Many feel their governments are dysfunctional in their ability to make and implement policies and that their governments do not create policies with their best interests in mind. Some are even turning to populist politicians who promise more effective, even if more authoritarian, governance. The leader of China is trusted more than the leader of the US.
In this context, it's worth looking at an experiment undertaken by a democracy with a long history of distrust – an experiment that offers some realistic hope that steps can be taken to strengthen the bonds of trust between governments and citizens.
A small country adrift in a global ocean of changes
Slovenia is a small country, linguistically defined and with a unique history. It is well endowed with natural resources – water, forests, good soils – and has a favourable geo-strategic location at the crossroads of East and West and between the Mediterranean and Central and South-eastern Europe.
Since its independence in 1991, the country has made steady progress in economic and social development. It has achieved its initial independence ambitions: joining the European Union in 2004, introducing the euro as the national currency in 2007, and joining the OECD in 2010.
- Type
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- Information
- Realistic HopeFacing Global Challenges, pp. 239 - 258Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018