The Future as a Political Idea - Professor Jonathan White

Introduction to Jonathan White's new book In the Long Run: the Future as a Political Idea. A revealing history of the future as a political idea, from the Enlightenment to the current climate crisis.

Jonathan Boston, Professor of Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington.ABSTRACTFundamental to good governance is the active anticipation, assessment and management of risBased on this analysis, the paper applies the concept to the policy challenges posed by climate change adaptation, particularly sea-level rise. In this regard, humanity is confronted with a slow-motion disaster that will grow progressively in scope and scale, sometimes abruptly. Societies will face significant uncertainty, multiple and compounding risks, immense costs and difficult intertemporal and intragenerational trade-offs. More specifically, rising sea levels will have a major and increasing impact on the built environment in coastal regions. Globally, hundreds of millions of people could be forced this century to relocate from areas at risk from coastal erosion and inundation, higher water tables, and more frequent and intense rainfall events. Mitigating some of the risks and increasing societal resilience via anticipatory, pro-active, prudent and adaptive policy responses will be politically challenging, not least because of the large upfront costs, the likelihood of powerful blocking coalitions, and the complexities of inter-governmental and inter-agency coordination. This paper outlines how, in the interests of sound anticipatory governance, these challenges might be addressed through the creation of new governmental institutions, funding mechanisms and revised planning processes.

Venue: Institutet för framtidsstudier, Holländargatan 13, 4th floor, Stockholm, or online. Research seminar with Jonathan White, Professor of Politics, London School of Economics. -- Please note that thi

Jo (Jonathan) Wolff, Professor of Philosophy at University College London ABSTRACTMoral and political philosophers typically hope that their theories and arguments will have a positive influence on rea

Politics & Policy Abstract Although the literature widely discusses the role of academics as experts in public policy making, empirical case studies on ethical problems related to the production and

Every year nine millionpeople are diagnosed with tuberculosis, every day over 13,400 people areinfected with AIDs, and every thirty seconds malaria kills a child. For most ofthe world, critical medica

Many things that we deeply care about are related to the topic of religion: gender norms, sexual morals, work ethics but also altruism, charity and community. It is therefore an important question to Contrary to what you might expect, religion continues to play an important role in countries all over the world, as the figure shows.