Thinking Ahead: Strategic Foresight and Government

The technique of strategic foresight — developing policy based on long-run scenario planning — has much to offer Australian governments. By paying greater attention to identifying emerging issues, and drawing on a broad range of information sources, policies are more likely to prove durable and effective. Drawing on examples from the private sector, and from governments in the UK, USA and Australia, I outline what strategic planning entails, and how it might be implemented.     

Book reviews

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

A Partial Revolution: The Diplomatic Ethos and Transparency in Intergovernmental Organizations

The World Trade Organization and other intergovernmental organizations confront a crisis of legitimacy that is partly rooted in their perceived secretiveness. These organizations have attempted to address this crisis by promising "the maximum possible level of transparency," but in fact, the improvements have been modest. Policies regarding access to information about intergovernmental organizations' operations continue to accommodate conventions of diplomatic confidentiality. Such conventions are more likely to be breached in areas where disclosure of information is essential to economic liberalization. A true revolution in transparency would require more rigorous policies on disclosure of information held by intergovernmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization, and could be justified as a prerequisite for the exercise of basic human rights, such as the right to participate fully in the policy-making process.     

Multiparty electoral competition in the Netherlands and Germany: A model based on multinomial probit

A typical assumption of electoral models of party competition is that parties adopt policy positions so as to maximize expected vote share. Here we use Euro-barometer survey data and European elite-study data from 1979 for the Netherlands and Germany to construct a stochastic model of voter response, based on multinomial probit estimation. For each of these countries, we estimate a pure spatial electoral voting model and a joint spatial model. The latter model also includes individual voter and demographic characteristics. The pure spatial models for the two countries quite accurately described the electoral response as a stochastic function of party positions. We use these models to perform a thought experiment so as to estimate the expected vote maximizing party positions. We go on to propose a model of internal party decision-making based both on pre-election electoral estimation and post-election coalition bargaining. This model suggests why the various parties in the period in question did not adopt vote maximizing positions. We argue that maximizing expected vote will not, in general, be a rational party strategy in multiparty political systems which are based on proportional representation.