Comparing political futures: the rise and use of scenarios in future-oriented area studies

The predictive ability of scholars of politics has long been a subject of theoretical debate and methodological development. In theoretical debate, prediction represents a central issue regarding the extent to which the study of politics is scientific. In methodological development, much effort and resource have been devoted to a diverse range of predictive approaches, with varying degrees of success. Expectations that scholars forecast accurately come as much from the policy and media worlds as from the academy. Since the end of the Cold War, scenario development has become prevalent in future-oriented research by area studies scholars. This approach is long due critical re-assessment. For all its strengths as a policy tool, scenario development tends towards a bounded methodology, driving the process of anticipating futures along predetermined paths into a standardised range of options, and paying insufficient attention to theoretical and contextual understandings available within the relevant scholarly disciplines.