An Experiment in Assessing End of Year Predictions: How Did they Fare? (2)

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Helene Lavoix

Here are the results of our experiment on the evaluation of a sample of 2012 end of year predictions, following up on the post explaining the methodology used (spreadsheet and an interactive version of the charts can be found here).

Let us start with the bad news. As a whole, the percentage of success is relatively low, 27%, i.e. 44 predictions were correct out of the 165 made. However, this global figure hides very different results.

In terms of method, as shown below, classical analysis (that may cover the use of other methods or not) obtains the whole range of results, from complete inaccuracy to excellent. The validity of the judgement on the future depends upon the knowledge, understanding and genius of the analyst.

Risk analysis fares better than overall sample, but is still below 50%. This might be related to the absence of differentiation between likelihood and impact as explained in the previous post.

Our sole example of scenario is relatively unsuccessful. However, this is also linked to the very specific form and place scenarios have in terms of foresight: fictionalized narratives mainly aim at making one plausible version of the future real for the target audience. They intend to break cognitive biases and other lenses. They must be built upon a coherent model, which can be seen as the principle, the essence, but the unfolding discrete events themselves are only one example of what might happen. In Kant’s understanding, a scenario is a phenomenon, built upon noumena.

Unsurprisingly, analysis that includes, more or less, a part of recommendation and advocacy, what we could see as normative predictions, do not fare very well.

This brief evaluation, however, tells only one part of the story. As explained in the methodological post, we can draw much more interesting conclusions out of an assessment that is less drastic and marks each prediction first according to the plausibility of the content and second to the accuracy of the timing, despite the inherent subjectivity of the approach.

Issues and countries: a conventional view of national security

The first very interesting result this experiment gives us is about the topic of the predictions itself, what was deemed as relevant and interesting enough to be the object of anticipation.

The overwhelming majority of predictions were made according to countries, be they focused on economics, political economy, geopolitics or politics. The map below shows the intensity of the number of predictions made, the brightest the colour, the more numerous the prediction. Some countries were off the radar, when, for example, coups in Mali and Guinea-Bissau happened, as correctly predicted by Jay Ulfelder, whose forecasts were not included in the experiment. This underlines the danger to leave some countries out when making judgements on the future, because one will automatically tend to focus on those countries where events or problems occurred in the recent past, or on those that were of interest for one reason or another. The limited character of resources however most of the time forces such initial selection, which thus must be made with great care and kept in mind.

Very few assessments concerned other global problems, when they belong to what is called unconventional national security. Among those identified in our sample, we find: oil, water, gold, the virtual and digital world (although hardly with a cyber-security dimension), augmented reality, and the environment (but only in terms of regime and debates, not in terms of actual natural events and their impacts). Many issues such as most transformational technologies, from nano to biosecurity, health concerns, cyber threats, extreme weather events or resources competition beyond oil were thus left out. One possible explanations is that we are still operating within specializations inherited from the last three centuries, and that for each new issue appearing on the agenda of national security, a new sector of expertise is created, with serious potential adverse consequences on our identification of threats. We may very well become perfect in terms of predictions on old topics, this will always remain insufficient if interactions and feedbacks with new threats are ignored. For example, International Relations – or geopolitical – analysis must fully include the cyber dimension, and cyber-security in terms of national security cannot be fully understood without the international, geopolitical and political dimensions.

Systematically including horizon scanning for emergence of novel dangers and pluri-disciplinary/multi-expertise work would be needed. Another possible explanation is that those unconventional security issues were left out because they were estimated as beyond the 2012 time horizon. We may only wish this latter hypothesis to be correct.

Inaccurate timing and relatively plausible content

If we now look at the countries, object of predictions, and colour them first according to the plausibility of content of the predictions, and second according to the accuracy of the timing, we have the two following maps. The averaged accuracy of the results goes from deep red (inaccuracy) to deep green (accuracy).

The maps confirm the hunch I wished to test: our capacity to predict timing is less good than our ability to understand content and thus foresee coming evolutions. We know quite well what will most probably happen, but we do not know precisely when.

Interestingly, China, Russia and the U.S. fare relatively badly for both content and timing. This could be explained by strong cognitive and ideological biases existing for those three countries, including, for the U.S., which also ranks first for the number of predictions, those biases related to partisan politics… and analysis. Regarding our initial conclusions on methodology, and considering the lack of explanations given by authors, this shows that we should, ideally, and as underlined by forecaster, futurist and strategist Scott Smith in his Year-end lists are hazardous to your health, identify precisely who the author is, his/her target audience, and in which context the predictions were made. The category mixing classical and normative analysis would most probably swell as a result.

Timing for Brazil is completely wrong, and this would be even worse if the prediction made for the BRICS (0 on all counts) had been added, while the results would have been less good for all the other BRICS. Again, we are seeing an ideological bias at work, a “pro-BRICS” bias, which is also the reflect of a global power struggle we can see enacted in any international fora.

These results point towards the absolute necessity to struggle against all biases when making judgements on the future, if proper decisions are to result from this foresight (which is of most probably not the case with our sample, but we have to consider that many decision-makers also read open source predictions and may be influenced by them, knowingly or not).

Novelty and pace

Finally, let us observe the evaluation for all predictions, without aggregation and average (click here to open the chart in full in another window).

Besides the points we already made, what is most striking is the way various water issues were erroneously foreseen. If, true enough, only one author is concerned – and he had the merit to select this issue when the corresponding U.S. ICA was not yet published - we can always learn from all mistakes. This erroneous judgements on water security may underline the difficulty of properly estimating issues when those are relatively newly integrated in assessments. First, there is an insufficient accumulated knowledge and understanding. Second, the eagerness to promote a topic that may still be debated and belittled may lead to overstatement.

The wrong timing on various European countries stems most probably from our very imperfect knowledge of internal political dynamics, as those last decades mainstream political science has tended to focus on elite politics and public policy – one of the major cause of the warning failure regarding the “Arab Spring” – even more so in the case of the so-called rich countries. Furthermore, time is very rarely an object of research. Finally, we tend collectively to forget that the political time is long – even very long – and that much of our (recent) habits, approaches and institutions do not accommodate for it… but this will not change the reality of political dynamics.

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Nota: The surprising, at first glance, cases when timing gets a better mark than content correspond to predictions that were accurate (or almost accurate) in terms of timing, accompanied by explanation of dynamics that were partly or fully wrong, illogical, or inaccurate.

An Experiment in Assessing End of Year Predictions (1)

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Helene Lavoix

Evaluating predictions, or more broadly the end-products resulting from methodologies used to anticipate possible futures, should become the norm rather than the exception, as explained in a previous post. Such exercise should improve methods and processes and direct our efforts towards further research. We shall here make the experiment to assess a sample of open source predictions for the year 2012. This part will address the methodological problems encountered while creating the evaluation itself, and underline the related lessons learned. The second part (forthcoming) will discuss results.

Actually, there is nothing new here as estimating results for “predictions” is one of the fundamental principles of science (a scientific theory must have explanatory, descriptive and predictive power). If a theory does not fulfill the predictive criteria, then it must be disqualified. Things are relatively straightforward when dealing with hard science. They are much more complex when we are in he field of social science, and the very possibility to obtain predictive power is hotly discussed, debated and often discarded. If we consider the family of disciplines, sub-disciplines and methodologies – what we call here strategic foresight and warning (foresight for short) – that deal with future(s)-related analysis, then we are faced with even more challenges. Some methodologies will be considered as scientific, and among them, some are close to hard science, while others belong to the realm of social science. Other approaches will be seen as art and thus are considered as not having to be tested. Furthermore, everyone has her/his own vision of what constitutes good future(s) related analysis, what should be done and used, what is valuable and what is not.

Despite these difficulties, it is still worth our while evaluating those future(s) related efforts, which had the courage to make an evaluation for the future located on a timeline. This is, of course, a very small exercise and experiment, compared with what is done by The Good Judgement project, led by Philip Tetlock, Barbara Mellers, and Don Moore with funding by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and explained in this article by Dan Gardner and Philip Tetlock, “Overcoming our aversion to acknowledging our ignorance.” Nevertheless, hopefully, it will also bring interesting results, and the reflection it imposes, the questions it brings are in themselves a very constructive practice.

For this experiment, the sample used is constituted of open source predictions for the year 2012 posted on the web from December 2011 to January 2012, as presented here.

The result of the evaluation, in a Google spreadsheet, can be downloaded here or viewed below. Explanations and discussion follow.

The sources used to evaluate the foresight are given in the seventh column (except when the answer is obvious or common knowledge, and thus does not necessitate reference to a specific source e.g. the European Union still exists).

The variety of format and methodologies, furthermore more or less explained, was a first challenge. How to evaluate consistently “predictions” delivered in ways as varied as classical analysis (e.g. The Financial Times – Beyond BRICS), scenarios (e.g. Tick by Tick Team), risks (e.g. CFR – Preventive Priorities Survey: 2012) or predictions mixed with policy recommendations and advocacy, what could be seen as a version of normative foresight (e.g. Foreign Policy with the International Crisis Group – 10 conficts to watch in 2012)?

The Council on Foreign Relations, risk and making likelihood explicit

The Council on Foreign Relations’ approach is a perfect example of this hurdle. Its risk list for 2012 was particularly difficult to evaluate considering the way it is formulated and the lack of information regarding the methodology (those challenges have been removed or to the least improved with the 2013 version, where we find more detailed explanations and where likelihood and impact are separated). To find out what the CFR exactly meant I had to turn to a companion article to the risk list published in the Atlantic, “Gauging Top Global Threats in 2012“. There we read:

“The contingencies that were introduced for the first time or elevated in terms of their relative importance and likelihood in 2012 included an intensification of the eurozone crisis, acute political instability in Saudi Arabia that threatens global oil supplies, and heightened unrest in Bahrain that spurs further military action.”

A contingency means “an event (as an emergency) that may but is not certain to occur”.

Thus we can deduce that the CFR saw all the events (their “risks”) listed as possible for the year 2012 – if not probable. This is on this basis that the evaluation was made. Hence, all the CFR “risk-statements” were mentally expanded as follows: “a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally” means, for evaluation, “a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally” in 2012 is possible and would have a major impact for US National Interest (according to the tier to which the risk belongs) or “a major military incident with China involving U.S. or allied forces” means ”a major military incident with China involving U.S. or allied forces” is possible in 2012 and would have a major impact etc.

Making the “risk-statements” more explicit for evaluation (however not transforming the statement itself) immediately underlines how the fusion of likelihood and impact existing most commonly in the idea of risk (until the concept itself was revised by the new ISO31000: 2009 norm) creates supplementary difficulties in terms of evaluation, hence my personal reluctance to use the concept, despite its fashionable character. What are we to judge: a likelihood? an estimation of impact? a timing? As already mentioned, the CFR Preventive Priorities Survey tackled indeed this problem and now (2013) gives detailed results in terms of impact and likelihood.

This underlines how crucial it would be, ideally, to always include, for all results of future(s)-analysis an estimation of likelihood, as done, for example, in the Intelligence Assessments (see p.14 of the ICA on Global Water Security).

In our sample, each prediction, or series thereof, corresponds to one or another methodology. Yet, rather than trying to standardize thoughts, for example transforming what the authors wanted to write in a sentence easy to evaluate, I chose to keep the text as it was, breaking it down in various paragraphs most of the time, sometimes expanding it mentally as explained above for the CFR, and in agreement with their methodology, but not altering it, and to evaluate it as such. The exercise was constructive in itself and led to interesting points. We shall see with the next post if the results will also say something about the foresight methodology itself.

When the text was far too removed from something that looked like a judgement on the future, for example when it was only an opinion on what was happening, or when it was a 50/50 possibility, I excluded the sentence or paragraph from the sample (in red in the spreadsheet).

Scenarios, timing and content

As I started the concrete phase of evaluating statements with the fictionalized scenario made by Tick by Tick Team (Finance), it very quickly became clear that I had to make two types of assessment: one regarding the plausibility and logic of the content of the prediction itself, the other the accuracy of the timing. Indeed, some of the predictions made still sounded plausible, had not happened in 2012 but could not be ruled out for the short to medium term, e.g. “Greece leaves the Euro, returns to the Drachma.” (3002 – this number corresponds to the identification given in the database, to facilitate reference). To me there is a large difference with a prediction that is plainly wrong in terms of content and thus impossible in terms of timing: e.g. Syria deals with the “initial post-Assad stages” (2011) or “Obama decides not to run for elections” (3011).

Furthermore, this approach will allow me to test a hunch according to which we are in general much better to explain phenomena than to time them, would it be only because we hardly ever work on timing (outside the hard science realm).

Evaluating content and timing: a difficult, uncertain, never-ending task?

Thus, columns 4 and 5 display marks for content and timing, ranging from 0 (completely wrong) to 1 (completely accurate). There is, however, a major hurdle with this approach. First, by judging the content in terms of plausibility of dynamics, I evaluate one understanding (the author’s) against another (mine). There is little we can do about it as this is the core of research and debates in social science, besides giving evidence (column 7, the sources), developing a coherent argument and/or pointing out flaws in the argument subjected to the evaluation. A commissioned report would need to be more detailed and specified than I could be in the framework of a volunteered experiment.

Second, it implies that by evaluating the plausibility of something happening in the future, then I am myself making a judgement on the future, thus a prediction. Ultimately, those challenges should be resolved through the happenstance of events and facts, which suggests that evaluations should themselves be reviewed and followed in time. This is certainly not ideal, but still better than to lose the information on timing and content, which would happen if one chose with black and white, true or false, 0 and 1 answers.

Objectivity (as much as biases allow) of the person assessing the predictions is crucial, and the use of teams that would discuss and confront their analyses would be best. Furthermore, the latter would also allow overcoming plain lack of knowledge on one issue or another.

This leads us to a last challenge that is not easily overcome for some predictions: the information that is available to the person doing the evaluation. Still using the CFR example, and more particularly the risk of ”a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally”, some actions taken throughout the year by authorities may have prevented a risk to materialize, thus the prediction could be seen as false. Certainly, had no intelligence, defense and diplomatic actions existed, then such risk would have materialised. Such state’s actions are ongoing, and, as an outsider, we can only estimate (without complete certainty) that it is because of them that the threat did not materialize, not because the risk was incorrectly identified. An evaluation made by an insider with access to all classified documents would be made with more confidence. Here, I could only estimate the reality of the risk to the best of my understanding and knowledge, for example with the use of counterfactuals.

Should all those challenges, the existence of uncertainty even in evaluation, lead us to conclude that trying to evaluate foresight products is useless? My first answer, at this stage, is no because all the questions one asks or should ask oneself and that are forced by the evaluation are crucial and may only lead to better methodologies and thus to better judgements on the future. It is thus a gage of quality. We shall see next what the results of the assessment, keeping in mind all their imperfections, may tell us.

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“Gauging Top Global Threats in 2012″ - Interviewee: Micah Zenko, Fellow for Conflict Prevention,  Interviewer: Robert McMahon, Editor,  December 8, 2011, The Atlantic.

2012 Predictions Database

Posted on December 24, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last year we gathered as many open source, web-based predictions we could find, for further analysis. As 2012 ends, it is time to go back to them and see what we can learn from them.

This post is a first step as it presents the material gathered as a public usable database, that can be accessed and downloaded as a Google spreadsheet through Google drive. The text of each prediction has been subdivided in as many statements as necessary to allow for evaluation. However, the original text has, most of the time, not been changed to make sure not to introduce unintentional biases.

As a first result, the issues identified in 2011 as worthy of being mentioned in predictions for 2012 are displayed in the graph below.

Trial by Fire for Foresight: The 2012 Predictions of The Economist

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

The Economist, with ”The prediction games: Our winners and losers from last year’s edition,” shows the lead in a courageous, crucial and yet hardly ever done exercise: going back to our own foresight and assessing, in the light of the present, what was right and what was wrong. This exercise is not about getting awards or apportioning blame, but about improving foresight. Thus, all results, be they right or wrong, should go with a detailed explanation for the success or failure. This approach is essential to obtain progress. Systematically implementing such a practice in all anticipatory processes should be a major goal for practitioners and a criteria of quality for users.

The Economist self-assessment provides us with a very interesting example of how such lessons learned could be endeavoured, underlines questions that should be asked and key challenges for anticipation, and exemplifies how biases can derail foresight.

Evaluating success

It is often said that it is impossible to validate success, because the very fact to have been accurate will change the world, thus the predicted events will not take place but be altered. This very logical argument depends actually upon the actor’s capacity to influence events. For actors that directly act on their foresight with sufficient might, this challenging problem can be overcome by a particular attention paid to the overall process, distinguishing analysis and anticipation from the response chain. In the case of media, as they are not meant to act but to inform, as their analysis should consider all actors involved and not depend upon the strategic aims of one specific player (see for an explanation Assessing the “Strategic” in Surprise), evaluating success is easier (or more difficult because the influence of mass media should be considered).

The fact is that The Economist underlines the accuracy of its predictions in many areas (and we shall take it at face value). Beyond polite modesty, it would actually be very interesting to understand why the analysts themselves are surprised by their success. Certainly, they were not betting, but relied on something to predict events, phenomena, and this something is what matters (even while betting we use some kind of model). This emphasises the importance of making models explicit, as only those give us the tools for precise assessment. If the model used (and, following Epstein, cognitive models belong to this category) led to successful predictions, then our reliance on this model should increase, and we should pay attention not to destroy it. Changes brought to the model should be documented and integrated cautiously.

Biases, the vexing problem of time and the case of Syria

“A more serious mistake was failing to foresee how bloody the conflict in Syria would become. We thought President Bashar Assad was unlikely to last the year in office.” The Economist, 21 November 2012.

The Economist’s sentence echoes a point made by anthropologist Andrew Turton in his work on Thailand and everyday politics, according to which we often tend to underestimate the power of coercion and violence. Considering the relatively peaceful and mild twenty or so last years, the general disinterest in war and politics (qua politics, not politician politics) because “only economy matters,” then it was – and still is – even more likely to see violence, war and politics grossly underestimated. As global tension is now rising, it would be crucial if we want to improve our foresight to revise the old models to integrate what should never have been forgotten, political dynamics, both international and domestic. This does not mean over-favouring them, but getting more balanced and thus adequate models.

In turn, this underestimation led to another mistake, an erroneous assessment of timing. Apprehending time properly is one of the most difficult problems of foresight and warning analysis (see for example Creating Evertime) and certainly one of the most neglected, as hardly anyone seems to be working directly on it. Here we might have one important element that should be integrated in research: time and timing depends on other variables and their interactions, which is congruent with one of the ways indications and warning deal with this challenge, through timeline indicators.*

Timing again

“A better call, for the progress of the Arab spring more broadly, was that Islamists would make ground but play a cautious and pragmatic game.” The Economist, 21 November 2012.

The Economist article was published on 21st November, just before Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s President, and “a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood” decided to issue “a decree… granting himself broad powers above any court as the guardian of Egypt’s revolution” (New York Times, 2 Dec 2012; 22 Nov 2012), which led to concern and widespread domestic protest. It was also published before demonstrations flared again in Tunisia on 27th November, for reasons similar to those that triggered the Jasmine revolution (Sarah Mersch, Deutsche Welle, 2 Dec 2012; Amnesty International via Bikyamasr, 1 Dec 2012).

This questions the assessment of success for this specific prediction. On the day of the evaluation, The Economist was indeed successful. However, can a forecast be right one day and wrong the next day, when it is about political dynamics, and especially considering the types of decisions that could be taken according to the prediction?

It is the very framework that we use to evaluate the success or failure of prediction that is at stake here, and this framework is calendar time. We need this framework because all our activities, thus the responses we would design and implement, are planned according to it, but there is also an element of absurdity if we limit ourselves to specific dates. A more interesting way to put predictions when dealing with political dynamics would be to point those out, assessing the patterns at work, the rise or decrease of tension and, more difficult, their estimated timing, which brings us back to the challenge previously underlined.

Black swans or biases?

“As ever, we failed at big events that came out of the blue. We did not foresee the LIBOR scandal, for example, or the Bo Xilai affair in China or Hurricane Sandy.” The Economist, 21 November 2012.

In those cases, the explanation given for the failures shows cognitive biases, most probably the same ones that were at work during the analysis and led to the incapacity to foresee, thus we may expect the same mistake to be reproduced.

Starting with Sandy, the storm did not come out of the blue; it is neither a black swan event (a concept Nassim Nicholas Taleb borrowed from Karl Popper to describe an unpredictable event, which is, with hindsight, re-imagined as predictable) as suggested by The Economist sentence, nor even a wild card (a high impact, low probability event). Any attention paid to climate change, to the statistics and documents produced by Munich-re (e.g the video below on North American weather) or Allianz, for example, to say nothing about the host of related scientific studies, show that extreme weather events have become a reality and we are to expect more of them and more often, including in the so-called rich countries, whatever ideologists say.

It may be impossible to predict the exact event, the day and precise path of a storm, but the likelihood to see “Frankenstorms” in the Eastern part of the US at this time of the year is high and in no way can be seen as an unpredictable surprise. How many similar events and related signals need to occur before we start considering them as likely and thus integrating them systematically in our various forecasts, foresight analyses and warnings.

A similar logic may be applied to the LIBOR scandal and even to the Bo Xilai affair. In a world where the financial establishment believes (rightly because political authorities let it do it) it is all-powerful, where most shy away from the shadow banking liability, where regulation is seen as cumbersome at best, then financial institutions and those working for them can easily conceive of themselves as being above the laws, which means that manipulating the LIBOR becomes completely plausible and not surprising.

The methodological problem we are facing here is as follows: Are we trying to predict discrete events (hard but not impossible, however with some constraints and limitations according to cases) or are we trying to foresee dynamics, possibilities? The answer to this question will depend upon the type of actions that should follow from the anticipation, as predictions or foresight are not done in a vacuum but to allow for the best handling of change.

In an ideal world, it would thus be logical to start with the second goal, that would then allow for the creation of proper mitigating policies, as well as for the design of further directives in terms of surveillance of problems, specific intelligence requirements, etc.

Then one could move to the prediction of discrete events (within the dynamics previously identified), with resources and analytical methodologies correctly allocated and designed according to the nature and characteristics of the potential events. In many cases such as the LIBOR or Bo Xilai, this would imply systematic investigation and intelligence collection, and those have traditionally been part of the media role. In the case of Sandy, we are in the field of warning of natural events, which is handled by the scientific community, by state’s (e.g. meteorological offices) and international governmental organisations.

The Economist courageous and interesting self-assessment of last year’s predictions has thus pointed out the need to make explicit and revise our analytical models (including cognitive ones), notably to fully integrate political dynamics, violence and wars, the importance and difficulty of time’s evaluation, the necessity to think about the use various clients could make of foresight when endeavouring and then phrasing a forecast, while the struggle against all biases must remain constant.

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*See, for example, Grabo chapter 6, “‘Timing and Surprise”, who underlines the particular difficulty to foresee timing in the case of military attacks. Grabo, Cynthia M., Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning, edited by Jan Goldman, (Lanham MD: University Press of America, May 2004).

Epstein, Joshua M. “Why Model?” Santa Fe Institute Working Papers, 2008.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable (Random House (U.S.) Allen Lane (U.K.), 2007).

Turton, Andrew “Patrolling the middle ground: methodological perspectives on ‘everyday peasant resistance,’” in Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South-East Asia, ed. James C. Scott and Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, (London: Frank Cass & Co.; 1986), pp. 36-48.

2012 EVT: Material Stakes in an Outdated Worldview (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last week’s summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population as authorities cannot anymore deliver security. The last phenomenon driving Everstatan governing bodies’ rising inefficiency in ensuring their mission is an outdated worldview that leads to misunderstanding and disconnect, which is first upheld by ideological stakes.

(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab - a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading).

The knowledge institutions and related people, which are guardians of norms and thus have ideological stakes in upholding an outdated worldview, are also motivated by material stakes in seeing norms respected, upheld and continuing. Indeed, their institutional survival depends on the continuation of those models, for example, through funding and employment.

Even if some or most within those institutions (again with variations according to their exact normative function) are increasingly aware that models have to be revised – but how far and how deep – being the first to do so could mean being cast away and thus losing both status and income. Individuals within institutions are caught in a system similar to traders on the stock exchange in the period preceding the burst of a bubble.

Furthermore, as the lender nexus and other elite groups benefit from the new means to appropriate public power, as those appropriations are permitted by the current model and underlying norms and thrive from the lack of real understanding, then those elite groups also have a material stake in seeing the current model and norms remaining in power. This is even more the case that some of those elite groups gained status as well as income only because of the absence of adequate models. If another model of socio-political organisation existed that allowed Everstate to face the new pressures, ensure security and thus bring back the satisfaction of the population then those elite groups would lose power. They are thus most unlikely to willingly abandon their new found or reinforced privileges.

If or when new understanding and new models, possibly with the slower creation of new norms and beliefs emerge, this will create new elite groups while the discarded model will imply the disappearance of existing elite group. Those new and disappearing elite groups will not only be related to understanding and knowledge as well as needed skills but also to the disappearing and emerging needed resources, that will then be fully integrated within the new model.

Any attempt at proposing something new or different is thus, for now, either muted or remoulded in agreement with the existing paradigm. Its authors, if they are too weak institutionally, are either marginalised or bought in to the price of the novelty of their ideas. In one way or another, new ideas are not heard.

Thus beliefs outlast the situation. As beliefs constrain understanding, which in itself conditions actions, a growing disconnect takes place between reality and actions. As actions disregard reality, they may only imply further dissatisfaction and become essentially increasingly escalating in terms of tension and scope of grievances.

For example, in other countries, protests then violence had followed an escalating pattern. For the initial phases, that looks very much like what is happening in Everstate. There, the trigger had been, surprisingly for the government and the elite, an increase in food prices. Yet, such increases had been constant over the past three years. This new price rise had not even been major. People had been thought to be used to those increases that were, anyway, expected. Furthermore, people had been repeatedly told that such inflation was not that important because the prices of so many other items, including wages, were not increasing, which showed, from the economy and monetary experts’ point of view that there was no real generalised inflation. Obviously, the monetary and economy gurus had forgotten to consider that seeing constant increase in food prices while wages were remaining stable would soon become a major problem in real life for real people. They had also forgotten that despite beliefs in the law of the market, the demand for some vital goods was inelastic, and that related shortage was not an option. Those would be translated in political terms rather than nicely remain within the sole economic field. Thus, the analytical tools set up by experts were congruent with the model and the norms, but so far away from reality that escalation and tension could not only rise unnoticed, but also be dismissed. When violence exploded, it took everyone by surprise. The strength of the norm is such that quickly an explanation fitting the model and avoiding possibly questioning it surfaces: the revolutions that took place could be explained by the need to embrace the democratic model, not by any other need.* Thus, from the normative point of view, Everstate, being a democracy and having been for quite a while, can learn no lessons from those other protests and their escalation, as they bear no resemblance whatsoever with what is happening in Everstate… or so the model says.

The situation into which Everstate and the normative world to which it belongs find themselves is blocked.

The people and the nation, composed actually of the same people, are twice discontented: first, as people, they have to pay for the elite, adjust to new less than pleasant working and living conditions; second, as ruler, they are seeing their power dwindling. Furthermore, fear and anxiety starts spreading as understanding either lacks or appears by bursts, soon to be muted while meaninglessness settles.

The situation is increasingly unsustainable and leads Everstate to its loss.

As the people and the nation start taking actions to express their discontent and see their goals met, their representatives begin considering changing the situation as continuing delivering security to citizens is the only way for them to still govern thus to remain in power.

But what can be done? And by whom?

To be continued…

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* The inspiration for this paragraph comes from the 2008 food riots, as well as from the winter and spring protests and rebellions that occurred in the Middle East and North Africa. For a very interesting article on Egypt suggesting very early a different interpretation, read, for example, Walter Armbrust: “A revolution against neoliberalism? If rebellion results in a retrenchment of neoliberalism, millions will feel cheated,” Al Jazeera English, 24 Feb 2011, This article first appeared on Jadaliyya.

2012 EVT: Ideological Stakes in an Outdated Worldview (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last week’s summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. The increasing incapacity of the political authorities to deliver the security citizens seek increases the risks to the legitimacy of the whole system. The first two phenomena driving Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security are a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity, and a related creeping appropriation of resources while the strength of central public power weakens to the profit of various elite groups. The first of this group is the lenders’ nexus. The second type of elite groups is developing strongholds focused on those resources needed by Everstate and is exemplified by an extreme form of outsourcing, crystallized by the company Novstate.

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An outdated worlview leads to misunderstanding and disconnect

As discontent settles in Everstate, with its corollary of slowly rising tension, widening scope of grievances, and creeping feeling of injustice, while people continue, in vain, to seek security, Everstatans try to give meaning to their hardship, to understand what is happening to them and why. Meanwhile, Everstate’s governing bodies also look for ways to solve the various problems they face, which demand understanding the situation.

Such quests mean that the current normative models held in Everstate, and, more broadly, in the liberal order to which Everstate belongs are increasingly dysfunctional and outdated. Indeed, should they be adapted, they would provide the right framework for both efficient and satisfactory actions and meaning. Whilst now, nothing makes sense anymore and the situation worsens almost on a daily basis. The economy is growing inefficient; the political authorities’ actions repeatedly fail to ensure security; discontent increases; the formal bureaucracy of the state apparatus is questioned at many level, including by the bureaucracy itself; the state infrastructure seems to be now unable to fulfill its functions ; appropriation of public resources and power grows. Those are signals or symptoms that something is amiss in the models followed.

But then, if this is the case why has a new model not already emerged? What is happening and why?

Actually, Everstate and its fellow countries have now to face one of the toughest challenges, if not the hardest, that may confront a society. They are facing the intrinsic difficulty that goes with the need to change the various models that frame their lives and related institutions.

Currently, there is only one major model of socio-political order that frames the organisation and behaviour of most countries in the world, including Everstate: the modern nation-state, focused on the sole improvement of citizens’ material well-being, in its liberal democratic version. Other variations, such as Communism, have failed as the Cold War showed, and lessons have been learned from others’ experiences. Nothing else is available. Thus, if there is a need for change, then something new must be created, which is very difficult indeed.

First, ideological stakes are at work. The model of socio-political order is at once grounded in the past and in increasingly deeper systems of beliefs, themselves constructed historically.*

The first layer is a system of norms or beliefs, which can be seen as an ideology (a set of ideas), and quite akin to a religious system of beliefs, with all the sacred connotations and emotional attachment that may go with it. It will also contain the culture and mores of a specific society or country. It evolves slowly with time. From this level are derived, for example, the legal concepts applied in each country.

This layer is then included in and interacting with normative beliefs that act at systemic level and are constructed out of interactions between different systems of beliefs and actors. Here are worked out norms that rule the lives of all actors in the world, such as, for example, the existence of states that are territorial, sovereign, independent, the importance of modernisation (being modern), a norm that was constructed and imposed upon the world starting from the end of the nineteenth century.**

Then, one finds the deepest level of norms that may be called paradigmatic and will contain those values that are most crucial, deepest and most fundamental. For example, at this level may be located fundamental ideas about life and death, about the place of human beings in the universe, about the evolution of the universe, about fundamental ethics, etc.

Each layer of norms results form past evolution and past norms and has emerged out of collective efforts to face past historical situations. Each layer evolves at a different speed and the deeper it is, the more difficult to change it, the more threatening any potential change, and the more chattering the experience of changing it, at both collective and individual level. However, as the more superficial level – the socio-political model in its specific Everstatan guise – is embedded within the others and includes elements of them, then any change similarly involves dread.

Besides the human cognitive difficulty in revising models in front of new evidences***, ideological stakes to keep the model of socio-political order are thus strong considering the difficulties and consequences of altering it. Finally, as those models are normative, questioning them generates a fear to be cast away by the group, with all the internalised dread related to the impossibility to survive alone if one were excluded from the group. Thus, new evidences that could question models are either not seen or consciously and unconsciously dismissed. The likelihood to see this denial happening increases with the depth of the set of beliefs that is touched.

The knowledge and understanding institutions act as guarantor of the ideological and normative system. As such, and according to the norms they uphold and represent, they also provide legitimacy to the governing bodies within society. They tend, at least initially and according to their specific normative position, to further forbid questions and to stop the emergence of new ideas and new models. Meanwhile, prompted by the rising disconnect between reality and the norms and the dysfunction and hardship it generates, a demand for another understanding, one that would be adapted to the current reality, is voiced increasingly loudly, and lends strength to the rise of alternative purveyors of knowledge or to a major renewal within traditional ones.

Considering where Everstate stands historically and normatively, the knowledge and understanding institutions are mainly located within the academia, especially those departments where the latest models of socio-political order have been designed and upheld: economics departments and business schools, with the support of some of the most liberal and economically minded political science studies, as well as some divisions focusing more exclusively on technology and applied science.

Everstate has very good quality universities and those last 60 years they have provided increasingly recognised scientific knowledge and understanding, notably in the areas of main normative concern, such as economics, business and technology. They have educated generations of civil servants and also play the role of think tank. The analyses thus provided are widely recognised throughout the country as being explanatory and providing good advice to the ruling institutions, contributing thus to good governance and sanctifying the legitimacy of the state. Those universities are enmeshed in the global academic network and Everstate scholars travel extensively and can be heard in international workshop, while they contribute to global knowledge.

Interestingly in Everstate, the scientific institution cannot be seen as a single body anymore, that would, as a single actor, protect all norms. The organisation in disciplines that took place over the last centuries, and that played in the hands of those upholding a modernising and materialistic division of the world, giving power to a few, also contains within itself the seeds of a potential renewal. Indeed, as demand for a new adequate understanding increases, if norms must be revised, if some beliefs must be discarded, then the separation in disciplines means that the complete demise of science is not necessary, only part of it will have to be revised or even discarded. This also means that in the near future battles are likely to be played within universities, in Everstate but also at global level.

Some churches, at least those which adapted to the more materialistic part of modern life, can also help upholding norms. However, as Everstatans are relatively uninterested in religion, churches’ influence is so far marginal. One notices, nonetheless, a revival of some religions as citizens look for meaning and understanding, an understanding that mainstream beliefs do not bring anymore. It is thus likely that churches will play an increasingly important role in the years to come, notably if sciences cannot be renewed when needed.

International institutions, such as the IMF, the World Bank or the United Nations agencies, being born of the latest systemic norms and to sustain them, also contribute to enforce their universal, orthodox character. The latest born global institution is private, a powerful global association of companies that influences even heads of states. It upholds all the norms related to business. Efforts towards further or different regional and global governance let expect the appearance of new actors at this level and of coming related normative battles. Any attempt to question or change the norms upheld by those organisations will be fiercely combated.

To complete the structure, we find professionals trained in those institutions and having thus acquired those skills that are so crucial to the functioning of this system created for past conditions also act as guardians of the norm. For example, business consultants or high level executives coming from the corporate world, notably in areas linked to finance, act as unquestioned and unquestionable gurus. Novstate, considering its hybrid character is particularly active in the normative field, from the specific funding of research programs within universities and think tanks to full use of its friend networks, notably within mainstream media.

To be continued…

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* The organisation in four layers of norms and beliefs is only sketched here as a hypothesis. Each of them may be constructed as a complex system and more research would be valuable on their interactions, the way they are born and evolve.

** See notably, Bull, H., The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, (London: MacMillan,1979); Bull, H. and A.Watson, The Expansion of International Society, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Gong, G. W., The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), Lavoix, Helene, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘genocide’ : the construction of nation-ness, authority, and opposition – the case of Cambodia (1861-1979) – PhD Thesis – School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2005; for modernisation, see, among others Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).

*** Richard Heuer, Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999, defines cognitive biases as “mental errors caused by our simplified information processing strategies” stemming “from subconscious mental procedures for processing information. A cognitive bias is a mental error that is consistent and predictable.” Chapter 9. At work here among other biases would be the bias known as the “Persistence of impressions based on discredited evidence (difficulty to discard the initial causal model created). – also called Belief persistence after evidential discrediting” Anderson, Craig A., Mark R. Lepper, and Lee Ross. “Perseverance of Social Theories: The Role of Explanation in the Persistence of Discredited Information.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1980, Vol. 39, No.6, 1037-1049.

2012 EVT: the Power of Novstate (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last week’s summary: In 2012 EVT, the deepening chronic budget deficit and the rising need for liquidity of Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) give an increasing power to the lenders elite group, allowing for new forms of appropriation of public power. Everstate sinks into a vicious circle.

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On the difficulty of cooperating with elite groups

The second phenomenon driving Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security is a related creeping new appropriation of public resources and a weakening of the strength of central public power to the profit of various elite groups, the first of which was the lenders’ nexus. As many needs beyond liquidity remain, Everstate’s rulers (the modern state, the elected governing bodies and the nation) have no other choice than to turn to those who hold the resources needed, the elite. The need for cooperation with the elite is increased because the new pressures on Everstate mean that new staff is necessary for governance.

Meanwhile, the intensification of the various kinds of pressures implies a renewed need for manpower, which has been so far used by various elite groups (manpower includes here military, police and civilians part of the monopoly of violence of the state; staff includes all other civil servants). For example, the strengthening of cyber threats and the new cyber security field, as Everstate wants to preserve its monopoly of violence, implies that IT specialists and experts that were up until now mainly working for IT multinational groups are now also needed and recruited by the state. Similarly, all military techniques impact the need for manpower of the state. Meanwhile, the capability of the governing bodies to meet this need affects the performance and the size of the army.

Because elite groups seek to protect and increase their power, status and resources, this need for cooperation with the elite has led and is still leading to series of negotiations between Everstate’s government and Parliament on the one hand, and the elite on the other. The result of those negotiations impacts directly the army’s size and performance, the formal bureaucracy of the state, as well as, of course, the various ways to appropriate public power.

Since the 1990s EVT, Everstate has regularly lost to its elite, notably through an extreme form of the phenomenon known as outsourcing. Although, for a state to contract private firms and experts is not a new phenomenon, and is indeed necessary,a delicate balance must be maintained. In Everstate, outsourcing started taking a new dimension during the 1990s. Entire areas directly related to governance are now in the hands of private firms, notably the powerful Everstatan Company Novstate, specialised in strategy and technology consulting. Year after year, Novstate is awarded the same contracts, which end up being seen as almost proprietary, and wins new ones. Yet, a legal bid system to compete for and be awarded public markets exists and is respected. Even the direct security apparatus of Everstate is not anymore fully public, as a few private companies, Everstatan and international, play there an increasingly crucial role, from multi-involvement in the army, which is challenged by its reduced size, to various security functions such as logistics or the screening done at airports.

Everstate’s formal state bureaucracy is powerless to struggle against this new type of appropriation of public power unless it should be seen, as many Everstatans believe as “achieving an efficiency that can only be obtained with private management.”. Indeed, first, this bureaucracy was created and established to face bygone conditions. Then, as it became progressively impacted by outsourcing and as the overall power of the ruling bodies of Everstate weakened, it came to see outsourcing as the norm, even as the sign of a renovated and forward looking bureaucracy. This was even more the case as some of the nation’s representatives, politicians, and political appointees, on the one hand, some of the senior level civil servants, on the other, increasingly often joined those outsourcing companies. By entering this system, they legitimate this extreme form of outsourcing as they are still endowed with the status of their previous position when they make their choice. In this way, those entering the extreme outsourcing system keep their previous status as they continue participating in the country’s governance, while they gain new status, resources and privileges by joining the private sector. As such, they constitute a specific elite group.

Meanwhile, as the same people keep the same functions without allowing for the usual generational change to play its role, entire age classes of younger Everstatans, despite their high level of education are neither incorporated within the political authorities apparatus, nor even, fairly, within the outsourcing one. Volunteering and unpaid internships are promoted and almost the only way new highly educated youth can access to experience and work, even if this increasingly leads only to other internships. As a result, a crucial element of the upward social mobility in Everstate is stalled. In the meantime, the formal modern bureaucracy that had characterized Everstate for so long is nothing else than starting to disappear, even if it keeps its name and pretence.

As renewal and rejuvenation are blocked, outsourcing companies that are also meant to be in touch with new ideas and the evolution of society cannot anymore play this role. How could it be otherwise as Everstatan elite groups that have achieved power are certainly not ready to accept to see any of their privileges diminishing? Any idea that could imply, really or apparently, a loss of relevance would be relenting of the possibility to disappear as elite groups and this, they cannot accept. On the contrary, they are building ever-larger and stronger strongholds based on those resources that gave them, initially, their elite status. For example, Novstate does not only advise governance bodies but also supplies governance services, often in areas where there are also advisors, as it unites in its network of “friends’ companies” – a new business concept derived from social networking – small security firms, quasi armies, high tech start ups, biotech laboratories, etc.

Hence, any new negotiation between the governing bodies and the elite groups is a rush for more appropriation of public power and enlarges the elite groups’ strongholds.

Meanwhile, these struggles for the benefit of exclusive groups just add further pressures on the overall society.

Everstate is in a situation similar to what happened with liquidity, but with different elite groups, even if sometimes connections exist between groups notably through “friends networks.” If the ruler’s power continues to grow weaker than the elite’s power, then the elite will go on appropriating part of public power in a manner that is only hidden by the existing socio-political model and by the way it gets around the still existing norm on the separation between public and private. As a result, the new resources extracted will most likely remain insufficient, with consequences on the state’s infrastructure, on governance and on the army’s size and performance thus on the monopoly of violence of the ruler (the nation, the government and assemblies and the state that assists the former in their tasks), as well as on budget deficit.

Negotiating in such increasingly difficult conditions with elite groups only leads to an appropriation of public property, to a further weakening of the central power and thus to an increased power of elite groups, in a vicious circle. Yet, no other option seems to be available.

As a result, the dissatisfaction of the population increases. The very legitimacy of Everstate’s system has already started suffering. If nothing changes the risks to legitimacy will only increase.

To be continued…

2012 EVT: Public Resources and Lenders (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last week’s summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) sees a mounting discontent of its population because it has become insecure considering the impact of the new still misunderstood conditions. Three related phenomena drive Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security. First, Everstate faces a changing set of resources implying an income that is relatively too low while costs and expenditures resulting from accumulated threats and pressures rise inexorably. Added to an Inability to understand the situation and a use of past recipe, this leads to both a chronic and deepening budget deficit and an increasing demand for liquidity. Individually, citizens face the same challenge, which heightens the need for liquidity.

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The need for liquidity and the “lender’s nexus” elite group

The need for liquidity of Everstate on the one hand, and, on the other, the uniformity and interdependence of potential lenders not only within Everstate but also worldwide, resulting in their relative scarcity, gives “the lenders’ nexus” a strong power and elite status. Banks, rating agencies, and various funds as well as those working for them thus find themselves in an immensely strong negotiating position vis-à-vis the ruler, i.e. the people, the nation and its representative government and assemblies.

In turn, this bargaining position allows for a new type of appropriation of public power by this lender elite group: a huge amount of national income, financed through an already insufficient tax income, is transferred to this lender establishment worldwide, including to what is called the shadow banking system, through borrowing – and over borrowing – made on the market whatever the interest rates, payment of those interests, gifts in terms of deregulation and favourable monetary policies, guarantees of protection in case of bankruptcy or more largely whatever the risks taken by those private lenders, favourable tax policies, etc.

Worse still, as the situation deteriorated over the years, with an ever rising need for liquidity, some of the resources of the nation will have to be sold or transferred through long-term lease and various legal means to those who have the necessary liquidity: private elite groups, domestic or foreign, or foreign governments. If such arrangements will hopefully bring short-term relief, on the medium to longer term, they are more than likely to accelerate the vicious circle into which Everstate finds itself: fewer resources (what has been sold or long-leased) may only mean less income later on and thus a need for more liquidity.* Such abandon of national resources also implies a loss of international prestige, which is geopolitically prejudicial. Finally, such arrangements can also be seen as a further appropriation of public property, which will weaken the central power and thus open the door to even more appropriation of public power.

It is not that the Everstatan government and Parliament really want to choose this solution, but what other solutions are available to them?

As for the current strategy of extraction of resources, if the past pattern is to be followed, most of the extraction will have to come from the population. However, as the population is under increasing pressure, it is more than likely that what will be extracted will be insufficient to cover the growing need for income and liquidity. Furthermore, as Everstatans are increasingly dissatisfied, and feel relatively deprived, then it is more than likely that they will resist more taxes by all means, if they do not see their situation improving or to the least stabilising or do not believe such positive evolution is possible.

Most countries that have been in a similar situation before Everstate have adopted this type of policies. As it is a very recent phenomenon, the real impact of such policies cannot truly be evaluated, but Everstate’s governing bodies reason that if this policy has been chosen before, it means that it cannot be that bad.**

Furthermore, from the Everstatan’s governing institutions’ perspective, moving from a public government of the commons to a private management of goods may only be the right solution, as it is in line with the liberal model of socio-political organisation (in its “neo-liberal” – end of the twentieth century, beginning of the twenty-first century – version). Does this model not underline how inefficient the state is compared with the private sector? Has this not been shown times and again, and notably with the collapse of the Soviet Union? Anyway, there is no other model available. Thus, the Everstatan governing bodies feel that they are not only solving temporary problems, but also doing what is truly right for their country and that they should, maybe, have done before.

Considering the expected result of past classical strategies of extraction of resources in the current conditions of needs that stubbornly remain, something else has to be done too: to turn to those who possess what is needed and to ask for their cooperation, i.e. to turn to elite groups. The difficulty is that entering into negotiations with those groups automatically increases their power and their status, which in turn reinforces their elite group status or even, potentially, creates it if it did not exist beforehand. A new episode in the age-old struggle between elite groups and ruler – here as the modern state, the elected governing bodies and the nation – is about to start.

To be continued…

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* The case of Greece was obviously the inspiration for the narrative of this paragraph, written during Spring 2011. See, for example, Elena Moya, “Greece starts putting island land up for sale to save economy,” The Guardian, 24 June 2010; George Petalotis, Letter to The Guardian, “Greece is not for sale,” The Guardian, 29 June 2010; The Telegraph, “China ‘set to invest billions in debt-stricken Greece’,” 15 June 2010; Press Office of the Embassy of Greece, Washington DC, “Chinese COSCO takes over in Piraeus Port,” 01 October, 2009; Dredging Today, “Greece: COSCO Will Spend US$707 million to Upgrade Piraeus Port Facilities,” 15 July 2010.

** This paragraph also uses the principle of homogeneity of Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, (London: Macmillan, 1994); for more on Fred Halliday’s contribution to international relations and political science, see, Alex Colas and George Lawson, “Fred Halliday: Achievements, Ambivalences, Openings”, Millennium, Vol. 39(2) 2010.

2012 EVT: Budget Deficit and Liquidity (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last week’s summary: In 2012 EVT, in Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state), people seek security as they increasingly feel the negative impact of various pressures and threats on their life. Henceforth they turn to their political authorities and even start trying to compel them to provide this security. Through those actions, Everstatans start to remember that, as part of the nation, they are also rulers of Everstate. Yet, the situation is growing worse because the tasks of governance have grown more complex while the governing system and the polity are not yet adapted to the new conditions.

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Deepening budget deficit and increasing need for liquidity

The first phenomenon driving Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security is a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity.

The resources that participate into obtaining the income necessary to govern have started being impacted by the novel threats and by the evolution in general a few years ago. However, this change happened unnoticed by most and is still largely ignored as new pressures are yet to be recognised. In general, the focus of awareness is on forthcoming so-called resource wars*, generated by the probable end of cheap abundance that is likely to affect natural resources such as water, oil or minerals, and the scrambling for components in new substitutes such as rare-earth elements.

Yet, the problem is more complex and also far worse. Some of the resources that used to generate income in the past have dwindled. For example, when Everstatan industries delocalised, related income disappeared. Meanwhile, changes impacting other resources on the one hand, and the emergence of new resources on the other are not yet integrated within the public framework. All affect income.

Governing bodies should be on the watch and receive adequate warnings regarding the need to take in-depth actions.

However, the resources extracted from the polity that have usually generated income are taxes levied mostly on the population, through taxes on personal income and social contributions (direct taxes) or through taxes on consumption (indirect taxes). Hence, the negative impact on resources could not and cannot be directly and immediately felt, and thus goes unconsidered. It is mediated by time and by economic activity as well as by impact of the general evolution of society on the wealth and consumption behaviour of people.

Yet, as new pressures pile, most of them without any awareness and thus unattended, while resources and ecological conditions evolve, an increasingly larger impact on the resources of the nation is to be expected, unforeseen, thus unmonitored and, consequently, without any kind of planning to face it. Very real consequences on the nation’s income, even if they are delayed, are in the making.

Meanwhile, the simple fact to try to make sense of some of the new pressures, those that are already perceived, comes with a cost. To fight constantly against such new military threats as terrorism or such unconventional dangers as cyber-threats uses a lot of the available resources and related income.

The increasingly numerous extreme weather events that are occurring, if they are not always evaluated in such a way, also takes its toll on resources: damages imply a net loss of wealth, while most events such as floods, tempests, or snowstorms immobilise economic activity. The accumulation of those localised and sometimes hardly noticed events has a direct domestic cost that increases expenditures, while it diminishes income and sometimes reduces resources.** Furthermore, when natural catastrophes and extreme weather events hit other countries, Everstate is also impacted through aid and various contributions, lowered trade, potential global ecological impact of disasters and levy on citizens’ savings (which then become unavailable for domestic borrowing, investment or consumption), with further consequences as reduced contribution to taxes.

Everstate is thus faced with a relative (compared with what would have been, had those changes and evolutions not taken place) lowered income, while more resources to face rising expenditures are necessary and increasingly more so, when those new and rising pressures also mean that the task of governing has become harder, which too has a cost, at least initially.

The nation and its governing bodies thus imperatively need to find new resources and income, as well as related new staff, which increases state’s expenditures, which in turn will increase the need for new resources and then income, until a new balance, adapted to the current and foreseeable future conditions, is found.

Solely keeping the system running as in the past is counterproductive because this directly and immediately impacts governance, lowering its efficiency. Being unable to understand what is happening and thus to find the necessary new resources and income means that a satisfactory way to plan for the increasing tasks involved by governance cannot be achieved. This, too, lowers the overall efficiency. As a result, the security that Everstatans seek cannot be ensured. Furthermore, the system is increasingly unable to do so.

Be it perceived and understood or not, this need for new resources and income is very real and upon Everstate. It implies that cash or liquid assets are demanded by Everstate’s governing bodies. First, they have to pay to face all the pressures identified, to assume impacts’ costs when pressures are not identified, and to finance the usual tasks of governing, when Everstate’s income is insufficient as new resources and income have not yet been found. A new adapted strategy of extraction of resources (for the income of governing bodies) would reduce the need for liquidity, but it has yet to be designed.

In Everstate, as in many other countries, this situation has lasted for quite a while already. However, Everstate’s government and Parliament have dealt with it as if nothing new had happened. They thus used past recipes. As a result, the budget deficit has become chronic. In turn, as deficit is now regularly bridged by debt, on the one hand the cost of the debt further increases the deficit, while the need to borrow further heightens the need for liquidity.

Meanwhile, Everstatans’ quest for security in those gradually more difficult conditions also contributes to increase the demand for liquidity as people still need the now lacking or diminishing resources. Thus, the demand for those resources does not recede. On the contrary, for some of them, it increases as usage of those resources is fully integrated within the developed way of life of Everstatans and its expected improvement. For example, some of those resources have to come from further way or, when possible, have to be created or transformed out of other resources, which implies a further demand for liquidity. This situation also contributes to intensify the demand for understanding and meaning, as Everstatans, as any human beings, need to make sense of their perceived new hardship, so contrary to the promises of the materialistic normative order in which they have lived all their lives.

To be continued…

* See, among others, Michael T. Klare, Resource wars: the new landscape of global conflict, Henry Holt, 2002.

** See, for example, Holly Riebeek, “The rising cost of natural hazards,” Nasa Earth Observatory, March 28, 2006, accessed April 14, 2011; Munich RE NatCatSERVICE: Natural Catastrophes in 2010, 2011, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE ; and corresponding press release, accessed April 14, 2011.

2012 EVT: Seeking Security (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Helene Lavoix

Last week’s summary: In 2012 EVT, in Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state), the population’s discontent increases – and is bound to continue to do so – as a result of various pressures and threats, most of them inevitable, imperfectly identified, and not understood. Indeed, Everstatans feel both directly and indirectly the impact of those pressures, which affect their sense of security and thus generate discontent.

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Everstatans seek security

Everstatans continue to seek a security that is appearing as increasingly distant and elusive.

They turn to their political authorities, expecting them to deliver this security. Indeed, Everstatans believe that their government, their state (which assists the ruler in its tasks) and their national representatives, being their legitimate political authorities, should ensure their security. This fundamental belief is inscribed in their collective history, not only as a country, but also as part of the human species (Moore, 1978). Furthermore, Everstate is part of the normative order called liberal democracies. Thus, as Everstatans have elected their representatives and their government, they are even surer of their right to be well governed, i.e. to see their security ensured.

However, most of the time, they have forgotten that, as citizens on the one hand and as part of the collective body of the nation on the other, they are also a part of the political authorities. As such, they not only have a role to play but also a duty to assume it. They cannot just sit there and relinquish their power and responsibilities, all the more so that their security is at stake. This forgetfulness is not a specific trait of Everstatans but widely shared with most of their fellow citizens in other representative liberal democracies.

Initially, Everstatans exerted their power in a rather negative and passive way, witness the growing abstention during elections that had been going on for decades and other worrying weak signals of alienation. Now, their grumbling grows louder and is a first still inchoate way to act to make sure their government, their state and their national representatives consider their demands. Furthermore, other actions, more visible, such as strikes and demonstrations – sometimes with some violence - also take place with an increasing frequency while creeping unrest and rising lawlessness settle in some very specific areas.

As all those actions originate from different groups of citizens and take various forms with different purposes, for most observers, including Everstatans, they appear as unrelated, dispersed and thus of no consequence. Worse still for those witnesses, when a protest movement seems to be a bit more constructed – e.g. the Occupy Everstate movement, part of the global Occupy/Indignados movement – it starts with a specific demand, linked to the impacts having generated dissatisfaction, then, when satisfaction is not obtained, the scope of the discontent in terms of content increases, usually giving rise to another supplementary revendication. This leads most to completely discredit the various movements of protest, all the more so that the new very real pressures Everstate has to face are still very imperfectly perceived and measured. Indeed, seen from the surface, the protests are sporadic, actively involve relatively few people, flare up and then recede. However, imperceptibly, overtime, the overall level of tension increases, the number of people likely to be actively involved in protests rises, while the scope of discontent widens.

Wrong answers

As the responses of Everstate’s government, state, and Parliament generate dissatisfaction, it seems that they are increasingly unable to answer the population’s demands, which stem from the real situation, the citizens need for security and the beliefs they hold.

Things are however more complex than a sudden incompetency or, more absurd, malevolence, as some extremist Everstatan conspiracy theorists try to promote.

Everstatan political authorities, indeed, have to provide a governance that has become progressively more complex and thus difficult Governance implies more tasks, many of them novel. Security must be delivered to citizens in overall conditions that have changed. The various pressures for survival and military threats as well as their intensity demand attention, resources, policy and successful responses. Meanwhile, the evolution of resources available, as well as their rising complexity, for example all those related to the virtual and mobile world, again ask for fully novel policies and practice.

Logically those new tasks require new staff as well as new resources and income, past ones having become ill-suited, insufficient or even exhausted.

In this framework and because of it, three related phenomena are at work that drive the political authorities’ current incapacity to deliver security and thus the rising population’s dissatisfaction, while also directly adding to the discontent: a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity, a creeping new appropriation of public resources and a weakening of the strength of central public power to the profit of various elite groups, and finally the use of an out-dated normative model leading to misunderstanding and disconnect as long as the demand for new understanding is not satisfied.

To be continued…

Reference

Moore, B., Injustice: Social bases of Obedience and Revolt, (London: Macmillan, 1978)

	United States	35 %
	France	23 %
	United Kingdom	7 %
	Canada	6 %
	India	2 %
	Australia	2 %
	Germany	2 %
	Spain	2 %
	Netherlands	1 %
	Italy	1 %
	Romania	1 %
	Sweden	1 %
	Switzerland	1 %
	Ireland	1 %

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Red (team) Analysis

Strategic Foresight & Warning, Anticipatory Intelligence, Political Risk Assessment

Tag Archives: 2012

An Experiment in Assessing End of Year Predictions: How Did they Fare? (2)

Issues and countries: a conventional view of national security

Inaccurate timing and relatively plausible content

Novelty and pace

An Experiment in Assessing End of Year Predictions (1)

The Council on Foreign Relations, risk and making likelihood explicit

Scenarios, timing and content

Evaluating content and timing: a difficult, uncertain, never-ending task?

2012 Predictions Database

Trial by Fire for Foresight: The 2012 Predictions of The Economist

Evaluating success

Biases, the vexing problem of time and the case of Syria

Timing again

Black swans or biases?

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