(Updated 6 June 2012 – this list will be updated when new actors appear in the scenarios)
The Everstatans: the citizens, the people, the Nation
Everstate’s central governing bodies or political authorities: the government, Parliament, the national representatives, the civil servants constituting the formal and rational modern bureaucracy.
Everstate’s regional and local governing bodies: elected representatives at town, department (or county) and region level.
Everstate’s political parties: Two major parties (loosely associated with social democrats on the one hand and conservative on the other). Other parties are insignificant in terms of national representation.
International Special fund for Sustainable Innovation and Green Energy (ISSIGE) [Scenario 2 – Panglossy]: A special fund into which the new Everstatan government decides that Everstate must participate. This fund will help polities harnessing the ecological evolution and the increasing complexity of resources, and transform those into opportunities. A specific instrument will be organised around the Regional Union and should “fund pan-Regional infrastructure projects.”
International meeting group for the resilience of the financial system (IRESFIS) [Scenario 2 – Panglossy]: Spearheaded by Everstate and its newly elected government, IRASFIS is linked to the G-20, and involves the major financial private institutions. It must bring back trust to markets and allow for a return to a proper flow of liquidity.
The International Society of States: all states actors in the world (using Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society, idea and concept).
The Regional Union: “Everstate, as many other states in the world, was also a member of a regional institution, a Regional Union of independent and sovereign democratic states, it had joined freely in the decades following World War II. The Regional Union is neither a Federation, as the United States, Canada, India or Germany, for example, nor a Confederation, but something different, in the making. Its mission, shape, organisation, membership, areas of exclusive or only shared competence and consultative responsibility are being continually reworked and redesigned through various treaties and pacts.”
The International Governmental Organisations: UN and agencies, WTO, WB, IMF etc.
The lenders’ nexus: the largest banks and financial funds and more generally any organisation lending money and operating on the financial market. Includes the shadow banking system.
Novstate: “the powerful Everstatan Company… 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… 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.”
Novstate’s CEO: Has created Novstate at the end of the 1980s. He has become an acclaimed business expert and governance counselor.
Novstate’s network of Friends Companies: “.. 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.”
Evernet: a very performing high-tech Everstatan company.
Everstate’s universities and scientists: “…Very good quality universities… 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 … also play the role of think tank.
The Modern University of Everstate (MUEVT): The largest university of Everstate. It was created at the end of the nineteenth century and fundamentally reorganised after World War II.
The Everstatan School of Liberal Politics: An influential and rich department within MUEVT that at is at the forefront of research and publications in topics related to economics, monetary and fiscal policies, electoral politics, international regimes, peace studies, etc.
Occupy Everstate Movement: It is part of the global Occupy/Indignados Movement. It was formed in early 2011 EVT.
Anonymous: a global novel political force.
Novcybio International: A foreign company that develops new biotechnologies. It headquarters are located abroad, outside the Regional Union.
Novcybio Everstate: A wealthy Everstatan entrepreneur bought farmland in the impoverished Southeast at a very low price. Offering to use it to test Novcybio’s products, he could create and develop Nocybio Everstate.
Dear Helene:
I am very interested in this approach to Scenario analysis.. in part because on one half of my brain I am an engineer and on the other half a playwright.
I would like to propose that you consider another set of actors.. The EVEREXCLUDES. The Everexcludes represent the marginalized, bottom of the pyramid, who dont even participate in the OCCUPY movements of this current world. In some states they are the SILENT MAJORITY… like Blacks in South Africa in Apartheid.. Like Blacks in Brazil.. From a Development Standpoint I was challenged since I am NOT AN ECONOMIST with demonstrating to my peers that their traditional economic theories do not sufficiciently describe exclusion due to race, or ethnic discrimination and some other means needed to be thought through. I posited the integral framework as a lens for analysis…
IDENTITY; EQUALITY; EMPOWERMENT then EQUITY.. as a way of seeing how our development agendas do and do not reshape the experience and nature of poverty..
Would you consider including this ACTOR In your SCENARIO.. I would be happy to work with you on exploring an issue..
Particularly as I think this work would be useful for the Washington DEVELOPMENT consensus.. where I spent thirty years of my life.
One issue I am working on is how to get a conversation going on DEVELOPMENT FUTURES.. for the next World Bank President. I will be moderating a panel discussion at the MAY meeting of the World Future Society… Washington DC Chapter…
Would there be any possibility that you could address this as a fictional scenario in your EVERSTATE.. Of course EVERSTATE seems more like a DONOR Country.. but if we look at the US e.g. or UK in 2030 and what will be.. Your process may provide some interesting insight.
How may we go about an mini-exercise along these lines before the meeting on MAY 17th… assuming you are even interested.. and if you are not.. How could I use your approach to open the Conversation….
I look forward to hearing from you.. Claire Nelson —-
Dear Claire,
Thank you so much for your so interesting comment, your ideas and your offer. And I am truly so glad of you interest, this is exactly what I hoped would happen with Everstate :), that other interested people could see the potential for other issues. I have also answered you directly through email, but wanted to address content here.
I may imagine that you indeed had difficulties :) explaining that exclusion and reproduction of exclusion are not properly addressed by usual exclusively economic models. We can only address such complex issues -as most topics – through multi-disciplinary models.
Yes, of course, I would be interested in developing further this part of Everstate and to start building scenarios focusing more on one segment of the population, and glad to do it with you.
Actually, there are already variables in the model that I have not used so far in the narrative and that explain how (or rather one way) a government and state get separated from its population or part of it. Furthermore, a whole part of the model is devoted to dynamics of rebellion (or not rebellion). Thus, if we also divide the population into two sub-categories (excluded and not excluded), this may be sufficient for a first approach (as the beliefs part, feeling of injustice, security – in the larger sense including material security – are already there) and to draw the outlines of a scenario… to get the conversation going :)
However, if we want to really do it properly, assuming of course we have the resources, we would need first to review the literature on exclusion, on the creation of such categories in various societies then the processes underlying their reproduction, change etc. for a few cases, as those you mention (the dynamics of castes in India, research on slums, should also yield some crucial insights while the Everyday Politics approach of James Scott would be very useful indeed), then check the model underlying Everstate indeed covers properly the dynamics related to the issue of exclusion, and finally further develop the model when needed. Once our model is “good enough” then we can easily develop the scenarios.
Everstate is indeed, considering the way the criteria have been set (see related posts, notably Everstate’s characteristics and Setting the stage) at the start of the period, more of a donour country, but first this changes with the development of the scenarios and second, as you underline, I do not think that “Everexcludes” or “Everexcluded” are limited to a specific type of country; unfortunately this is quite universal. Furthermore, if ever you wanted to address other types of countries, then criteria could be set differently at the beginning.
I am looking forward to continuing this discussion over email and thank you again for your tine and ideas.
Helene