A DESIGN FOR FUTURE-ORIENTED GOVERNMENT

This article presents a design for future-oriented government. To guid e the design, nine criteria are proposed, which include the explicit r ecognition of future generations and future-oriented issues, explicit implementation of a structured decision-making process, incentives to include people of wisdom, and effective and broad-based citizen partic ipation. The two main elements of the design are the Court of Generati ons and the Futures Congress, which diagnose the severity of threats t o future generations and decide what actions to take, respectively. Th e Futures Administration provides information system support to these institutions. The Futures Issues Commission and the Coordination/Media tion Service assist the futures-oriented government interact with exis ting governmental institutions that are more appropriate for addressin g everyday concerns. It is hypothesized that major decisions regarding the environment, energy, long-term science and space projects, and ag riculture, among other areas, would shift to the Futures Congress from the National Legislature. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd