SYNTHETIC TECHNOLOGY-ANALYTIC GOVERNANCE - THE 21ST-CENTURY CHALLENGE

There has been a growing divergence between the reality of U.S. societ y and the nation's conceptual model of governance and this pattern wil l likely continue into the 21st century. The divergence is being drive n by a rapidly changing reality which has at its core the continuous i nnovation of complex technologies through a process of synthesis. The nation's analytic model of governance is increasingly unresponsive to the synthetic reality with one result being increased social stress. T his article investigates the reasons for the divergence and future gov ernance needs. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.