Created 06/11/2011 8:11:02 AM

We are usually faced with utopian or dystopian images of future world produced by optimistic and pessimistic points of view (Polak, 1973). However, thinking and talking academically require going along with realistic lines offered by realist futurists (Lombardo, 2006).

On the other hand, we have to deal with local and global futures (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000). Sometimes, they are replaced wrongly with each other, but we should address them correctly at their own places. So, how should we deal with the study of global futures in terms of a sound model? 

To address this question, we should firstly rearrange the images we have in mind (Paalumäki, 2009). Our images of the future are an unorganized compile of good, bad and neutral images. It is necessary to draw up a well-sorted image of the future like a puzzle. The future of the world will be neither too good, nor too bad as we usually assume (Glenn and Gordon 2010). There are real hopes and serious concerns over several global issues. We should take them as a whole. Secondly, we need to develop a study model. We can study global futures based on drivers of change. In this case, we may study them within an STEEP approach (Bishop, 2004). We can also use State of the Future Index integrated International Futures Model (Glenn, 2011).

In a more systematic approach, we may follow the global development system that is developed by Hughes and Hillebrand (2006). It deals with these sections of global futures: domestic sociopolitical, international political, population, economic, agriculture, energy, technology, environmental resources and quality. As we go further with their book "Exploring and Shaping International Futures" we find out that these sections have mutual impacts on each other (p. 79). In fact they can be separated from each other completely and sometimes we have to study them as a whole entity.

The interesting point with Hughes and Hillebrand's model is that the "Economic" element (module) of the model has the most impacts on other elements and also receives many effects from them. Do we live in an economic world? What other module of that model can gather other modules around itself? Can we develop other models? What will be the elements of those models? How can they be evolved over periods of time, given the global drastic changes (wildcards)?            

References:

Bishop, P. (2004). Scanning Instructions, Futures Methods 1, LMSF602Reading, Unit 4, pp. 26-27.

Glenn, J. C., (2011). Future Index integrated International Futures Model, http://www.ifs.du.edu/ifs/index.aspx

Glenn, J. C., and T. J. Gordon (2010). Annual State of the Future reports for the Millennium Project, Washington, DC.

Hughes, B. B., and E. E. Hillebrand (2006). Exploring and Shaping International Futures. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers.

Lombardo, T. (2006). The Evolution of Future Consciousness. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House.

Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2000). Global futures: Shaping globalization. New York: Zed Books.

Paalumäki, H. (2001). Imagine a Good Day – Bertrand de Jouvenel's Idea of Possible Futures in the Context of Fictitious and Historical Narratives, Ennen & nyt, Vol. 1, The Papers of the Nordic Conference on the History of Ideas, Helsinki.

Polak, F. (1973). The image of the future. Translated and abridged by Elise Boulding, Amsterdam: Elsevier.