Global Long-Term Perspectives
How
can policy making be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?
[Challenge 5]
Capacity to Decide
How
can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions
changes? [Challenge 9]
Peace and Conflict
How
can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts,
terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction? [Challenge 10]
Transnational Crime
How
can transnational organized crime be stopped from becoming more powerful
and sophisticated global enterprises? [Challenge 12]
-- Brief overview --
Most people continue to live in democracies and partly free conditions rather than in dictatorships. Freedom House recognizes 121 countries with electoral democracies, of which 89 have an environment in which there is broad respect for human rights and a stable rule of law. They also rated press freedom among 193 countries and found 78 free, 47 partly free, and 68 not free. Eleven of these countries have fewer freedoms than before, while two have more. Nevertheless, looking over the past several decades, democratization is a global long-term trend. Since democracies tend not to fight each other, and since humanitarian crises are far more likely to occur within authoritarian regimes, the trend toward democracy should lead to a more peaceful future.
Unfortunately, the emergence of democracy is not a smooth process. Many recent democracies have not consolidated their democratic institutions and cultural changes. During the transition, many people can lose their income and social status. New democracies must address previous abuses of power to earn citizen loyalty, yet the pursuit of this justice can increase social discord and slow the process of reconciliation and democratic transition. Young democracies emerging from authoritarian regimes need long-term economic stability, some experience with pluralism, and a majority of pro-democratic actors to become genuine democracies. Dramatic changes like multiparty elections, a free press, written constitutions, legal reforms, and an independent judiciary do not simultaneously or automatically create a culture of democracy with citizen responsibilities.
Increasing sophistication and interaction among information technology, marketing, competitive intelligence, organized crime, and the potentials of information warfare raise the potential for the manipulation of information. Freedom of choice—inherent to democracy—implies judgment based on reliable information. Hence, the development of methods to counter information manipulation will be important for continued democratization in the future.
The Internet has increased the ability for citizen feedback on public issues through e-government and other electronic means. As a result, governments are expected to become more accountable, transparent, and responsive to their citizens.
Although making development assistance dependent on progress toward
democracy has helped in some countries, a genuine democracy is achieved
when the people—not an external organization—get the government to be accountable
to them. Genuine democracy is not only a set of institutions, it is also
a mental attitude and a habit of behavior. Different areas may require
different political systems at different times. However, all will be improved
by increasing education, transparency, accountability, media access, initiatives
that focus on corruption, and participation rather than waiting for others
to solve problems. In addition, maintenance of “safety nets” and
discussions among international political peers about successful transition
strategies in the areas of the rule of law, respect for human rights, free
media, tolerance of political opposition, free elections (visibility of
UN Electoral Units where necessary), and an independent civil society all
help develop the culture of democracy.
-- Brief overview --
Globalization will increasingly force policy-makers to think in a larger context. International responses to SARS, the September 11th attacks, and the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion have increased global thinking, but their impacts seem short-lived and have not had the same impact on long-term thinking. Yet the completion of the Human Genome Project, evolution of the WTO and NATO, development of a European Union constitution, management of the International Space Station, and the globalization of the news media and Internet—all relatively unthinkable just 25 years ago—are some of the factors that demonstrate the acceleration, complexity, and globalization of change today, which in turn increases the need for global, long-term perspectives.
Unfortunately, the daily complexities of politics and the need to manage current problems still leave little time to consider the bigger picture. Narrow, short-term thinking is reinforced in all sectors of society. Corporate stockholders want quick profits, forcing corporate leaders to focus on actions that can improve the next quarter’s profits; government leaders give priority to immediate issues to keep in power; NGO leaders who may look at the longer term often tend to do so only from the perspective of a single issue; leaders of international organizations also tend to focus on one issue and can be overwhelmed by the difficulty of addressing multiple issues on a global basis; and news executives are driven by daily deadlines and the need to keep people’s attention by emphasizing the drama of the moment. As a result, decisionmakers feel little pressure to consider global long-term perspectives. Nevertheless, long-range goals like landing on the moon or eradicating smallpox that were considered impossible did excite many people who went beyond selfish, short-term interests to great achievements. An international assessment of such goals is in Chapter 5 on the CD accompanying the State of the Future.
The eight UN Millennium Development Goals could be the basis for eight international coalitions, each composed of the governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and international organizations that are really willing to commit the resources and talent to address the goal. Since the annual calculation of the global State of the Future Index in Chapter 2 [of the State of the Future] is based on indicators that relate to progress on global challenges, a 10-year forecast could imply that decisionmaking is increasingly taking global long-term perspectives into account. If national SOFIs were constructed and used in policymaking, then in order to make the index rise, national decisionmakers would have to pursue policies that address the longer term. We also need to create participatory processes informed by futures research, increase training and education courses in futures thinking, convert futures research methods into teaching methods to future-orient instruction, and organize data for easier use in foresight and policy analysis. Decisionmakers should be trained in futures research methods and required to communicate the longer-term implications of their decisions. This could lead to the use of futures methods in all forms of policymaking to develop, communicate, and revise future visions interactively among all sectors of society.
Because the unprecedented speed of change makes people unsure about the future and because globalization is challenging philosophical and religious certainty, people are unsure of the basis on which to make decisions. The sheer number and intricacy of choices seems to be growing beyond our abilities to analyze and make decisions. Democratization and interactive media are adding to the number of people involved in decisionmaking, increasing complexity and making closure more difficult. As decisionmaking to address global challenges becomes too complex, it will appear chaotic until new systems emerge. In the meantime, we know the world is increasingly complex and that the most serious challenges are global in nature, yet we don’t seem to know how to improve and deploy appropriate management techniques or Internet-based management tools and concepts fast enough to get on top of the situation.
Since no government or other institution acting alone can address any of the global challenges in this chapter, transinstitutional decisionmaking has to be developed. Common platforms are needed that connect governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and international organizations in collaborative decisionmaking. Self-selection and self-organization of volunteers around the world via Web sites is a new strategy to increase transparency of public issues and to participate in decision processes. New participatory processes and other emergent transinstitutional systems using the Internet could become informal decision-making systems that conventional powers ratify. Information pollution or “noise” in policy information could be reduced by software for knowledge visualization and mapping to help see at a glance the situation and various options.
The Internet is raising the pressure for all systems to be available worldwide 24 hours a day seven days a week. E-government systems are growing rapidly to help automate administrivia and facilitate public participation, but they also create new vulnerabilities to manipulation by organized crime and to cyber-terrorism. UN organizations are the only trusted decisionmaking system for many people around the world. Yet these international organizations were designed for decisionmaking among governments, and have not synergistically evolved with private corporations and NGOs.
Many people believe it is possible to shape the future rather than simply prepare for a linear extrapolation of the present or a product of chance or fate. Just as efficiency is a key criterion in decisionmaking for industrial economies, wisdom will be a criterion in decisionmaking for successful knowledge economies.
We have to find ways for policymakers of all kinds to take decisionmaking training programs that might include e-government, decision-support software, risk taking and avoidance, advanced concepts in decisionmaking, prioritization processes, applications of cognitive science to decisionmaking, foresight, ways to work with new participatory processes, and collaborative decisionmaking with different institutions.
Since chemical, biological, low-level nuclear (“dirty” bombs), and information warfare weapons of mass destruction and disruption may be available to individuals over the next 25 years, we have to learn how to connect education and security systems in a healthy way. The low-technology, high-impact terrorism of September 11th demonstrated that terrorism is increasingly destructive, widespread, and difficult to prevent. Since hospitals, food storage, water supply, and other support systems of civilization depend on the Internet, cyber weapons can now be considered WMD. The severity of religious and ethnic conflicts has escalated to nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute cites 21 major armed conflicts in 2002 that each had 1,000 or more deaths (down from 24 conflicts in 2001); 11 of these were over the question of government and the remaining 10 over disputed territory (6 in Africa, 9 Asia, 3 the Americas, 2 Middle East, and 1 Europe, although Afghanistan/Al Qaeda was classified as in the United States). The vast majority of conflicts are intra-state, and civilian fatalities in these climbed from 5% in 1900 to more than 90% in the 1990s. The University of Maryland Minorities at Risk Project lists 285 minority groups that could be in future conflict due to different forms of injustice. Nearly 37,000 UN peacekeepers from 89 countries are deployed in 14 missions on three continents. Thus far 1,800 UN peacekeepers have died. Currently there are 20 million people of concern to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has decreased by 2.3 million in the last two years.
At the same time, the vast majority of the world is living in peace, transcultural ethics are being studied, dialogues among differing worldviews are increasing, the United States and Russia continue to sign nuclear reduction treaties, and the Quartet (the United States, the EU, Russia, and the UN) has offered a “Roadmap to Peace” in the Middle East. The growth of democracy, international trade, and global visibility provided by news media, the Internet, and satellite surveillance, plus improving world travel and living standards, are increasing acceptance of the idea that secure conditions for a more peaceful evolution of humanity are possible. Human rights standards are increasing in importance relative to national sovereignty, and the International Criminal Court has begun operations. Once slavery was widely accepted as a “natural” institution; now it is almost entirely gone because humans changed their minds and institutions. If so for slavery, why not for terrorism and war?
The UN Secretariat’s early warning systems could be strengthened by involvement of relevant NGOs and the media, who can supply information and can help generate the public and political will to act when local violence and global threats warrant international intervention. The UN or governments could make advanced intelligence sensors and transceivers available to local citizens so that local realities could be broadcast to the world. The UN Security Council should authorize smarter sanctions that target elite criminals rather than innocent populations, and create all-party mediation on neutral territory. News media and Web sites could be encouraged to give more balanced coverage that shows positive mediation rather than just scenes of violence. Governments should create tracking systems for potential bioweapons assets, and increase the use of nonlethal weapons.
Over the long term, education for a more enlightened public and leadership is the answer. The fundamental causes of terrorism must be understood; public education programs should be created to promote respect for diversity and equal rights. We need to share research in conflict resolution and consensus building that focuses on the common ethical values and oneness that underlies human diversity
[Also see Counterterrorism––Scenarios, Actions, and Policies]
-- Brief overview --
Transnational organized crime (TOC) has grown to a point that it is increasingly interfering with the ability of governments to act. Nation-states can be understood as a series of decision points that are vulnerable to the vast amounts of money available to crime groups. TOC’s power in one country can be leveraged to increase power in others. The IMF has estimated that as much as 5% of the global economy—$1.8 trillion per year—is laundered through the international financial system. This understates TOC’s total income, since not all income needs to be laundered. Diversification in diamonds, barter, and other media outside traditional currency systems could put the real income to well over $2 trillion per year. Colombia and Afghanistan demonstrate the links among TOC, terrorism, and nation-state power. Some argue that until drugs are decriminalized and put under state control, organized crime cannot be reduced. The vast amount of money amassed by TOC allows its participants to buy the knowledge and technology to create new forms of crime to generate even more profits. In addition to government power, daily international transfers of $2 trillion via computer communications make tempting targets. Production of synthetic psychotropes and heroin and cocaine will also be tempting targets in the future.
TOC has not surfaced on the world agenda the way property, water, and sustainable development have. There are many independent NGOs trying to address the other global challenges in this chapter, but few focus on TOC the way Transparency addresses corruption or Amnesty International addresses political prisoners. The Financial Action Task Force of the OECD has made 40 recommendations to counter money laundering.
The International Criminal Court has been established. Nevertheless, there is no international effort on the scale necessary to address the scope of the problem.
Certainly information technology could be used to identify sources and target money-laundering locations, create an international agreement to upgrade the check registration system for all financial transactions, share information on financial transactions, and coordinate prosecution strategies through an intergovernmental body. The IMF or some UN mechanism might initiate this activity in a special meeting of finance ministers. To make this work, all banks would have to cooperate or be frozen out of the international system. Instant access would have to be available on every financial transaction requested by the international body. Countries would have to give up some sovereignty, as the international body would set the location for prosecution. The international body would authorize the freezing of criminal assets prior to arrest and the transfer of assets after conviction.
A major step in this direction has been taken by 147 nations that have signed the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Treaty) in record time. It calls for a variety of modes for international cooperation to help fight organized crime. Possibly an additional protocol could be established to create the intergovernmental body with responsibility for identifying money-laundering locations and setting information traps, identifying top criminals by the amount of money laundered, preparing legal cases, identifying suspect’s assets that can be frozen and the readiness of the relevant institutions to freeze them, identifying where the criminal is currently located and assessing local authorities’ ability to make the arrest, identifying the best country in which to prosecute the particular case, and determining the readiness of local courts to move immediately. When everything is ready, this new intergovernmental body would execute all the orders at the same time to apprehend the criminal, freeze the assets and access, and open the court case.
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