Governance and Conflict

Global Challenges excerpt from the 2010 State of the Future report

Democratization

How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? [Challenge 4]

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]


Democratization

How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? [Challenge 4]

 -- Brief Overview --

There is a growing gap between the recent setbacks in political rights and civil liberties and the emergence of a global democratic consciousness driven by new means of communication and growing interdependencies. According to Freedom House's 2010 report, world democracy and freedom declined for the fourth consecutive year, and press freedom for the eight consecutive year. Freedom declined in 40 countries, while it improved in only 16 countries, and the number of electoral democracies decreased by three, to 116 countries. While 46% of the world lives in 89 "free" countries, and 20% lives in 58 "partly free" countries, 34% (over 2.3 billion people) lives in 47 countries with "not free" stratus. Freedom of the press also declined almost worldwide, with worse signs in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. Only 16% of the world lives in the 69 countries with "free" press, 44% in 64 countries with "partly free" press, and 40% lives in 63 countries without freedom of the press.

Although the perception and implementation of democracy differ globally, it is generally accepted that democracy is a relationship between a responsible citizenry and a responsive government that encourages participation in the political process and guarantees basic rights.

Connected via the Internet and mobile platforms, the media, and common interests, global-minded citizens are building a new participatory democracy architecture. Individuals, groups, and even countries self-organize around common ideals, independent of conventional institutional controls and regardless of nationality or languages. These new forms of democracy are beginning to wield unparalleled social power. Injustices in different parts of the world become the concern of thousands or millions of people who then pressure local, regional, or international governing systems to address the issue. The increasing role of digital media also responds to increasing concerns over monopolization and control of the news media. However, methods to counter information manipulation and policies to ensure Internet freedom are needed for further democratic evolution. Authoritarian regimes increasingly apply censorship, crackdown on bloggers and Internet journalism, and even use forms of cyberwarfare to undermine democratic functions. Hence, democratic forces will have to improve their effectiveness to ensure that present setbacks do not stop the longer-term trend of democratization.

Some of the factors nurturing democratic values include international news and media systems, global interdependence, increasing literacy, global participation creating ISOs, international treaties, multipolarity and multilateralism in decisionmaking, developments that force global cooperation (such as the financial crisis, terrorism, and climate change), improved quality of governance assessment systems including e-government and transparent judicial systems, and the growing number and power of NGOs. It is critical to improve electoral processes to guarantee legitimate elections and establish internationally accepted election standards use by national and international election observers. Legally binding Internet voting exists in Austria, Australia, Canada, Estonia, France, Japan, and Switzerland, and trials are planned in 24 other countries. Direct voting on issues via the Internet could be next to augment representative democracy.

New accountability mechanisms are being developed for enforcing democracy, such as the Universal Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. International procedures are needed to assist failed states or regions within states, and intervention strategies designed for when a state constitutes a significant threat to its citizens or others. Corporate monopoly, increased lobbying, and impunity in cases of corruption and systemic human rights violations should be seriously addressed, as well as ideological, political, ethnic, and nationalistic legacies, to maintain the long-range trend toward democracy.

Although making development assistance dependent on good governance has helped in some countries, genuine democracy will be achieved when local people—not external actors—demand government accountability. Since democracies tend not to fight each other and since humanitarian crises are far more likely under authoritarian than democratic regimes, expanding democracy is sine qua non for building a peaceful and just future for all.

Challenge 4 will be addressed seriously when strategies to address threats to democracy are in place, when less than 10% of the world lives in nondemocratic countries, when Internet and media freedom protection is internationally enforced, and when voter participation exceeds 60% in most democratic elections.

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Global Long-Term Perspectives

How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives? [Challenge 5]

 -- Brief Overview --

The BP oil spill and the cancellation of flights across Europe due to the volcano in Iceland expose the need for global, national, and local systems for resilience—the capacity to anticipate, respond, and recover from disasters while identifying future technological and social innovations and opportunities. Implementing resilience systems is one way to make policymaking more sensitive to global long-term perspectives. Related to resilience is the concept of collective intelligence (see Chapter 3), which will be increasingly required to cope with accelerating knowledge explosions, increasing complexities, and interdependencies.

Resilience and collective intelligence systems should scan for change around the world, be interoperable with as many computer systems as possible, and have the ability to identify and assess expert judgments in near real-time around the world (the Real-Time Delphi is an example). The staff for such systems should synthesize futures research from others, calculate State of the Future Indexes for relevant subjects or countries (see Chapter 2), and produce annual state of the future reports. Government future strategy units (see the CD Chapter 4.1) are being informally connected by Singapore's Future Strategy Unit to share best practices, compare research, and verify assumptions, just as the UN Strategic Planning Group does that connects 12 UN agency strategy units. These two networks could also be connected with the Office of the UN Secretary-General to help coordinate national and international strategies and goals. Local and national leaders should make these new systems as transparent and participatory as possible to include and increase the public's intelligence and resilience. As a result, more future-oriented and global-minded voters might elect leaders who are sensitive to global long-term perspectives.

National legislatures could establish standing "Committees for the Future," as Finland has done. National foresight studies should be continually updated, improved, and conducted interactively with other national long-range efforts. Alternative scenarios should be shared with parliamentarians and the public for feedback. They should show cause-and-effect relations and expose decision points leading to different consequences from different strategies. Decisionmakers and their advisors should be trained in futures research for optimal use of these systems (see http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/FRM-V3.html). Government budgets should consider 5–10 year allocations attached to rolling 5–10 year SOFIs, scenarios, and strategies. Governments with short-term election cycles should consider longer, more stable terms and funds for the staff of parliamentarians. A checklist of ways to better connect futures research to decisionmaking is available in Chapter 12 of the attached CD.

It could be that humanity needs and is ready to create a global, multifaceted general long-range view to help it make better long-range decisions to the benefit of the species. Communications and advertising companies could create memes to help the public become sensitive to global long-term perspectives so that more future-oriented educated publics could support more future-oriented, global-minded politicians. Prizes could be given to recognize the best examples of global long-term decisionmaking. Participatory policymaking processes augmented by e-government services can be created that are informed by futures research. Universities should fund the convergence of disciplines, teach futures research and synthesis as well as analysis, and produce generalists in addition to specialists. Efforts to increase the number and quality of courses on futures concepts and methods should be supported, as well as augmenting standard curricula with futures methodologies converted to teaching techniques that help future-orient instruction.

Although there is increasing recognition that accelerating change requires longer-term perspectives, decisionmakers feel little pressure to consider global long-term perspectives. Nevertheless, attaining long-range goals like landing on the moon or eradicating smallpox that were considered impossible inspired many people to go beyond selfish, short-term interests to great achievements. (An international assessment of such future goals is found in Chapter 4.2 on the CD.) To some degree, the G20 was initiated to improve global long-range policymaking, and one day the G2 (U.S. and China) may lead global climate change and other long-range policies.

Each of the 15 Global Challenges in this chapter and the eight UN Millennium Development Goals—which have become benchmarks for the future—could be the basis for transinstitutional coalitions composed of self-selected governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and international organizations that are willing to commit the resources and talent to address a specific challenge or goal. Challenge 5 will be addressed seriously when foresight functions are a routine part of most organizations and governments, when national SOFIs are used in at least 50 countries, when the consequences of high-risk projects are routinely considered before they are initiated, and when standing Committees for the Future exist in at least 50 national legislatures.

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Capacity to Decide

How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions changes? [Challenge 9]

 -- Brief Overview --

The number and complexity of choices seem to be growing beyond our abilities to analyze and make decisions. The acceleration of change reduces the time from recognition of the need to make a decision to completion of all the steps to make the right decision. The global challenges in this chapter show that the world is increasingly interdependent and intricate, requiring improved abilities for collaborative decision making across institutional, political, and cultural boundaries. Many of the world's decision making processes are inefficient, slow, and ill informed. Today's challenges cannot be addressed by governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and intergovernmental bodies acting alone; hence, trans-institutional decision making has to be developed and common platforms have to be created for trans-institutional strategic decision making and implementation. Previous economic models continue to mistakenly assume that human beings are well-informed, rational decision makers in spite of research to the contrary. And relying on computer models for decisions proved unreliable in the financial crisis.

More open systems, democratization, and interactive media are involving more people in decision making, which further increases complexity. Fortunately, the world is moving toward ubiquitous computing with institutional and individual collective intelligence systems for "just-in-time" knowledge to inform decisions. Cloud computing, knowledge visualization, and a variety of decision support software (DSS) are increasingly available at falling prices. DSS improves decisions by filtering out bias and providing a more objective assessment of facts and potential options. Some software lets groups select criteria and rate options, some averages people's bets on future events, while others show how issues have alternative positions and how each is supported or refuted by research.

Social networking Web sites let friends and family use simple decision-aid software to find solutions to daily problems. Self-organization of volunteers around the world via Web sites is increasing transparency and creating new forms of decision making. Blogs are increasingly used to support decisions. Nearly half of the 200 million blogs were created from 2007 to 2009. Issues-based information software in e-government allows decision making to be more transparent and accountable. Although cognitive neuroscience promises to improve decision making, little has been applied for the public. Unfortunately, we are still so flooded with so much trivial news that serious attention to serious issues gets little interest, and too much time is wasted going through useless information.

Rapid collection and assessment of many judgments via on-line software can support timelier decision making. Expert advice was most often the view of single individuals or very small groups, but now decision making benefits from online, open systems that invite broad and transparent participation. (See the attached CD Appendix L for an explanation of the Real-Time Delphi.)

In the past, many political and business decisions included competitive intelligence and analysis to guide decision making. As the world continues to globalize, increasing interdependencies, synergetic intelligence, and analysis should also be considered. What synergies are possible among competing businesses, groups, and nations? Synergetic analysis aims to increase "win-win" decisions that assist a larger number of enterprises while reducing the wasted efforts of "win-lose" decisions.

Often decisions are delayed because people don't know something—a condition Google is beginning to eliminate. Vast peer-reviewed data banks are being interconnected so that composites of data from many sources can present the best facts available for a given decision. More user-friendly, powerful, and flexible simulation and modeling software will eventually find its way into more common usage for decision making. Ubiquitous computing will increase the number of decisions per day, constantly changing schedules and priorities. As computers increase in processing power, much of our decision making can be automated, just as the autonomous nervous system manages basic bodily decisions. Decision making will be increasingly augmented by the integration of sensors imbedded in products, in buildings, and in living bodies with a more intelligent Web and institutional and personal collective intelligence software that helps us receive and respond to feedback for improving decisions.

Training programs for decision makers should bring together research on why irrational decisions are made, lessons of history, futures research methods, forecasting, cognitive science, data reliability, utilization of statistics, conventional decision support methods (e.g., PERT, cost/benefit, etc.), collective intelligence, ethical considerations, goal seeking, risk, the role of leadership, transparency, accountability, participatory decision making with new decision support software, e-government, ways to identify and better an organization's improvement system, prioritization processes, and collaborative decision making with different institutions. Challenge 9 will be addressed seriously when the State of the Future Index or similar systems are used regularly in decision making, when national corporate law is modified to recognize trans-institutional organizations, and when at least 50 countries require elected officials to be trained in decision making.

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Peace and Conflict

How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism and the use of weapons of mass destruction? [Challenge 10]

 -- Brief Overview --

Although the vast majority of the world is living in peace, half the world continues to be vulnerable to social instability and violence due to the global recession, to aging populations and decreasing water, food, and energy supplies per person, to climate change, and to increasing migrations due to political, environmental, and economic conditions. These can trigger complex interactions of old ethnic and religious conflicts, civil unrest, terrorism, and crime, forcing countries to broaden their security policies from conventional warfare to include asymmetrical conflicts and attacking the root causes of unrest in local communities. Since many countries affected by conflict return to war within five years of a cease-fire, more serious efforts are required to dismantle the structures of violence and establish structures of peace.

Nevertheless, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade, cross-cultural dialogues are flourishing, and intra-state conflicts are increasingly being settled by international interventions. There were 14 conflicts with 1,000 or more deaths in 2010. These occurred in Africa (5), Asia (3), the Americas (2), and the Middle East (3), with 1 conflict classified as worldwide anti-extremism. The probability of a more peaceful world is increasing due to the growth of democracy, international trade, global news media, the Internet, NGOs, satellite surveillance, better access to resources, and the evolution of the UN and regional organizations. The U.S. and Russia signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty, and the Cluster Munitions Convention will come into force in the fall of 2010. The Global Peace Index's rating of 144 countries' peacefulness again declined slightly, reflecting intensification of some conflicts and the economic crisis.

In 2010, there are 124,000 UN peacekeepers from 115 countries in 16 operations. Total military expenditures are about $1.5 trillion per year. There are an estimated 8,100 active nuclear weapons, down from 20,000 in 2002 and 65,000 in 1985. However, there are approximately 1,700 tons of highly enriched uranium and 500 tons of separated plutonium that could produce nuclear weapons. Unmanned aircraft and robot land vehicles are increasingly being used. The nexus of transnational extremist violence is changing from complex organized plots to attacks by single individuals or small independent groups.

Future desktop molecular and pharmaceutical manufacturing and organized crime's access to nuclear materials give single individuals the ability to make and use weapons of mass destruction—from biological weapons to low-level nuclear ("dirty") bombs. IAEA reports that between 1993 and the end of 2009, the Illicit Trafficking Database recorded 1,784 nuclear trafficking incidents (222 during 2009), ranging from illicit disposal efforts to nuclear material of unknown provenance. Cyberwarfare, in both its offensive and defensive aspects, is the object of intensive exploration by major powers; our Internet-dependent society could be destabilized by an individual with a home-hacked cyberweapon. We have to apply cognitive science to improve and connect education and mental health systems to detect and treat individuals who might otherwise grow up to use such weapons, as well as using networks of nanotech sensors to alert authorities to those creating such weapons.

Early warning systems of governments and UN agencies could be better connected with NGOs and the media to help generate the political will to prevent or reduce conflicts. Massive public education programs are needed to promote respect for diversity, equal rights, common ethical values, and the oneness that underlies human diversity. It is less expensive and more effective to attack the root causes of unrest than to stop explosions of violence. Peace strategies without love, compassion, or spiritual outlooks are less likely to work, because intellectual or rational systems cannot overcome the emotional divisions that prevent unity and harmony. Counter-terrorism strategies should include conversations with hardliner groups. The capabilities of Web 2.0 should be increasingly used for self-organized conflict resolution actions, rumor control and fact-finding, reconciliation, and bringing worldwide populations closer together, informing them of each other's lives and ambitions. Backcasted peace scenarios should be created through participatory processes to help change the conflict stories and to show how peace is possible (see CD Chapter 3.7). It is still necessary, however, to bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and to support the International Criminal Court. The ICRC has pointed out that the Geneva Convention needs to be modified to cover intra-state conflicts.

Networks of CDC-like centers to counter impacts of bioterrorism should be supported. Governments should destroy existing stockpiles of biological weapons, create tracking systems for potential bioweapons, establish an international audit system for each weapon type, and increase the use of nonlethal weapons to reduce future revenge cycles. Challenge 10 will be addressed seriously when arms sales and violent crimes decrease by 50% from their peak.

[Also see Counterterrorism--Scenarios, Actions, and Policies]

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Transnational Crime

How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises? [Challenge 12]

 -- Brief Overview --

The Nuclear Security Summit has focused attention on preventing organized crime and terrorist organizations from getting access to the 500 tons of highly enriched uranium stored around the world. Although the world is waking up to the enormity of the threat of transnational organized crime, it continues to grow, while a global strategy to address this global threat is still lacking. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has called on all states to develop national strategies to counter TOC as a whole and shift enforcement from drug users to organized crime suppliers, acknowledging that the current approaches to drug control are not working. It also notes states' are not seriously implementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. INTERPOL is collaborating with Australia to open the International Anti-Corruption Academy by the end of 2010, and its 188 member countries can now gain access to the organization's central database management system (I-link), speeding investigations and cooperation. INTERPOL is also collaborating with the private sector to counter Internet-related crime and terrorism and their ability to bring down national information infrastructures. OECD's Financial Action Task Force has made 40 recommendations to counter money laundering.

Havocscope.com estimates world illicit trade to be just over $1 trillion per year, with counterfeiting and intellectual property piracy accounting for $300 billion to $1 trillion, the global drug trade at $386 billion, trade in environmental goods at $63 billion, human trafficking and prostitution at $141 billion, smuggling at $96 billion, and weapons trade at $12 billion. The FBI estimates that online fraud cost U.S. businesses and consumers $560 million in 2009, up from $265 million in 2008. These figures do not include extortion or organized crime's part of the $1 trillion in bribes that the World Bank estimates are paid annually or its part of the estimated $1.5–6.5 trillion in laundered money. Hence the total income could be $2–3 trillion—about twice as big as all the military budgets in the world. Governments can be understood as a series of decision points, with some people in those points vulnerable to very large bribes. Decisions could be bought and sold like heroin, making democracy an illusion.

The financial crisis and bankrupt financial institutions have opened new infiltration routes for TOC crime. The world recession has increased human trafficking and smuggling. Human body parts for transplantation are a new element in TOC. There are up to 27 million people being held in slavery today (the vast majority in Asia), more than during the peak of the African slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year. The online market in illegally obtained data and tools for committing data theft and other cybercrimes continues to grow, and criminal organizations are offering online hosting of illegal applications. Computer transfers of $2 trillion per day make tempting targets for international cyber criminals.

It is time for an international campaign by all sectors of society to develop a global consensus for action against TOC. Two Conventions help bring some coherence to addressing TOC: the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which came into force in 2003, and the Council of Europe's Convention on Laundering, which came into force in May 2008. Possibly an addition to one of these conventions or the International Criminal Court could establish a financial prosecution system as a new body to complement the related organizations addressing various parts of TOC. In cooperation with these organizations, the new system would identify and establish priorities on top criminals (defined by the amount of money laundered) to be prosecuted one at a time. It would prepare legal cases, identify suspects' assets that can be frozen, establish the current location of the suspect, assess the local authorities' ability to make an arrest, and send the case to one of a number of preselected courts. Such courts, like UN peacekeeping forces, could be identified before being called into action and trained, and then be ready for instant duty. When all these conditions are met, then all the orders would be executed at the same time to apprehend the criminal, freeze access to the assets, open the court case, and then proceed to the next TOC leader on the priority list. Prosecution would be outside the accused's country. Although extradition is accepted by the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, a new protocol would be necessary for courts to be deputized like military forces for UN peacekeeping, via a lottery system among volunteer countries. After initial government funding, the system would receive its financial support from frozen assets of convicted criminals rather than depending on government contributions.

Challenge 12 will be seriously addressed when money laundering and crime income sources drop by 75% from their peak.

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