Scenario Planning: An Instrument for Modern Public Administration

DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Scenario Planning: An Instrument for Modern Public Administration Mr. Kan Yuenyong (6220131004) National Institute of Development Administration Graduate School of Public Administration PhD, Doctor of Philosophy Program in Governance and Development (International) “The Greeks had an appropriate term for ‘Things’: πράγµατα – that is to say, that which one has to do with in one’s concernful dealings (πρᾶξις). But ontologically, the specifically ‘pragmatic1’ character of the πράγµατα is just what the Greeks left in obscurity; they thought of these ‘proximally’ as ‘mere Things’. We shall call those entities which we encounter in concern “equipment”. In our dealings we come across equipment for writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement. The kind of Being which equipment possesses must be exhibited. The clue for doing this lies in our first defining what makes an item of equipment—namely, its equipmentality.” (Heidegger, 1962: 96-97) Keyword: Scenario Planning, Deliberative Policy Analysis, Inclusive Policy Design, Public Participation, Governance, Think Tank. Abstract: Of which an emergence of deliberative participatory governance and inclusive policy design (IPD) as parts of evolution in public administration’s body of knowledge, this paper will demonstrate that “scenario planning”, although been practiced in some quarters of public administration and policy making process, should be recognized as a vital instrument applied in the contemporary policy making process. The paper will unveil three major driving forces: an evolution of governance, design technology and a paradigm shift in epistemology of public administration as a backdrop of this transformation. Although there is a proposal to suggest think tanks, a de facto track II player as an intermediary between the governmental agencies (track I) and grassroots organizations (track III), as an important actor in policy circle should adjust itself to capture the changing phenomenon into a modern modification called Think Tank 2.0 or for short TT2.0 such as to equip itself with post-positivist research methodology, it should also consider scenario planning to be its major alternative. Nevertheless, collective actions by our reflective behavior such as to equip with better instruments will push unintended acceleration in the changing process even more, therefore based on findings in this paper, it will also point out the next 1 The Greek word, πράγµατα or “pragmata” does mean “things”, for a discussion of “pragmatism” in public administration please consults Shields (2008: 205-221). 1 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper generation think tank and its possible updated equipment to be exploited in the future to be further considered. 1. Introduction Change is ordinary and inevitable, but we have faced more and more radical and faster transmogrification in our time. Some scholar such as Raymond Kurzweil has popularized a term “singularity” (abbreviate for technological singularity2) as the point that a fast pace of change by disruptive technology will reach to an uncontrollable and irreversible point that it may generate an unforeseeable impact to human civilization development. One possible scenario is an emergence of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI) that can regenerate and rebuild machine’s intelligence by itself and no longer require any intervention from human being to make any improvement and thus can process a thinking capacity beyond a collective cognition of human being. This is made possible by an exponential growth of technological capacity such as a double of number of components per integrated circuit in every 18 months predicted by Gordon Moore as “Moore’s law”: “We are now in the early stages of this transition. The acceleration of paradigm shift (the rate at which we change fundamental technical approaches) as well as the exponential growth of the capacity of information technology are both beginning to reach the ‘knee of curve,’ which is the stage at which an exponential trend becomes noticeable. Shortly after this stage, the trend quickly becomes explosive. Before the middle of this century, the growth rates of our technology – which will be indistinguishable from ourselves – will be so steep as to appear essentially vertical. From a strictly mathematical perspective, the growth rates will still be finite but so extreme that the changes they bring about will appear to rupture the fabric of human history. That, at least, will be the perspective of unenhanced biological humanity.” (Kurzweil: 2005, 9). During this intermediate period before reaching such “singularity”, multiple chaotic events appear to our naked eye in our time such as Trump’s victory in US election, Brexit, a trade war between China and the US and also a pandemic of Covid-19 cast a cloudy vision ahead, therefore some scholars such as Army War College’s documents has firstly cited an acronym “VUCA”, abbreviated for “Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity), the term is popularized to 2 Although most people may be familiar with term “Industry 4.0”, firstly originated from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany, to explain a broader concept of disruptive technology focuses on automation, internet of things (IoT) and information technology, however this “singularity”, a more academic term than “Industry 4.0”, has covered a broader scope in scientific development such as computers, genetics, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence, but it can be finally deducted into a single factor of “exponential growth” in computation power that contributed back to an exponential growth in related fields and thus will reinforce such growth further. Actually, “Technological singularity” was first coined in “The coming technological singularity: How to survive in the post-human era” by Verner Vingein with the symposium “Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace” held at Holiday Inn in Westlake, Ohio on March 30-31, 1993, see https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19940022855, retrieved on July 7, 2020. 2 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper explain such a complex phenomenon driven by a fast pace of change as described above nowadays. The term has been popularized and been widely adopted in management science3. It isn’t unusual that scientific explanation has now been challenged from both its epistemology (see section 2) and its emerging of a new paradigm to absorb new realities and findings as we see such as Capra (1983, 74) has started to raise a question on a legitimacy of contemporary scientific concepts such as Descartes’ and Newton’s. “At the end of the nineteenth century Newtonian mechanics had lost its role as the fundamental theory of natural phenomena. Maxwell’s electrodynamics and Darwin’s theory of evolution involved concepts that clearly went beyond the Newtonian model and indicated that the universe was far more complex than Descartes and Newton had imagined. Nevertheless, the basic ideas underlying Newtonian physics, though insufficient to explain all natural phenomena, were still believed to be correct. The first three decades of our century changed this situation radically. Two developments in physics, culminating in relativity theory and in quantum theory, shattered all the principal concepts of the Cartesian world view and Newtonian mechanics. The notion of absolute space and time, the elementary solid particles, the fundamental material substance, the strictly causal nature of physical phenomena, and the objective description of nature – none of these concepts could be extended to the new domains into which physics was now penetrating.” This is also in line with a suggestion to reinvent a new knowledge to pave the way for “Post-Normal Science” (Ravetz and Funtowicz: 1999, 641-646). The proposal has been originated from double failures of accidents in both Challenger and Chernobyl events and to provoke a new possible body of knowledge to handle with such failures caused by contemporary science as follows: “The Russians cannot run a safe nuclear power system. The Americans cannot run a reliable space-rocket system. Challenger and Chernobyl were not 'accidents.' Both were disasters waiting to happen. Chernobyl had its precursors at Windscale (now Sellafield) and Three Mile Island; Challenger its successors in Titan and Delta. This is the Ch/Ch Syndrome: the catastrophic collapse of sophisticated mega-technology resulting from political pressure, incompetence and cover-up. […] Science, seen as knowledge performing special social functions, will change rapidly in the light of the Ch/Ch Syndrome. This does not mean that our civilisation will, should, or can abandon science. Our situation is analogous to the latemedieval world described by Umberto Eco in Name of the Rose. Then, theology and its associated erudition had lost their inspiration. The decay was reflected in a local disaster: the monastery fire that started in the 3 U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (February 16, 2018). "Who first originated the term VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity)?", http://usawc.libanswers.com/faq/84869 , USAHEC Ask Us a Question. The United States Army War College, retrieved on July 5, 2020. 3 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper library. In our late-modern world, science and mega-technology have produced Challenger and Chernobyl. In our transition period as in Eco's, the future structures of belief and of power are scarcely discernible. But change is inevitable, as well as urgently necessary.” (Ravetz, Macgill and Funtowicz: 1986). With an influence of Post-Normal Science together with a revolution in “post-positivism” by Karl Popper, it will pose an endorsement in public administration which will not only apply quantitative but also qualitative techniques in research methodology suggested by Riccucci (2010, 47-48 and 118). We will see further that varieties of qualitative technique such as Q-methodology4 and a software for using in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research or Computerassisted (or aided) qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) such as MAXQDA5 will be in place, but it’s not enough to capture the fast pace of change. Scenario planning has emerged as an alternative instrument for management and foresight practice (see section 3). It has now been adopted in public policy such as in inclusive policy design (IPD). Boosssabong and Chamchong (2020, 95-117) have suggested various instruments such as 21st Century Town Meeting, Citizens’ Jury, Consensus Meeting and Planning Cell, Deliberative Polling, Participatory Budgeting, Foresights/Scenario Planning, Online Space and Open Collaboration. In their book, “Policy Market” set up at February 27, 2019, was selected as a working instrument. The program was comprised of various techniques such as “World Café” and “participatory mapping”, but in the end, they explained problems in the workshop such as lacking enough participants and the workshop had been high-jacked for political campaign and political interest by politicians (Boosssabong and Chamchong: 2020, 140). The book has placed “inclusiveness” as its central principle. There is no rational given in the book why “inclusiveness” should be a core principle as of their suggestion. They just gave an idea that because there is a shift of a definition in “policy” from “policy maker”, “policy implementer”, “policy assurance” and “policy analysis” into a broader scope of “policy design” (Boosssabong and Chamchong: 2020, 7). This paper will give an insight that a revolution in policy design is based on three major driving forces which are (1) epistemology: toward post positivism and post normal-science, (2) design technology and deliberative design (Simonsen, Jesper and Robertson, Toni: 2013) and (3) an evolution of governance (see section 2). Of these three driving forces, the dominant force might be evaluated based on observer’s background, but this paper in order to maintain its objective to attain an understanding in public administration, it will focus mainly in (3). All these emerging trends will be in line with an application with scenario planning and why “inclusiveness” is a key in this kind of methodology in order to resolve a complexity of emerging realities. Although Boosssabong and Chamchong (2020, 149) have listed weaknesses of scenario planning such as (1) it can’t resolve a variety of objectives, dreams and aiming so it’s difficult to reach to a consensus and thus ending with selling a “sweet dream”, and (2) thinking about a future will end up with 4 See “Q methodology: A sneak preview by Van Exel, N. Job A. & de Graaf, Gjalt (2005), https://qmethodblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/qmethodologyasneakpreviewreferenceupdate.pdf, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 5 See “Online Manual – MAXQDA 2020” at https://www.maxqda.com/help-mx20/welcome, and reviews of other CAQDAS packages at https://www.surrey.ac.uk/computer-assisted-qualitative-data-analysis/resources/choosingappropriate-caqdas-package, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 4 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper “future trap” with an ignorance to handle with a legacy problem from the past. This paper will demonstrate that these assumptions are fallacious. Scenario planning, if uses rightly, can resolve problems suggested by their “Policy Market” workshop either. Scharmer (2016, 16) also suggests in his book that a new science is needed to resolve the contemporary problem6: “Twenty-three hundred years ago, Aristotle, arguably the greatest pioneer and innovator of Western inquiry and thought, wrote in Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics that there are five different way, faculties, or capacities in the human soul to grasp the truth. Only one of them is science (episteme). Science (episteme), according to Aristotle, is limited to the things that cannot be otherwise than they are (in other words, things that are determined by necessity). By contrast, the other four ways and capacities of grasping the truth apply to all the other contexts of reality and life. They are art or producing (techne), practical wisdom (phronesis), theoretical wisdom (Sophia), and intuition or the capacity to grasp first principles of sources (nous). So far the primary focus of our modern science has been, by and large, limited to episteme. But now we need to broaden our view of science to include the other capacities to grasp the truth, including applied technologies (techne), practical wisdom (phronesis), theoretical wisdom (sophia), and the capacity to intuit the sources of awareness and intention (nous). (my own emphasize)” As Heidegger’s interpretation when he saw Van Gogh’s a pair of shoes painting on exhibition in Amsterdam in 1930, “In the shoes vibrate the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field”, an equipment (or instrument) is an intermediary between man and the world he lives upon as suggested by Heidegger (2008), “equipment has a peculiar position intermediate between thing and work, assuming that such a calculated ordering of them is permissible”, we can also view scenario planning as an “equipment” beyond “science” (episteme) used by “policy maker” or “policy designer” to access to “techne”, “phronesis”, “sophia” and “nous” 7 to response to contemporary challenges. We will see, for example, that Li (2015, 16) has introduced Think Tank 2.0 (TT2.0) to employ “equipment” such as “post-positivist policy analysis” to satisfy an emerging context on a mission to “supporting public participation process, promoting deliberation and consensus 6 Scharmer has concluded his message concisely on his Theory U introductory, please see more information at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF8wV9OlUHc , retrieved on July 7, 2020. 7 ‘In Ancient Greek the word praxis (πρᾶξις) referred to activity engaged in by free people. The philosopher Aristotle held that there were three basic activities of humans: theoria (thinking), poiesis (making), and praxis (doing). Corresponding to these activities were three types of knowledge: theoretical, the end goal being truth; poietical, the end goal being production; and practical, the end goal being action. Aristotle further divided the knowledge derived from praxis into ethics, economics, and politics. He also distinguished between eupraxia (εὐπραξία, "good praxis") and dyspraxia (δυσπραξία, "bad praxis, misfortune"’. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)#Origins, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 5 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper building”. Think tank should be recognized as an important actor8 in policy making process. This issue will be discussed in details in the last section. 2. Deliberative Participatory Approach in Public Administration Evolution Nicholas Henry (2016: 48), in his sixth paradigm (governance: 1990 – present), has mentioned “the rise of governance” as of witness by “more than 800 empirical studies” display a shifting from “hierarchical government” toward “horizontal governing” (Hill and Lynn: 2005). When asking about a definition of “governance”, Bidhya Bowornwathana (1997, 295-302) provides four critical questions to define the “new democratic governance” paradigm which are “1) What should government do? 2) How should government work? 3) Who should control government? And 4) Who benefits from government?” His subsequent answer and explanation then defines governance with four characteristics that are 1) A smaller government that does less 2) A government with a global vision and flexibility 3) Accountable government and 4) A government that is fair. For these extents, especially in the third characteristic, Bowornwathana has suggested a government to be accountable to its citizens, “provision must exist for citizens to control and monitor the use of discretionary power by bureaucrats” (Bowornwathana: 1997, 300). Although Henry rejects governance as a panacea, neither any paradigm, as Christopher Hood (1991) did on new public management (NPM) as of UK’s experience. Although Henry rejects that “networking” doesn’t make any impact on governmental performance, but he praises that making partnership with government agencies will pose positive impact more than the agencies would do governmental work alone (Henry: 2016, 48). Brainard Guy Peters (1993: 299) has criticized NPM’s “market approach” and instead suggests one of an alternative view on “the participatory state”. This also in line with a suggestion from Rhodes (1996: 662) that one definition of governance should be as self-organizing networks, “As networks multiply, so do doubts about the centre’s capacity to steer. Kettl argues that, as a result of contracting-out, government agencies found themselves ‘sitting on top of complex public-private relationships whose dimensions they may only vaguely understand’. They had only ‘loose leverage’ but remained ‘responsible for a system over which they had little real control’.” From this evolution, we will see how legitimacy and popularity on participatory framework and deliberative policy have emerged into the governance paradigm in public administration. Boosabong and Chamchong (2020, 9 and 18-21) have defined meanings of “inclusiveness” as inclusion, comprehensiveness and “leaving no one behind”. They also define meanings of “secondary-stream policy theory” that embeds a principle of “inclusiveness” as mentioned earlier which are: (1) Pluralism, (2) Policy networks or policy communities, (3) Nudging approach (or volunteering approach), (4) Critical policy perspective, (5) Interpretive policy approaches, (6) Participatory policy process, (7) Deliberative policy analysis and (8) Post-modern public policy. The evolution of policy science and a rising of governance have casted a deliberative policy analysis as mentioned by Hajer and Wagenaar (2003, 4 and 13) and especially in the shift of epistemological body of knowledge itself, “Key to our interpretative approach is the insight that 8 See how think tank can play an important role as a Track II initiator in “The Think Tank and Knowledge Regime in the Southeast Asian Context” by Kan Yuenyong, TrendNovation Southeast, Issue 15. https://issuu.com/noviscape/docs/issue15-w, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 6 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper a certain conception of the way scientific method should proceed, and its grounding in beliefs about epistemology, almost inevitably lead to a certain conception of society; an understanding of how society should be organized and managed. Over the last decades the critique of positivist policy analysis has shown that epistemological beliefs, wittingly or unwittingly, have normative consequences for one’s political preferences.” Li (2019) has thus mentioned Hajer and Wagenaar’s book and has pointed out that “deliberative policy analysis (DPA) has become a new branch of post-positivist policy inquiry since the release of a book edited by Hajer and Wagenaar fifteen years ago. The status quo of this field, however, is not satisfactory. Particularly, there is apparent shortage of exploration on how to apply DPA to generate insights for policy making. (my own emphasize)” Regarding an evolution of post-positivist policy inquiry, Riccucci has mentioned that although Kuhn might get a revolutionary idea in an epistemology of natural science when comparing between Aristotelian and Newtonian physics (Riccucci: 2010, 22), but Riccucci has also suggested that an idea to entertain about a paradigmatic status in public administration has been insipid since its multidisciplinary feature. “It draws from a host of fields or disciplines, such as political science, law, business, sociology, and economics. Although public administration is inexorably integrated by these recognizable parts, its multidisciplinary nature, as Waldo maintains, prevents it from developing an ‘indisputable paradigm and an agreed methodology.’ (Riccucci: 2010, 28)” Instead, Riccucci has introduced a concept of “post-normal science” pioneered by Funtowicz and Ravetz “to address the existence of societal and ethical complexities in the environments we study. (Riccucci: 2010, 28)” Normally, post-normal science will focus more on quality issues and it has been realized in policy circles that “in complex environment issues, lacking neat solution and requiring support from all stake holders, the quality of the decision-making process is absolutely critical or the achievement of an effective product in decision. (Ravetz: 1999)” We can see a diagram to relate between a sensitivity of decision making and stake holders vis-àvis a degree of system uncertainty as follow: Figure 1: Position of “post-normal science” compared to professional consultancy and applied science (Ravetz: 1999, 50). 7 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper We will see from the next section that scenario planning is an instrument suitable to make an assessment in uncertain environment (Heijden: 2005, 91 and 98). For an application of scenario planning in deliberative framework and inclusiveness, we need to consult with Archon Fung’s “Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance” (2006). Fung has categorized “three dimensions of participant selection, communicative mode, and extent of influence yields a three-dimensional space – a democracy cube – of institutional design choices according to which varieties of participatory mechanisms can be located and contrasted with more professionalized arrangements (Fung: 2006, 70) (my own emphasize)”. We will see that Boosssabong and Chamchong (2020: 95-117) also mention to different types of Fung’s democracy cube with various techniques, including scenario planning applied in respective democracy cube. 3. Scenario Planning Although think tank is an important actor to demonstrate how to use scenario planning or as we seen in some quasi-government agency has already employed it such as Singapore9, also in Thailand10 and around the world11,12, but previously, scenario planning has been exploited by the military in war games, adopted by civil domain such as RAND Corporation during and after World War II 13 , and was later developed by the Hudson Institute founded and enhanced further by Herman Kahn after resigning from RAND, especially his book “The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years” published in 1967 (Heijden: 2005, 3), scenario planning is one of the most popular tool apart of “Delphi Method”, “Critical Technologies”, and 9 See Center for Strategic Futures, Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s office, Singapore, https://www.csf.gov.sg/media-centre/publications/foresight-series , retrieved on June 9, 2020. 10 See for example, APEC Center for technology foresight http://thaist.sti.or.th/ and Innovation Foresight Institute https://ifi.nia.or.th/en/home/ , retrieved on June 9, 2020. 11 See Searchlight Network, https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/using-foresight-surface-social-problems/ , retrieved on June 9, 2020. 12 More application in “strategic foresight” in governmental policy science can be found at Kuosa (2011), such as in Finland (Kuosa: 2011, 33-46), the European Union (Kuosa: 2011, 52-56), and in old member states of the European Union (Kuosa: 2011, 57-66). 13 We should treat “strategic foresight” (which scenario planning is one of a technique within this school of thought) and “futures studies” separately as mentioned by Kuosa (2011, 10): “On the other hand, foresight and futures studies have several things in contrast too. For example, the origins of the two are different. While the roots of futures studies trace back to humanistic orientation of Futurology (1972), which will be discussed in next subchapter, the history of foresight/technocratic orientation of futures studies, traces back to military strategies and military technology foresight which are done especially in the U.S. military’s research units and think tanks, such as RAND (Research and Development—a mutual project of U.S. Army Air Corps and Douglas Aircraft Company) in 1940s and 1950s. To specify the approach of foresight, we can say that it attempts to be more systematic, logical, participatory, and planning or management oriented, but less value rational in comparison to futures studies. Strategic Foresight Group defines foresight as a combination of forecasting with insight. While forecasting requires methodologies, generated by computers or otherwise, insight requires a deep understanding of the subject concerned. Foresight is developed by applying forecasting methodology to insight.” 8 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper “Technology Roadmapping” being used in the industry (Keenan: 2004: 15). Later it has been adopted in business realm14 and inclusive public policy15 more. To identify the deepest key driving forces in making things change, analytic framework considering categories in Social, Technological, Economical, Environmental, and Political (STEEP)16 will be applied to finally reach to designated mental models and to draw respective scenarios further. One problem for scenario planning experts would face is how to draw relationships among those driving forces consensually founded by STEEP analytic framework identified by experience and knowledge background of careful selected participants in the workshop. Furthermore, even they can draw relationships, how they can ensure that emerging relationships are genuine, or statistically paraphrasing “how we can ensure that such correlation does imply causation?” or how we can ensure that we will not fall into a fallacy trap of cause-and-effect relationship (“cum hoc ergo propter hoc” or “with this, therefore because of this”,) thus “correlation does not imply causation”. Figure 2: An example of driving forces and relationships among each other generated by PESTLEWebTM for the Global Automotive Industry17 14 See for an example https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/scenarios/what-arescenarios.html, retrieved on March 27, 2020. 15 See for an example, “Publication: Health System Scenarios: Possible Futures for Health and Health Equity in USA, 2017-2030, https://reospartners.com/publications/health-equity-scenarios-usa-report/, retrieved on March 27, 2020. 16 “The STEEP analysis is often conducted by firms to get a detailed overview on what external factors determine the trends. It also helps to predict what might happen in the future. STEEP is basically an acronym which stands for Social, Technological, Economical, Environmental, and Political. It is also known around the world as PEST, PESTEL, PESTLE, STEPJE, STEP, STEEPLED, and LEPEST.”, https://pestleanalysis.com/what-is-steep-analysis/ , retrieved on March 26, 2020. 17 See https://pestleanalysis.com/pestle-analysis-of-the-automotive-industry/, picture has come from “A Graphical Method for Exploring the Business Environment” by Rob Collins, p. 6. https://docplayer.net/28072089-A-graphicalmethod-for-exploring-the-business-environment.html , both websites retrieved on March 26, 2020. 9 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper From common ground of central characteristic of scenario planning at STEEP analysis framework, we can categorize scenario planning further into 3 subtypes 18 which are: (1) Transformative Scenario Planning (both socio-economic transformation and management basis), (2) Scientific Scenario Planning and (3) “Limited System” Scenario Methodology. 3.1 Transformative Scenario Planning After Pierre Wack, Kees van der Heijden, a dutch economist had joined as the chief of the scenario department, and then Joseph Jaworski in 1990. Adam Kahane had joined Shell at 1988, and he had been dispatched to South Africa as the head of Mont Fleur scenario project in 1991. Pieter le Roux, the left leaning intellectual had phoned Jaworski and Kahane asking for help the opposition (ANC) to build the scenario after the releasing of Nelson Mandela and endorsing the general election (Kahane: 2012, 15-25). The passion of Jaworski to pursue the "desirable" scenario, rather than stay away from the "as it is" scenario in Shell 1992 project, the idea of "transformative scenario" has emerged ever since. Although both Jaworski and Kahane quit Shell to start their own consulting business, 18 This is a categorization based on “scenario planning” centric. For another categorization based on “foresight” centric, it can be addressed as follow: “Interest in Foresight from the mid-1990s on has been fueled by three converging trends: “1. In policy development, the shift from an elite-driven / top-down to a broader, more participatory approach. In part, this reflects desires for greater democratization and legitimacy in political processes. Also, it builds on the increasing awareness that no single body (especially not a government agency!) can know everything that needs to be known in order to effect desired changes. Knowledge is distributed widely, and as the world grows more complex (through advances in science and technology, through greater social differentiation, etc.), this is becoming ever more apparent. Decision-makers have to live with this, and develop their intelligence-gathering methods accordingly. “2. In strategic planning, there has been a move from a “rational” approach aimed at achieving equilibrium and stability, to more evolutionary approaches. This is conditioned by the discovery that high levels of uncertainty are the norm, not the exception. Economic progress seems to be more a matter of disruptive innovations than of the pursuit of equilibrium. Qualitative changes frequently undermine the assumptions (built into most models, for example) that we can grasp the dynamics of social and economic life on the basis of quantitative changes within stable structures. “Long-term planning” has been discredited. But the longterm still has to be taken into account in many decisions, and planners have sought better ways of so doing. “3. In futures studies, too, there have been several important developments. One is a shift from emphasis on predictive approaches to more exploratory studies, and from one-off studies to more continual iterations of the process of envisioning future challenges and opportunities. Equally important is increasing recognition of the need to involve “users” in the process of study, rather than to present them with a vision or set of visions of the future that descends from “on high”. Part of the reason for this is that “futures researchers” have found that such involvement is often essential for the messages of their studies are absorbed into policymaking in a systematic – and ongoing – way.”, European Commission Research Directorate General (2001): A Practical Guide to Regional Foresight (FOREN). European Commission – Joint Research Centre – Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) (Eds.), European Communities, STRATA Programme, pp. v–viii. ftp://ftp.jrc.es/pub/EURdoc/eur20128en.pdf, retrieved on June 20, 2020. For another alternative categorization based on “concepts in futures domain,” please consult table 1 in Kuosa (2011: 30). This categorization can be divided based on the primary content of the concept (function A), the secondary (function B) and the tertiary (function C) into 1) Participatory foresight, 2) Strategic foresight, 3) Corporate foresight, 4) Intelligence, 5) Horizons scanning, 6) Technological assessment, 7) Forecasting, 8) Predicting, 9) Long-range planning, 10) Scenarios, 11) Future studies and 12) Futurology. 10 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Generon Consulting, together with Bill O'Brein (from Hanover Insurance) and Otto Scharmer. It seemed they have separated from each other. Jaworski has built Generon International, Kahane to build Reos Partner, and Scharmer to build the concept of "Theory U". 3.2 Scientific Scenario Methodology Apart of the "socio-economic" transformation / management branch of Scenario (Shell/ Generon Consultant / Reos / Adam Kahane, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Javorski, etc), there is another branch of scenario methodology, a future study. This branch of methodology will not see on how to making any "social transformation", but to observe the "driving factor" to drive the future. It's on scientific & forecasting approach. Michio Kaku's book on "Visions: How science will revolutionize the 21st century” (1998) gives a concise concept on how the future will evolve based on the power of the driving force of computer, biotechnology, and quantum. Kurzweil describes his law of accelerating returns which predicts an exponential increase in technologies like computers, genetics, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence. He says this will lead to a technological singularity in the year 2045, a point where progress is so rapid it outstrips humans' ability to comprehend it. Kurzweil predicts that the technological advances will irreversibly transform people as they augment their minds and bodies with genetic alterations, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Once the Singularity has been reached, Kurzweil says that machine intelligence will be infinitely more powerful than all human intelligence combined. Afterwards he predicts intelligence will radiate outward from the planet until it saturates the universe. 3.3 “Limited System” Scenario Methodology This is the last type of "scenario planning" method. It has been presented in the 1972 report of The Limits to Growth by "Club of Rome"19. At the heart of this technique is the mathematic model called "World3”. This model is quite straightforward. It plays with six different driving factors: population, (natural) resources, food per capita, industrial output, pollution index, and life expectancy. With the stable growth rate of global population, it will consume "limited" natural resources and produce more pollution. At around 2030 something, it will be at the trigger point, or "point of no return". At this point, natural resources will be consumed more than the availability of the global population, thus there will be more population more than the available resources. After the post-trigger point, human being welfare will dramatically decline. Life expectancy and life condition will be worse; hence the overall population will decline. As you may guess, the global warming advocacy group and the peak-oil theorist have proposed the similar methodology. More population -> consume more resources -> price will rise; More population -> produce more carbon-dioxide -> more greenhouse effect -> sea-level will rise + more extreme weather. However, the impact of this report is so huge. The book itself has been sold 30 million copies in more than 30 translations. After the publishing of the limits of growth, it has introduced 19 See https://clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/, retrieved on June 9, 2020. 11 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper birth control program to various government. The intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) has been introduced in 1988, and the Kyoto protocol has been established in 1997. Although, this is the "last type" of scenario but actually, there is a lot of types of scenario school such as: Royal Dutch/Shell and Global Business Network, The French School, The Futures Group, Wilson and Ralston, Lindgren and Bandhold, Reference Scenarios, Decision Strategic International, Procedural scenarios, Industry scenarios, and Soft creative methods, etc. By the way, I'd like to call it as "the accounting technique", or "the limited system" technique. As our knowledge from Michio Kaku that he has mentioned various "scientific revolution". Kaku has conducted the expert interview, or Delphi method with more than 150 scientists around the world in the past 10 years in his writing of "Visions: How science will revolutionize the 21st century". According to scientific revolution (especially in computer, biotechnology and quantum), we may not face the "trigger point" as predicted in World3 model. The proof of my talking here is the shifting of "peak oil". Hubbert has predicted Peak Oil or depleting of oil producing at 1970, but recently, there is more oil supply than demand. How's that happen? It's the scientific revolution of oil producing technique, such as shale Figure 3: An example of “World 3” depicted in “The Limits to Growth”20 So, World3 model might be the "worse" case scenario technique, while Kaku's might be the "best" case scenario technique. The Royal Dutch/Shell technique may be the "moderate" case scenario technique. As you will see, the Royal Dutch/Shell technique will employ the "breathing in" process (or digesting gigantic information) for around 2 years before processing the scenario methodology. The "transformative" scenario technique and U-process may help transform the situation even better. 20 See https://insightmaker.com/insight/1954/The-World3-Model-A-Detailed-World-Forecaster, retrieved on June 9, 2020. 12 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Actually, I think the three gentlemen: Joseph Jaworski, Adam Kahane, and Otto Scharmer have used the similar approach to resolve the complex problem. It's about (1) the learning journey, (2) dialogue and presencing, and (3) the scenario workshop (or collective co-creation work). But it seems Joworski will focus on (1) + (2), while Kahane will focus on (3) + (2), and Scharmer on (1) + (3). Jaworski will emphasize more on the leadership building capacity (or unveiling of the inside leadership -- by servant leadership and the journey followed by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Kahane of course has focused on "transformative scenario" or applying scenario to transform the preferred scenario, while Otto Scharmer has emphasized his "Theory U" and now "U.Lab". But who has invented the "Theory U"? It's hard to say. In the book, "Presence: an exploration of profound change in people, organization, and society" (2004) by Perter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers says it's Scharmer who has developed the theory "on presencing of different levels of perception and change began to merge with Joseph's ongoing work on 'sensing and actualizing new realities'. While it has been mentioned at "Generon International" that it's "Generon" to develop a process which enables teams to create breakthroughs in any field – the creation of knowledge that changes the world as we know it. That process, now known world-wide as “The U-Process”, was developed in response to a challenge issued by a senior officer of what became known simply as the “Alliance”, then the world’s largest downstream organization (Shell Oil Company, Texaco and Saudi Aramco). By the way, Otto Scharmer and MITx has opened his open courseware U.Lab at edX . 4. Findings from past experiences in Scenario Planning If conducted rightly, i.e. to successfully build a safe space and sense of community, a welldecided series of scenario workshop can reach to a “presencing” and can produce meaningful scenarios to be interpreted further or to be a guidance to collaborate or making further in-depth researches either quantitative or qualitative research. Contrary to what Boosssabong and Chamchong (2020, 149) have listed weaknesses of Scenario Planning such as (1) it can’t resolve a variety of objectives, dreams and aiming so it’s difficult to reach to a consensus and ending with selling a “sweet dream”, and (2) thinking about a future will end up with “future trap” with an ignorance to handle with a legacy problem from the past, instead scenario planning can present a desirable scenario as well as an unpleasant alternative scenario. The participants are, therefore, can build a consensus to reach to a desirable future. This kind of outcome can be found on my experience at Searchlight Workshop with Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) and Rockefeller Foundation in New York, US during April – May 201221 and ASEAN scenario workshop at CASEAN on Thursday, October 15, 2015 (with the Heinrich Boll Stiftung)22. 21 See https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Scanning-for-a-Brighter-Future.pdf, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 22 See https://www.geopolitics.asia/post/asean-scenario-workshop, retrieved on March 27, 2020. 13 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Figure 4. Varieties of Future of ASEAN as of findings at ASEAN scenario workshop at C-ASEAN in Bangkok 14 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Figure 5. Secure livelihood as of findings at Searchlight Workshop with Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) and Rockefeller Foundation in New York23 Some findings, although suggests a desirable outcome, it also poses a puzzle to making an in-depth research on respective matters. This kind of outcome can be found at on “Thailand Scenario Workshop” to help easing political conflict in Thailand and project future scenario pictures with 16 other partners24 such as Thai Journalists Association, Thai Broadcast Journalists Association, Thai Health Promotion Foundation, Thai National Reform Assembly, National Defence College Association of Thailand, Institute of Sufficiency Economy, Civicnet Institute, Thai Research Fund, Council of University Presidents of Thailand, ‘For Thai’ Foundation, SCG Foundation, Tourism Council of Thailand, The Boss’ Foundation, Thai Phirom Channel, CTH cable networks, and Scenario Thailand Foundation. There were three workshops in 2013: (1) April 25–28 at Ampwa report&spa ,Samutsongkram, (2) July 4–7 at Rajawadi resort, Konkaen and (3) August 29 — September 1 at Villa Paradi, Khao Yai, Nakorn Ratchasrima. 23 24 Ibid, Rockefeller Foundation, Scanning for a Brighter Future. See https://www.geopolitics.asia/post/solution-talk-by-adam-kahane , retrieved on March 27, 2020. 15 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Figure 6. the three trajectories of river or “maenam” as of finding at “Thailand Scenario Workshop” From the workshops, it can be concluded that Thailand has concurrently faced into three categories, reflects the grand “tectonic shift”: (1) Economy or resources distribution, (2) Politics and governance and (3) Society and culture. It has been addressed and included on the top-left corner of this figure. This figure was the outcome of the final workshop. The main figure is a solution to get out from these crises, on the beautiful mural to reflect a symbolic notion of the country, the three trajectories of river or “maenam” (แม่ นํ 'า) and “the ship of state”, it has rightly convinced to the top choice, “cooperate” (เราร่ วม), rather than either the middle choice, “conflict” (เราสู้ ) or the bottom choice, “being passive” (เราเฉย) on an implication of the waterfall awaiting ahead on both choices. Actually, the third workshop had been significantly influenced by the PDRC movement. The motto “conflict” (เราสู้ ) was actually from the movement to convince people to join their protest on the street and to topple the then government. Some workshop’s participant also mentioned “the great reform” reflected some political agenda inside the PDRC movement, or “reforms before election”, which had bypassed the demand of the grassroots, or at least an excuse rather than a continued reform agenda by national reform council (under Dr Praves Wasee) and another redundant national reform council (under NCPO), compared to the govenment’s implementation, “Thai Niyom Project”, see my writing on the problem of “an addict to reform”) . The outcome of the project was too shallow to address the real concern of the hidden psyche of the Thai society including the challenges awaiting out there in the international context. The momentum of the PDRCs movement, the coup and the struggle of the pro-democracy after that 16 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper until nowadays has eclipsed the conclusion from the workshops, it has failed to conduct any significant influence neither to convey important message to the public to guide the country out of the crisis, different from South African Mont Fluer. Actually, this outcome just gave a clue and more questions to require more heavy research to find out the core problem and solutions rather than an answer. Actually, every great problem in the society requires deep research to encounter such a huge problem. Apart of the Mont Fluer Project in 1991–92, there was also Don Edward Beck who made more than 63 trips to South Africa between 1981 and 1988 to work with both F. W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela and John C. Hall a decade before the Mont Fluer. His finding was an excellent “Spiral Dynamic Integral”. Both have carried South Africa out of the crisis under the “proper” international context and a breakthrough movement from the local leader, Nelson Mandela to unite the country to tackle with the problem. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that the finding solution will end all problem in South Africa, it will need a new guideline to address and resolve the future problem of the country. 5. Conclusion Instead of relying only on old methodologies used in old public administration, with an emergence of new epistemology, policy design and deliberative governance, Li (2015, 2019) has illustrated how these new contexts have evolved and thus an organization such as think tank will evolve itself and exploited new instrument with this new environment in pursuing policy design. Scenario Planning, especially a Transformative Scenario Planning should match or should be in line with this kind of new trend of these respective contexts. Li (2015) has defined a new kind of think tank (Think Tank 2.0, abbreviated TT2.0), its characteristics and instruments used within the organization as follows: “It should be noted that the organizational characters of TT1.0 and TT2.0 are quite different. TT1.0 usually operates with a fixed organizational structure, relatively stable staff, and clear organizational boundaries. In contrast, TT2.0 is apt to be more flexible and resilient, and its boundaries be more blurred. The staff and other components within a 2.0 institute might connect to each other loosely. A TT2.0 can even exist as an interorganizational alliance or a virtual organization. Furthermore, as will be discussed in the following section, TT2.0 embraces a variety of forms in practice. As for the resources utilized, there are no boundary constraints for TT2.0. It could mobilize and employ both internal resources such as expertise of its staff and external ones such as the knowledge and ability of the public.” (Li, 2015:16) 17 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Figure 7.TT 1.0 external mode (Li, 2015:15) Figure 8.TT 2.0 external mode (Li, 2015:17) 18 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Figure 9.A comparisons of TT1.0 vs TT2.0 external mode (Li, 2015:16) Altogether, I’d like to make an improvement from Li (2015) into next generation think tank. While Li (2015)’s TT1.0 is the 1st Gen Think Tank to act as a policy advocacy, TT2.0 is the 2nd Gen Think Tank to employ “post-positivism analysis”, and as this paper has suggested to use scenario planning as an alternative instrument for participatory and inclusive policy design framework. TT3.0 or the 3rd Gen Think Tank in the future will be equipped with more advanced instruments such as Big Data and Quantum computing and has a thorough geopolitical knowledge to make a cohesion framework, well-rounded sensing of necessary information, and a fine tuning at a global level. Some example of this kind of instrument can be demonstrated such as my own “Covid-19 Community Mobility Reports in Thailand25” at Kaggle (data retrieved from Google26.) Another example is applications27 on applying Google’s GDELT (The Global Database of Events, Language and Tone28) and also GKG (Global Knowledge Graph)29 based on GDELT and Google’s BigQuery. This should be in line with a formation of digital government trending such as a development of digital government in Thailand30. 25 See https://www.kaggle.com/kanyuenyong/covid-19-community-mobility-reports-in-thailand, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 26 See “Helping public health officials combat COVID-19” at Google’s blog, https://www.blog.google/technology/health/covid-19-community-mobility-reports, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 27 See https://blog.gdeltproject.org/a-compilation-of-gdelt-bigquery-demos/, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 28 See https://www.gdeltproject.org/about.html#creation, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 29 See https://blog.gdeltproject.org/google-bigquery-gkg-2-0-sample-queries/, retrieved on June 4, 2020. 30 See for example, Three-year Plan Digital Government Development, https://www.dga.or.th/th/content/890/10417/, retrieved on June 9, 2020. 19 DA8000 Governance and Development in Globalized Context Term Paper Figure 10: “Covid-19 Community Mobility Reports in Thailand”: The dashboard graph will display information of percentage change from baseline correspondingly as follow: (1) Mixed graphs, (2) Retail and recreation, (3) Grocery and Pharmacy, (4) Parks, (5) Transit stations, (6) Workplaces, and (7) Residential. 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