A design for future-oriented government

This article presents a design for future-oriented government. To guide the design, nine criteria are proposed, which include the explicit recognition of future generations and future-oriented issues, explicit implementation of a structured decision-making process, incentives to include people of wisdom, and effective and broad-based citizen participation. The two main elements of the design are the Court of Generations and the Futures Congress, which diagnose the severity of threats to future generations and decide what actions to take, respectively. The Futures Administration provides information system support to these institutions. The Futures Issues Commission and the Coordination/Mediation Service assist the futures-oriented government interact with existing governmental institutions that are more appropriate for addressing everyday concerns. It is hypothesized that major decisions regarding the environment, energy, long-term science and space projects, and agriculture, among other areas, would shift to the Futures Congress from the National Legislature. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd