Socioeconomic paradigms: Present situation and prospects

This article reviews the major socioeconomic paradigms, capitalism and communism, and their tentative ‘compromise’, social democracy, and considers the emerging green perspective and Japanese ‘managed society’ model in the context of the information age. The different kinds of crisis that each is suffering, and the dangers and opportunities arising from the crisis are analysed and discussed.     

Domestic futures and sustainable residential development

Domestic ‘futures’ have been a long time coming. This paper questions the extent to which futuristic ‘vision’ linked to the rhetoric and sentiment of ‘sustainable development’ and the ‘livable city’ inform town and regional planning in England and Canada. Despite official commitment to ‘environmental’ objectives and media interest in ‘ecotech’ residential development, markets institutions and behaviour lag behind what is technically possible. Planning guidance encourages homes with less environmental impact. But this message has not reached most residential consumers. Is lack of mass markets in low impact housing a flaw in Government regulation, evidence of the cynical nature of official rhetoric, or proof of gradual product development as society redefines what is expected of living spaces? Or is it unwise to expect too much change in attitudes to property, or for innovation to come soon?     

South Asia: Before and after

Ever since the two-pronged ‘divide and rule’ approach of the British and the ‘two nation’ theory of the communal forces led to the partition of the subcontinent, the elites of South Asian countries have always bifurcated the region's modern history with the independence divider. The contemporary period thus comprises of ‘before 1947’ when the British themselves ruled, and ‘after 1947’ when British ideas rule. Demystifying the all too familiar ‘before and after’ analysis of the elites and their pompous claims of post-independence ‘achievements’, this paper attempts to elude that scheme, exposing the emptiness of such claims. The author exhorts the poor of South Asia to put independence behind them as another major political event in the long history of the region and to press ahead with collective preparations for their common futures.     

A post-nationalist South Asia

The ideas of ‘nation’, ‘national security’ and ‘development’ have played havoc with South Asian cultures. The notion of ‘nation state’ has tended to reproduce aspirations of the majority people who are often reconstructed by alien categories and leads to the alienation of minority communities. Virtually all ethnic conflicts in South Asia have their roots in this idea. A more viable and desirable future for South Asia lies in rethinking the model of development and reinventing the notions of state and security.     

Betraying a futurist: The misappropriation of Gandhi''s Ramarajya

Discussing how a political futurist may envision present-tainted ‘realist’ futures, ideology-oriented ‘ambitious’ futures, ethics-inspired ‘ideal’ futures, or other types of futures, this essay describes who an idealist-futurist is. Proving that Mahatma Gandhi is such an idealist-futurist who builds his futurism on the rock of humanistic values by relishing the good and rejecting the bad, emphasizes the futures for the weak, and insists on working for future through futureful means such as truth and non-violence, it is pointed out how Gandhi's futurism has come to be pilfered and betrayed by the brahmanical Hindu right-wing future-thieves in present-day India.     

Making rights from what’s left of Darwinism

The legal, political, and social meaning of the work of Charles Darwin has been claimed as resident to conservative and liberal homes alike. Peter Singer's unique admixture of personal liberal politics and what may look to be an extremely conservative philosophy of nature expose some over-simplicity in traditional ‘right’ and ‘left’ categories. In “Recovering the Left from Darwin in the 21st Century”, Steve Fuller provides us with insightful historical and sociological contexts for Singer's challenges. In this article, Kirk Junker takes one aspect of the trajectory ‘the notion of natural rights’ and examines their social construction, linguistic maintenance, and legal ramifications.     

The future of happiness

Following definitions of ‘happiness’ and ‘social development’, crossnational and temporal happiness trends are analysed to reveal whether reported happiness reflects changes in broader social conditions. The authors question whether an effective measurement of happiness can serve as an indicator of social development. In addition, the role of information in contributing to or maximizing happiness is analysed.     

Economics, equity and sustainable development

As a fashionable catchword, ‘sustainable development’ has provoked a large but nebulous literature. In the interests of communication and relevance it is necessary to narrow down the various definitions that have been given and show how a revised conception of sustainable development can be integrated into practical decisionmaking. This article suggests one approach. Sustainable development is categorized by economic change subject to ‘constancy of the natural capital stock’—the stock of environmental assets is held constant while the economy is allowed whatever social goals are deemed appropriate. Such a rule, which has its own difficulties, accommodates the main concerns of the advocates of sustainability—equity between generations, equity within a generation, economic resilience to external shocks, and uncertainty about the functions and values of natural environments in social systems. It may also accommodate some of the concerns of the ‘deep ecology’ movement by respecting rights in nature.     

Q-analysis : A hard language for the soft sciences

The relevant data sets in a ‘soft’ science can be manipulated and analysed using topology, an exercise which also reveals the ‘backcloth’ which limits or modifies such interrelationships. The method is currently being used in many fields: eg industrial relations, medicine, and architecture. An example of a university's committee structure is used to show how the underlying, and often unnoticed, geometry can frustrate the aims of an organisation.     

Forecasting our environmental future

This series now comes to an appropriate end with the most menacing set of question marks ever raised about the future of the human race. During the past two decades—from the inauguration of the Club of Rome in 1967 to Margaret Thatcher's famous ‘green’ speech to the Royal Society in 1988—an ever growing volume of research has erased the old-time notion that we live out our lives in a steady-state world. As the bad news has spread—environmental pollution, acid rain, the warming of the oceans—a consensus of anxieties has found expression in a global fear for the future. Is there anyone who would gainsay the possibility that, as Mrs Thatcher put it, ‘with all these enormous changes—population, agriculture, use of fossil fuels—concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself’? The scale of these changes and the measure of the dangers they bring—these provide the range of cause and effect in Dr Woodell's reflections on the great harm we have done to the human environment. This is the one occasion when an editor can truly say: Read on for the survival of our species.     

Human-centred CIM : Informating the design/manufacturing interface

The work design philosophy embodied in the human-centred computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) approach provides a radical alternative to traditional technology-oriented and Taylorist approaches to CIM. In order to extend the work that has been done on redesigning factory production and planning tools and systems, this approach can usefully be enhanced by drawing on research on ‘simultaneous engineering’ and the technical and organizational redesign of the design/manufacturing interface. The vision of the ‘informated’ factory of the future embodied in this human-centred CIM vision provides a much needed challenge to traditional guiding images of the ideal automated factory.     

The new Capital Accord and banks’ lending decisions

Capital requirements (‘pillar one’ of the new Capital Accord) rising with the increase in borrowers’ PDs were thought as being likely: (i) to have a serious impact on the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (usually riskier than large corporates) and (ii) to increase the procyclicality of the supply of credit.

The aim of this paper is to provide an empirical evaluation of the possible impact of the new Accord proposals on the lending policies of Italian banks. We compare the interest rate charged to a large set of Italian firms with the cost brought about by the change in the calculation of capital requirements. Since the two variables move together in response to an increase in borrowers’ PDs, we conclude that the new regulatory approach to measuring capital adequacy appears consistent with banks’ own risk evaluations. This result is supported by a ‘stress testing’ exercise: the relationship also holds in a distressed economic scenario, which replicates the financial conditions of the Italian corporate sector in the 1993–1994 recession.     

Global modelling in the 1990s : A critical evaluation of a new wave

It seems that after a ‘golden decade’ in the 1970s and a period of decay in the 1980s, global modelling is making a comeback. In particular, the report Scanning the Future seems to mark the beginning of a new era in this respect. In this article this ‘new wave’ of the 1990s is compared with the ‘old wave’ of the 1970s. Although there is progress in the scientific realm, these new models lack a deep concern for the burning problems of our time like the poverty gap between the North and the South and the ‘ecological problematique’. In many ways these new models reflect the new mood of the times, which lacks any vision of a new paradigm and which is strongly ‘northern-centric’.     

Editorial proximity equals publication success: A function of rational self-interest or good-faith economy?

This paper inquires into a recent finding that shows that proximity to the editor of a top accounting journal significantly increases one's chances of publishing in that journal. Three explanations are provided for this finding—two based on ‘rational self-interest’ and one on the ‘good-faith economy’. These explanations are further considered in light of interview data collected from individuals who worked in the same social space as these editors. While the first two of these explanations align themselves with the field's dominant methodological assumptions they alone do not fully describe actual practice in this field. Indeed, to the extent that this field's actors ignore or discount the third, good-faith explanation the field abrogates its scientific commitment to truth-seeking and objectivity, putting its faith instead in a naïve and potentially damaging vision of human behavior.     

Technological trajectories and R&D for environmental innovation in UK firms

This article reports results of a 1993 questionnaire survey of how UK companies have been innovating technologically in response to environmental pressures. The survey sought to identify factors stimulating UK firms to innovate more environmentally friendly products and processes, and to investigate the changes in R&D activity they have undertaken to facilitate such innovation. In devising the questionnaire and interpreting the results, we have been strongly influenced by the theoretical frameworks developed over the past 15 years which describe technological developments in terms of ‘selection environments’ and ‘technological trajectories’. Useful though such frameworks are, we conclude that they need to be supplemented by concepts derived from the sociology of technology and from studies of corporate strategies.     

Telework remains ‘made to measure’ The large-scale introduction of telework in the Netherlands

About 25% of all jobs in the Netherlands can be done in telework. We cannot give a quantitative overview of the costs and benefits of telework, partly due to the ‘made to measure’ quality of telework projects, but a qualitative overview shows that overall telework will be beneficial both on the micro and macro level, provided its introduction is voluntarily for all involved. The main barrier to the introduction is that organizations do not know enough about the implementation process. Considering the differences between organizations, a large-scale introduction of telework can be stimulated by creating a large variety of telework examples. Telework will have to remain ‘made to measure’.     

New leaders shine light on shadow of denial

At first glance, I was quite sure that I wanted to take on Don Michael's 1991 Futures essay—‘Leadership's shadow: the dilemma of denial’. My initial glimpse suggested that he was advocating that we might ‘hope’ our problems away in the absence of any proven strategy for action. It was with this interpretation that I agreed to respond to an invitation to submit an essay for this colloquium as a reaction to his original article. However, after reading the article more carefully in preparation for writing my response, I was impressed with the foresight Michael demonstrated, given that he offered it for publication in late 1990 which meant he had written it some time earlier.     

Dissolving the stranglehold of the fix : A role for social construction in dealing with environmental dislocation

The current approach to environmental dislocation and innovation is characterized as ‘dualistic’. Dualism is described, implications worked through and the existence of another, ‘dialectical’ approach is proposed. A dialectical worldview, it is suggested, complements the strengths of dualism and extends our intellectual reach. Such a view encourages recognition of social and epistemological contexts of dualistic constructs and of the dislocations that arise when they are operationalized. It enables an extension of our involvement with the world from accountability to responsibility. Mundane examples are offered in which dialectical implications and social constructions are revealed, and shown to be an effective basis for resolving, or avoiding, dislocation.     

Vulnerability and industrial hazards in industrializing countries: an integrative approach

The extra vulnerability of industrializing countries to environmental problems and industrial accidents cannot be understood or solved by a ‘normal’ scientific analysis. Aspects of the social and institutional context must be included, through analyses based on post-normal science. The standard two-dimensional classification of PNS is modified to have axes ‘social ‘and institutional vulnerabilities’ and ‘complexity of technological hazards’. The analysis is mainly applied to the case of the relatively rare accidents with catastrophic potential. In these, the deaths per accident in India, Mexico and Brazil are much greater than in the industrialized countries. This discrepancy arises partly from location of such plants near residential communities for marginalized workers and their families. Other socio-political factors are relevant, as the role of these countries in the global production system, the enforcement of safety and planning laws, quality of housing, and lifestyle of residents. Reducing the vulnerability of industrializing countries will therefore require major social policies and a comprehension of the limits of the normal scientific and economic approaches to such problems.