2212 EVT: Ideological Stakes in an Outdated Worldview (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Last episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. The increasing incapacity of the political authorities to deliver the security citizens seek increases the risks to the legitimacy of the whole system. The first two phenomena driving Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security are a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity, and a related creeping appropriation of resources while the strength of central public power weakens to the profit of various elite groups. The first of this group is the lenders’ nexus. The second type of elite groups is developing strongholds focused on those resources needed by Everstate and is exemplified by an extreme form of outsourcing, crystallised by the company Novstate.

An outdated worlview leads to misunderstanding and disconnect

Discontent settles in Everstate, with its corollary of slowly rising tension, widening scope of grievances, and creeping feeling of injustice. People continue, in vain, to seek security. Everstatans try to give meaning to their hardship, to understand what is happening to them and why.

Meanwhile, Everstate’s governing bodies also look for ways to solve the various problems they face, which demand understanding the situation.

increasingly dysfunctional models (normative and socio-political) s3

Such quests mean that the current normative models held in Everstate, and, more broadly, in the liberal order to which Everstate belongs are increasingly dysfunctional and outdated. Indeed, should they be adapted, they would provide the right framework for both efficient and satisfactory actions and meaning. Whilst now, nothing makes sense anymore and the situation worsens almost on a daily basis. The economy is growing inefficient; the political authorities’ actions repeatedly fail to ensure security; discontent increases; the formal bureaucracy of the state apparatus is questioned at many level, including by the bureaucracy itself; the state infrastructure seems to be now unable to fulfill its functions ; appropriation of public resources and power grows. Those are signals or symptoms that something is amiss in the models followed.

But then, if this is the case why has a new model not already emerged? What is happening and why?

Actually, Everstate and its fellow countries have now to face one of the toughest challenges, if not the hardest, that may confront a society. They are facing the intrinsic difficulty that goes with the need to change the various models that frame their lives and related institutions.

Currently, there is only one major model of socio-political order that frames the organisation and behaviour of most countries in the world, including Everstate: the modern nation-state, focused on the sole improvement of citizens’ material well-being, in its liberal democratic version. Other variations, such as Communism, have failed as the Cold War showed, and lessons have been learned from others’ experiences. Nothing else is available. Thus, if there is a need for change, then something new must be created, which is very difficult indeed.

normative beliefs step 3

First, ideological stakes are at work. The model of socio-political order is at once grounded in the past and in increasingly deeper systems of beliefs, themselves constructed historically.*

The first layer is a system of norms or beliefs, which can be seen as an ideology (a set of ideas), and quite akin to a religious system of beliefs, with all the sacred connotations and emotional attachment that may go with it.

It will also contain the culture and mores of a specific society or country.  It evolves slowly with time. From this level are derived, for example, the legal concepts applied in each country.

This layer is then included in and interacting with normative beliefs that act at systemic level and are constructed out of interactions between different systems of beliefs and actors. Here are worked out norms that rule the lives of all actors in the world, such as, for example, the existence of states that are territorial, sovereign, independent, the importance of modernisation (being modern), a norm that was constructed and imposed upon the world starting from the end of the nineteenth century.**

Then, one finds the deepest level of norms that may be called paradigmatic and will contain those values that are most crucial, deepest and most fundamental.  For example, at this level may be located fundamental ideas about life and death, about the place of human beings in the universe, about the evolution of the universe, about fundamental ethics, etc.

Each layer of norms results form past evolution and past norms and has emerged out of collective efforts to face past historical situations. Each layer evolves at a different speed and the deeper it is, the more difficult to change it, the more threatening any potential change, and the more chattering the experience of changing it, at both collective and individual level. However, as the more superficial level – the socio-political model in its specific Everstatan guise – is embedded within the others and includes elements of them, then any change similarly involves dread.

Besides the human cognitive difficulty in revising models in front of new evidences***, ideological stakes to keep the model of socio-political order are thus strong considering the difficulties and consequences of altering it. Finally, as those models are normative, questioning them generates a fear to be cast away by the group, with all the internalised dread related to the impossibility to survive alone if one were excluded from the group. Thus, new evidences that could question models are either not seen or consciously and unconsciously dismissed. The likelihood to see this denial happening increases with the depth of the set of beliefs that is touched.

universities, knowledge institutions

The knowledge and understanding institutions  act as guarantor of the ideological and normative system. As such, and according to the norms they uphold and represent, they also provide legitimacy to the governing bodies within society. They tend, at least initially and according to their specific normative position, to further forbid questions and to stop the emergence of new ideas and new models. Meanwhile, prompted by the rising disconnect between reality and the norms and the dysfunction and hardship it generates, a demand for another understanding, one that would be adapted to  the current reality, is voiced increasingly loudly, and lends strength to the rise of alternative purveyors of knowledge or to a major renewal within traditional ones.

Considering where Everstate stands historically and normatively, the knowledge and understanding institutions are mainly located within the academia, especially those departments where the latest models of socio-political order have been designed and upheld: economics departments and business schools, with the support of some of the most liberal and economically minded political science studies, as well as some divisions focusing more exclusively on technology and applied science.

Everstate has very good quality universities and those last 60 years they have provided increasingly recognised scientific knowledge and understanding, notably in the areas of main normative concern, such as economics, business and technology. They have educated generations of civil servants and also play the role of think tank. The analyses thus provided are widely recognised throughout the country as being explanatory and providing good advice to the ruling institutions, contributing thus to good governance and sanctifying the legitimacy of the state. Those universities are enmeshed in the global academic network and Everstate scholars travel extensively and can be heard in international workshop, while they contribute to global knowledge.

Interestingly in Everstate, the scientific institution cannot be seen as a single body anymore, that would, as a single actor, protect all norms. The organisation in disciplines that took place over the last centuries, and that played in the hands of those upholding a modernising and materialistic division of the world, giving power to a few, also contains within itself the seeds of a potential renewal. Indeed, as demand for a new adequate understanding increases, if norms must be revised, if some beliefs must be discarded, then the separation in disciplines means that the complete demise of  science is not necessary, only part of it will have to be revised or even discarded. This also means that in the near future battles are likely to be played within universities, in Everstate but also at global level.

Some churches, at least those which  adapted to the more materialistic part of modern life, can also help upholding norms. However, as Everstatans are relatively uninterested in religion, churches’ influence is so far marginal. One notices, nonetheless, a revival of some religions as citizens look for meaning and understanding, an understanding that mainstream beliefs do not bring anymore. It is thus likely that churches will play an increasingly important role in the years to come, notably if sciences cannot be renewed when needed.

International institutions, such as the IMF, the World Bank or the United Nations agencies, being born of the latest systemic norms and to sustain them, also contribute to enforce their universal, orthodox character. The latest born global institution is private, a powerful global association of companies that influences even heads of states. It upholds all the norms related to business. Efforts towards further or different regional and global governance  let expect the appearance of new actors at this level and of coming related normative battles. Any attempt to question or change the norms upheld by those organisations will be fiercely combated.

To complete the structure, we find professionals trained in those institutions and having thus acquired those skills that are so crucial to the functioning of this system created for past conditions also act as guardians of the norm. For example, business consultants or high level executives coming from the corporate world, notably in areas linked to finance, act as unquestioned and unquestionable gurus. Novstate, considering its hybrid character is particularly active in the normative field, from the specific funding of research programs within universities and think tanks to full use of its friend networks, notably within mainstream media.

To be continued…

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* The organisation in four layers of norms and beliefs is only sketched here as a hypothesis. Each of them may be constructed as a complex system and more research would be valuable on their interactions, the way they are born and evolve.

** See notably, Bull, H., The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, (London: MacMillan,1979); Bull, H. and A.Watson, The Expansion of International Society, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Gong, G. W., The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), Lavoix, Helene, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘genocide’ : the construction of nation-ness, authority, and opposition – the case of Cambodia (1861-1979) – PhD Thesis – School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2005; for modernisation, see, among others  Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).

*** Richard Heuer, Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999, defines cognitive biases as “mental errors caused by our simplified information processing strategies” stemming “from subconscious mental procedures for processing information. A cognitive bias is a mental error that is consistent and predictable.” Chapter 9. At work here among other biases would be the bias known as the “Persistence of impressions based on discredited evidence (difficulty to discard the initial causal model created). – also called Belief persistence after evidential discrediting” Anderson, Craig A., Mark R. Lepper, and Lee Ross. “Perseverance of Social Theories: The Role of Explanation in the Persistence of Discredited Information.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1980, Vol. 39, No.6, 1037-1049.

2212 EVT: the Power of Novstate (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Last episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, the deepening chronic budget deficit and the rising need for liquidity of Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) give an increasing power to the lenders elite group, allowing for new forms of appropriation of public power. Everstate sinks into a vicious circle.

On the difficulty of cooperating with elite groups

The second phenomenon driving Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security is a related creeping new appropriation of public resources and a weakening of the strength of central public power to the profit of various elite groups, the first of which was the lenders’ nexus. As many needs beyond liquidity remain, Everstate’s rulers (the modern state, the elected governing bodies and the nation) have no other choice than to turn to those who hold the resources needed, the elite. The need for cooperation with the elite is increased because the new pressures on Everstate mean that new staff is necessary for governance.

Meanwhile, the intensification of the various kinds of pressures implies a renewed need for manpower, which has been so far used by various elite groups (manpower includes here military, police and civilians part of the monopoly of violence of the state; staff includes all other civil servants). For example, the strengthening of cyber threats and the new cyber security field, as Everstate wants to preserve its monopoly of violence, implies that IT specialists and experts that were up until now mainly working for IT multinational groups are now also needed and recruited by the state. Similarly, all military techniques impact the need for manpower of the state. Meanwhile, the capability of the governing bodies to meet this need affects the performance and the size of the army.

Because elite groups seek to protect and increase their power, status and resources, this need for cooperation with the elite has led and is still leading to series of negotiations between Everstate’s government and Parliament on the one hand, and the elite on the other. The result of those negotiations impacts directly the army’s size and performance, the formal bureaucracy of the state, as well as, of course, the various ways to appropriate public power.

Since the 2190s EVT, Everstate has regularly lost to its elite, notably through an extreme form of the phenomenon known as outsourcing. Although, for a state to contract private firms and experts is not a new phenomenon, and is indeed necessary,a delicate balance must be maintained. In Everstate, outsourcing started taking a new dimension during the 2190s. Entire areas directly related to governance are now in the hands of private firms, notably the powerful Everstatan Company Novstate, specialised in strategy and technology consulting. Year after year, Novstate is awarded the same contracts, which end up being seen as almost proprietary, and wins new ones. Yet, a legal bid system to compete for and be awarded public markets exists and is respected. Even the direct security apparatus of Everstate is not anymore fully public, as a few private companies, Everstatan and international, play there an increasingly crucial role, from multi-involvement in the army, which is challenged by its reduced size, to various security functions such as logistics or the screening done at airports.

Everstate’s formal state bureaucracy is powerless to struggle against this new type of appropriation of public power unless it should be seen, as many Everstatans believe as “achieving an efficiency that can only be obtained with private management.”. Indeed, first, this bureaucracy was created and established to face bygone conditions. Then, as it became progressively impacted by outsourcing and as the overall power of the ruling bodies of Everstate weakened, it came to see outsourcing as the norm, even as the sign of a renovated and forward looking bureaucracy. This was even more the case as some of the nation’s representatives, politicians, and political appointees, on the one hand, some of the senior level civil servants, on the other, increasingly often joined those outsourcing companies. By entering this system, they legitimate this extreme form of outsourcing as they are still endowed with the status of their previous position when they make their choice. In this way, those entering the extreme outsourcing system keep their previous status as they continue participating in the country’s governance, while they gain new status, resources and privileges by joining the private sector. As such, they constitute a specific elite group.

Meanwhile, as the same people keep the same functions without allowing for the usual generational change to play its role, entire age classes of younger Everstatans, despite their high level of education are neither incorporated within the political authorities apparatus, nor even, fairly, within the outsourcing one. Volunteering and unpaid internships are promoted and almost the only way new highly educated youth can access to experience and work, even if this increasingly leads only to other internships. As a result, a crucial element of the upward social mobility in Everstate is stalled. In the meantime, the formal modern bureaucracy that had characterized Everstate for so long is nothing else than starting to disappear, even if it keeps its name and pretence.

As renewal and rejuvenation are blocked, outsourcing companies that are also meant to be in touch with new ideas and the evolution of society cannot anymore play this role. How could it be otherwise as Everstatan elite groups that have achieved power are certainly not ready to accept to see any of their privileges diminishing? Any idea that could imply, really or apparently, a loss of relevance would be relenting of the possibility to disappear as elite groups and this, they cannot accept. On the contrary, they are building ever-larger and stronger strongholds based on those resources that gave them, initially, their elite status. For example, Novstate does not only advise governance bodies but also supplies governance services, often in areas where there are also advisors, as it unites in its network of “friends’ companies” – a new business concept derived from social networking – small security firms, quasi armies, high tech start ups, biotech laboratories, etc.

Hence, any new negotiation between the governing bodies and the elite groups is a rush for more appropriation of public power and enlarges the elite groups’ strongholds.

Meanwhile, these struggles for the benefit of exclusive groups just add further pressures on the overall society.

Everstate is in a situation similar to what happened with liquidity, but with different elite groups, even if sometimes connections exist between groups notably through “friends networks.” If the ruler’s power continues to grow weaker than the elite’s power, then the elite will go on appropriating part of public power in a manner that is only hidden by the existing socio-political model and by the way it gets around the still existing norm on the separation between public and private. As a result, the new resources extracted will most likely remain insufficient, with consequences on the state’s infrastructure, on governance and on the army’s size and performance thus on the monopoly of violence of the ruler (the nation, the government and assemblies and the state that assists the former in their tasks), as well as on budget deficit.

Negotiating in such increasingly difficult conditions with elite groups  only leads to an appropriation of public property, to a further weakening of the central power and thus to an increased power of elite groups, in a vicious circle. Yet, no other option seems to be available.

As a result, the dissatisfaction of the population increases. The very legitimacy of Everstate’s system has already started suffering. If nothing changes the risks to legitimacy will only increase.

To be continued…

2212 EVT: Public Resources and Lenders (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Last episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) sees a mounting discontent of its population because it has become insecure considering the impact of the new still misunderstood conditions. Three related phenomena drive Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security. First, Everstate faces a changing set of resources implying an income that is relatively too low while costs and expenditures resulting from accumulated threats and pressures rise inexorably. Added to an Inability to understand the situation and a use of past recipe, this leads to both a chronic and deepening budget deficit and an increasing demand for liquidity. Individually, citizens face the same challenge, which heightens the need for liquidity. 

The need for liquidity and the “lender’s nexus” elite group

The second phenomenon driving Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security is a related creeping new appropriation of public resources and a weakening of the strength of central public power to the profit of various elite groups.

The need for liquidity of Everstate on the one hand, and, on the other, the uniformity and interdependence of potential lenders not only within Everstate but also worldwide, resulting in their relative scarcity, gives “the lenders’ nexus” a strong power and elite status. Banks, rating agencies, and various funds as well as those working for them thus find themselves in an immensely strong negotiating position vis-à-vis the ruler, i.e. the people, the nation and its representative government and assemblies.

In turn, this bargaining position allows for a new type of appropriation of public power by this lender elite group: a huge amount of national income, financed through an already insufficient tax income, is transferred to this lender establishment worldwide, including to what is called the shadow banking system, through borrowing – and over borrowing – made on the market whatever the interest rates, payment of those interests, gifts in terms of deregulation and favourable monetary policies, guarantees of protection in case of bankruptcy or more largely whatever the risks taken by those private lenders, favourable tax policies, etc.

Worse still, as the situation deteriorated over the years, with an ever rising  need for liquidity, some of the resources of the nation will have to be sold or transferred through long-term lease and various legal means to those who have the necessary liquidity: private elite groups, domestic or foreign, or foreign governments. If such arrangements will hopefully bring short-term relief, on the medium to longer term, they are more than likely to accelerate the vicious circle into which Everstate finds itself: fewer resources (what has been sold or long-leased) may only mean less income later on and thus a need for more liquidity.* Such abandon of national resources also implies a loss of international prestige, which is geopolitically prejudicial. Finally, such arrangements can also be seen as a further appropriation of public property, which will weaken the central power and thus open the door to even more appropriation of public power.

It is not that the Everstatan government and Parliament really want to choose this solution, but what other solutions are available to them?

As for the current strategy of extraction of resources, if the past pattern is to be followed, most of the extraction will have to come from the population. However, as the population is under increasing pressure, it is more than likely that what will be extracted will be insufficient to cover the growing need for income and liquidity. Furthermore, as Everstatans are increasingly dissatisfied, and feel relatively deprived, then it is more than likely that they will resist more taxes by all means, if they do not see their situation improving or to the least stabilising or do not believe such positive evolution is possible.

Most countries that have been in a similar situation before Everstate have adopted this type of policies. As it is a very recent phenomenon, the real impact of such policies cannot truly be evaluated, but Everstate’s governing bodies reason that if this policy has been chosen before, it means that it cannot be that bad.**

Furthermore, from the Everstatan’s governing institutions’ perspective, moving from a public government of the commons to a private management of goods may only be the right solution, as it is in line with the liberal model of socio-political organisation (in its “neo-liberal” – end of the twentieth century, beginning of the twenty-first century – version). Does this model not underline how inefficient the state is compared with the private sector? Has this not been shown times and again, and notably with the collapse of the Soviet Union? Anyway, there is no other model available. Thus, the Everstatan governing bodies feel that they are not only solving temporary problems, but also doing what is truly right for their country and that they should, maybe, have done before.

Considering the expected result of past classical strategies of extraction of resources in the current conditions of needs that stubbornly remain, something else has to be done too: to turn to those who possess what is needed and to ask for their cooperation, i.e. to turn to elite groups. The difficulty is that entering into negotiations with those groups automatically increases their power and their status, which in turn reinforces their elite group status or even, potentially, creates it if it did not exist beforehand. A new episode in the age-old struggle between elite groups and ruler – here as the modern state, the elected governing bodies and the nation – is about to start.

To be continued…

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* The case of Greece was obviously the inspiration for the narrative of this paragraph, written during Spring 2011. See, for example, Elena Moya, “Greece starts putting island land up for sale to save economy,” The Guardian, 24 June 2010; George Petalotis, Letter to The Guardian, “Greece is not for sale,” The Guardian, 29 June 2010;  The Telegraph, “China ‘set to invest billions in debt-stricken Greece’,” 15 June 2010;  Press Office of the Embassy of Greece, Washington DC, “Chinese COSCO takes over in Piraeus Port,” 01 October, 2009 (update 29 January 2015 – the hyperlink was removed as it led to a 404 page and no cache version could be found. Interested readers can use this link to access a list of all Greek embassies); Dredging Today, “Greece: COSCO Will Spend US$707 million to Upgrade Piraeus Port Facilities,” 15 July 2010.

** This paragraph also uses the principle of homogeneity of Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, (London: Macmillan, 1994); for more on Fred Halliday’s contribution to international relations and political science, see, Alex Colas and George Lawson, “Fred Halliday: Achievements, Ambivalences, Openings”, Millennium, Vol. 39(2) 2010.

Global Water Security

A Strategic Foresight and Warning Issue for National Security

In the light of the 31 january 2012 “Unclassified Statement for the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence” by James R. Clapper Director of National Intelligence, which identifies Water Security in the chapter on Significant State and Nonstate Intelligence Threats (p.29), this is an updated version of a post initially published on The Water Chronicles, December 8, 2011.

The emergence of a global water crisis seems to be a fact that is reaffirmed across actors almost everyday, even if the overall web worldwide traffic devoted to the topic is still marginal compared to terrorism for example, as shown by the two graphs below.

Witness to this double characteristic of importance and relative lack of awareness, the National Geographic, for example, in 2005, had a whole section devoted to the water crisis or more precisely freshwater crisis to contribute to raise interest: the National Geographic’s Freshwater Initiative. It remains (2021) as The Freshwater crisis.

World Water depletion (2005 data)
World Water depletion (2005 data) – Map Licensed under CC © Copyright SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

This global water crisis would spare no country, from the most powerful, as underlined again in the December 4, 2011 Tomgram: William deBuys, The Parching of the West for the U.S. to richer ones such as Singapore, for example, which faces a “lack of natural water resources.” Meanwhile Mapelcroft identifies in 2011 Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as “the most water-stressed countries in the world,” – each ranking respectively in terms of wealth, 3rd, 34th, 1st, 14th, 41st, IMF 2010. Emerging countries are not spared: for example, India faces many water problems from pollution to water depletion, while poorest countries sometimes face further desertification. This wide and unremitting geographic scope also further questions the fading developed-rich/developing-poor countries cognitive model inherited from both the self determination period and the three-worlds Cold War world view, asking from us to revisit our perceptions if we are to understand contemporary challenges and crises and ever hope to solve or more modestly mitigate them.

Meanwhile, various related research programs in universities and think tanks throughout the world have been developed. As indication, Academia.edu references 100 programs, 53 universities and 39 academic journals focused on water. Among others, since 1991 a World Water Week has been organised, initially by the Stockholm Vatten AB, the municipal water and wastewater provider, on behalf of the City of Stockholm (SIWI, history). It led to the creation of the Stockholm International Water Institute in 1997. According to its organisers the World Water Week has become “the annual focal point for the globe’s water issues.”

WEF Global Risk Report 2012
WEF Global Risk Report 2012 – risks by impact and likelihood

Furthermore, water related risks have been identified by the Global Risks Reports of the World Economic Forum (WEF – Davos) under one label or another since 2007. The 2012 Global Risks Report underlines the severity of the water threat, which belongs now to the top 5 risks: water supply crises rank 5th in terms of likelihood, and 2d in terms of impact. An encompassing “water security” had been already singled out in the 2011 Global Risk Report as “the top 10th risk by likelihood and impact combined.” The risk was deemed to be not only very likely but also to have a perceived impact approaching 500 billion USD. Compared with the 2010 perceived impact (then for water scarcity – risk 22 – and not water security) the perceived impact skyrocketed from an estimate of less than 40 billion USD.

Centers of Gravity and Risks interconnection – WEF Global Risk Report 2012

Furthermore, in 2011, the water security risk is seen as interconnected with eight other risks and in 2012 water supply crises are linked to nineteen risks, as shown on the figures realised thanks to the very interesting interactive way the reports are presented online. The water-food-energy risk nexus is amply detailed in the 2011 report and benefits of a specific initiative: http://www.weforum.org/water. Water is on the Agenda of the Global Councils of the WEF since 2008.

WEF Global Risks Report 2011
WEF Global Risks Report 2011

Meanwhile, and as expected from the interconnections shown by the Global Risks Report 2011, water is widely seen as a cause of strife and conflict, as recalled by a recent New York Times blog by Rachel Nuwer, “The power politics of water struggles,” focusing notably on the idea of hydro-hegemony, a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts, conceptualized by the Canadian Dr Mark Zeitoun of the University of East Anglia. As explained in an article by Zeitoun and Warner, “Hydro-hegemony is hegemony at the river basin level, achieved through water resource control strategies such as resource capture, integration and containment. The strategies are executed through an array of tactics (e.g. coercion-pressure, treaties, knowledge construction, etc.) that are enabled by the exploitation of existing power asymmetries within a weak international institutional context” (2006).

Indeed, the Water and Sustainability Program of the Pacific Institute, in its World Water Conflict Chronology Map presents an exhaustive chronology of 225 water conflicts displayed on an interactive map, showing both their global historical and geographical scope. Conflicts identified in the project start with the c. 3000 BC deluge also told by Sumerian myth, which underlines another potentially crucial dimension of the water issue, its relation to myth, symbolism and the sacred, within a larger cultural dimension as specified on other grounds by Roberto Melville and Claudia Cirelli (2000). The last updated conflict relates to 2010 violent water protests in India thus showing the influence of water on domestic issues, while more conventional disputes with potential for escalation and war are not forgotten, with the example the India-Pakistan Indus dispute (1947-1960s).

We thus have present as elements of this global water crisis: wars and perception of foreign enemies, break down of order and protests, threat to food security, and more generally life, as well as symbolic and customary meaning. Those are nothing else than potential and emergent symptoms that could lead to failure to ensure security, which is the mission of the ruler. Indeed, Moore (1978, 22) “defines the mission of security of authorities as comprising three elements: protection from foreign enemies, foreign being defined by what does not belong to the sphere of the ‘we,’ maintenance of peace and order, and contribution to ‘material security,’ or ‘security against supernatural, natural and human threats to the food supply and other material supports of customary daily life’” (Lavoix, 2010). As we still live, for the great majority, in nation-states, this security is nothing else than national security (conventional security tends to refer to strictly military matters, while unconventional security is being used for any other relevant issue).

To avoid such security failures that would not only have direct dire consequences but also impact in terms of legitimacy, rulers (andmore boradly all actors that could be impacted or are players) have at their disposal a process and analytical tool that helps them anticipating uncertain changes and thus preventing them, mitigating them at best or taking advantage of them when theose changes are opportunities. This process is called Strategic foresight and warning (SF&W). It “is an organized and systematic process to reduce uncertainty regarding the future (Fingar, 2009). It aims to allow policy-makers and decision-makers to take decisions with sufficient lead-time to see those decisions implemented at best (Davis; Grabo 2004; Knight, 2009). It must thus helps us in identifying the frontiers of plausibility within which changes in our surroundings are most likely to take place within a specific period of time, so that we can best coordinate our activities for our society’s security, in the light of those coming alterations” (Lavoix, 2011).

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References

Academia.edu

Davis, Jack, “Strategic Warning: If Surprise is Inevitable, What Role for Analysis?” Sherman Kent Center for Intelligence Analysis, Occasional Papers, Vol.2, Number 1, accessed June 28, 2010.

DeBuys, William, Tomgram: William deBuys, The Parching of the West, Tomdispatch.com, December 4, 2011.

Fingar, Thomas, “Anticipating Opportunities: Using Intelligence to Shape the Future,” and ”Myths, Fears, and Expectations,” Payne Distinguished Lecture Series 2009 Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence and National Security, Lecture 3 & 1, FSI Stanford, CISAC Lecture Series, October 21, 2009 & March 11, 2009, accessed June 28, 2010.

Government of Singapore, PUB Singapore’s National Water Agency.

Grabo, Cynthia M., Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning, edited by Jan Goldman, (Lanham MD: University Press of America, May 2004).

Knight, Kenneth, “Focused on foresight: An interview with the U.S.’s national intelligence officer for warning,” McKinsey Quarterly, September 2009, accessed June 28, 2010.

Lavoix, Helene, “Enabling Security for the 21st Century: Intelligence & Strategic Foresight and Warning,” RSIS Working Paper No. 207, August 2010.

Lavoix, Helene, Ed. Strategic Foresight and Warning: Navigating the Unknown. Singapore: RSIS-CENS, 2011.

Mapelcroft, “Maplecroft index identifies Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as world’s most water stressed countries: Key emerging economies and oil rich nations export water issues to ensure food security through African ‘land grab’,” 25/05/2011.

Melville, Roberto and Cirelli, Claudia, “LA CRISIS DEL AGUA. Sus dimensiones ecológica, cultural y política.” (LA CRISE DE L’EAU. Ses dimensions écologiques, culturelles et politiques), Memoria # 134 en abril del año 2000; further translations.

Moore, Barrington, Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, (London: Macmillan, 1978).

National Geographic, National Geographic’s Freshwater Initiative.

Nuwer, Rachel, “The power politics of water struggles” New York Times blog, 28/11/2011.

Pacific Institute, World Water Conflict Chronology Map

Stockholm International Water Institute, “History”

The World Economic Forum,

  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2006.
  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2007.
  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2008.
  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2009.
  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2010.
  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2011.
  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2012.

Wikipedia, “List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita.”

World Mapper, “Water Depletion Map,” Water series, Map 323,

Zeitoun, Mark, and Warner, Jeroen, « Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts,» Water Policy Vol 8 No 5 pp 435–460 © IWA Publishing 2006 doi:10.2166/wp.2006.054.

Budget Deficit and Liquidity (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Previous episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, in Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state), people seek security as they increasingly feel the negative impact of various pressures and threats on their life. Henceforth they turn to their political authorities and even start trying to compel them to provide this security. Through those actions, Everstatans start to remember that, as part of the nation, they are also rulers of Everstate. Yet, the situation is growing worse because the tasks of governance have grown more complex while the governing system and the polity are not yet adapted to the new conditions.

Deepening budget deficit and increasing need for liquidity

The first phenomenon driving  Everstatan political authorities’ incapacity to deliver security is a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity.

The resources that participate into obtaining the income necessary to govern have started being impacted by the novel threats and by the evolution in general a few years ago. However, this change happened unnoticed by most and is still largely ignored as new pressures are yet to be recognised. In general, the focus of awareness is on forthcoming so-called resource wars*, generated by the probable end of cheap abundance that is likely to affect natural resources such as water, oil, or minerals, and the scrambling for components in new substitutes such as rare-earth elements.

Yet, the problem is more complex and also far worse. Some of the resources that used to generate income in the past have dwindled.  For example, when Everstatan industries delocalised, related income disappeared. Meanwhile, changes impacting other resources on the one hand, and the emergence of new resources on the other are not yet integrated within the public framework. All affect income.

Governing bodies should be on the watch and receive adequate warnings regarding the need to take in-depth actions. 

However,  the resources extracted from the polity that have usually generated income are taxes levied mostly on the population, through taxes on personal income and social contributions (direct taxes) or through taxes on consumption (indirect taxes). Hence, the negative impact on resources could not and cannot be directly and immediately felt, and thus goes unconsidered. It is mediated by time and by economic activity as well as by impact of the general evolution of society on the wealth and consumption behaviour of people.

Yet, as new pressures pile, most of them without any awareness and thus unattended, while resources and ecological conditions evolve, an increasingly larger impact on the resources of the nation is to be expected, unforeseen, thus unmonitored and, consequently, without any kind of planning to face it. Very real consequences on the nation’s income, even if they are delayed, are in the making.

Meanwhile, the simple fact to try to make sense of some of the new pressures, those that are already perceived, comes with a cost. To fight constantly against such new military threats as terrorism or such unconventional dangers as cyber-threats uses a lot of the available resources and related income, to say nothing of possible new more classical military threats.

The increasingly numerous extreme weather events that are occurring, if they are not always evaluated in such a way, also takes its toll on resources: damages imply a net loss of wealth, while most events such as floods, tempests, or snowstorms immobilise economic activity. The accumulation of those localised and sometimes hardly noticed events has a direct domestic cost that increases expenditures, while it diminishes income and sometimes reduces resources.** Furthermore, when natural catastrophes and extreme weather events hit other countries, Everstate is also impacted through aid and various contributions, lowered trade, potential global ecological impact of disasters and levy on citizens’ savings (which then become unavailable for domestic borrowing, investment or consumption), with further consequences as reduced contribution to taxes.

Everstate is thus faced with a relative (compared with what would have been, had those changes and evolutions not taken place) lowered income, while more resources to face rising expenditures are necessary and increasingly more so, when those new and rising pressures also mean that the task of governing has become harder, which too has a cost, at least initially.

The nation and its governing bodies thus imperatively need to find new resources and income, as well as related new staff, which increases state’s expenditures, which in turn will increase the need for new resources and then income, until a new balance, adapted to the current and foreseeable future conditions, is found.

Solely keeping the system running as in the past is counterproductive because this directly and immediately impacts governance, lowering its efficiency. Being unable to understand what is happening and thus to find the necessary new resources and income means that a satisfactory way to plan for the increasing tasks involved by governance cannot be achieved. This, too, lowers the overall efficiency. As a result, the security that Everstatans seek cannot be ensured. Furthermore, the system is increasingly unable to do so.

Be it perceived and understood or not, this need for new resources and income is very real and upon Everstate. It implies that cash or liquid assets are demanded by Everstate’s governing bodies. First, they have to pay to face all the pressures  identified, to assume impacts’ costs when pressures are not identified, and to finance the usual tasks of governing, when Everstate’s income is insufficient as new resources and income have not yet been found. A new adapted strategy of extraction of resources (for the income of governing bodies) would reduce the need for liquidity, but it has yet to be designed.

In Everstate, as in many other countries, this situation has lasted for quite a while already. However, Everstate’s government and Parliament have dealt with it as if nothing new had happened. They thus used past recipes. As a result, the budget deficit has become chronic. In turn, as deficit is now regularly bridged by debt, on the one hand the cost of the debt further increases the deficit, while the need to borrow further heightens the need for liquidity.

Meanwhile, Everstatans’ quest for security in those gradually more difficult conditions also contributes to increase the demand for liquidity as people still need the now lacking or diminishing resources. Thus, the demand for those resources does not recede. On the contrary, for some of them, it increases as usage of those resources is fully integrated within the developed way of life of Everstatans and its expected improvement. For example, some of those resources have to come from further way or, when possible, have to be created or transformed out of other resources, which implies a further demand for liquidity. This situation also contributes to intensify the demand for understanding and meaning, as Everstatans, as any human beings, need to make sense of their perceived new hardship, so contrary to the promises of the materialistic normative order in which they have lived all their lives.

To be continued…

* See, among others, Michael T. Klare, Resource wars: the new landscape of global conflict, Henry Holt, 2002.

** See, for example, Holly Riebeek, “The rising cost of natural hazards,” Nasa Earth Observatory, March 28, 2006, accessed April 14, 2011; Munich RE NatCatSERVICE: Natural Catastrophes in 2010, 2011, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE ; and corresponding press release, accessed April 14, 2011.

2212 EVT: Seeking Security (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Summary of previous episodes: In 2212 EVT, in Everstate, the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state, the population’s discontent increases. It is bound to continue to do so, as a result of various pressures and threats, most of them inevitable, imperfectly identified, and not understood. Indeed, Everstatans feel both directly and indirectly the impact of those pressures, which affect their sense of security and thus generate discontent (link to previous article).

Everstatans seek security

Everstatans continue to seek a security that is appearing as increasingly distant and elusive.

They turn to their political authorities, expecting them to deliver this security. Indeed, Everstatans believe that their government, their state (which assists the ruler in its tasks) and their national representatives, being their legitimate political authorities, should ensure their security. This fundamental belief is inscribed in their collective history, not only as a country, but also as part of the human species (Moore, 1978). Furthermore, Everstate is part of the normative order called liberal democracies. Thus, as Everstatans have elected their representatives and their government, they are even surer of their right to be well governed, i.e. to see their security ensured.

However, most of the time, they have forgotten that, as citizens on the one hand and as part of the collective body of the nation on the other, they are also a part of the political authorities. As such, they not only have a role to play but also a duty to assume it. They cannot just sit there and relinquish their power and responsibilities, all the more so that their security is at stake. This forgetfulness is not a specific trait of Everstatans but widely shared with most of their fellow citizens in other representative liberal democracies.

Initially, Everstatans exerted their power in a rather negative and passive way, witness the growing abstention during elections that had been going on for decades and other worrying weak signals of alienation.

Now, their grumbling grows louder and is a first still inchoate way to act to make sure their government, their state and their national representatives consider their demands. Furthermore, other actions, more visible, such as strikes and demonstrations – sometimes with some violence – also take place with an increasing frequency while creeping unrest and rising lawlessness settle in some very specific areas.

As all those actions originate from different groups of citizens and take various forms with different purposes, for most observers, including Everstatans, they appear as unrelated, dispersed and thus of no consequence. Worse still for those witnesses, when a protest movement seems to be a bit more constructed – e.g. the Occupy Everstate movement, part of the global Occupy/Indignados movement – it starts with a specific demand, linked to the impacts having generated dissatisfaction, then, when satisfaction is not obtained, the scope of the discontent in terms of content increases, usually giving rise to another supplementary revendication.

This leads most to completely discredit the various movements of protest, all the more so that the new very real pressures Everstate has to face are still very imperfectly perceived and measured. Indeed, seen from the surface, the protests are sporadic, actively involve relatively few people, flare up and then recede. However, imperceptibly, overtime, the overall level of tension increases, the number of people likely to be actively involved in protests rises, while the scope of discontent widens.

Wrong answers

As the responses of Everstate’s government, state, and Parliament generate dissatisfaction, it seems that they are increasingly unable to answer the population’s demands, which stem from the real situation, the citizens need for security and the beliefs they hold.

Things are however more complex than a sudden incompetency or, more absurd, malevolence, as some extremist Everstatan conspiracy theorists try to promote.

Everstatan political authorities, indeed, have  to provide a governance that has become progressively more complex and thus difficult Governance implies more tasks, many of them novel. Security must be delivered to citizens  in overall conditions that have changed. The various pressures for survival and military threats as well as their intensity demand attention, resources, policy and successful responses. Meanwhile, the evolution of resources available, as well as their rising complexity, for example all those related to the virtual and mobile world, again ask for fully novel policies and practice.

Logically those new tasks require new staff as well as new resources and income, past ones having become ill-suited, insufficient or even exhausted.

In this framework and because of it, three related phenomena are at work that drive the political authorities’ current incapacity to deliver security and thus  the rising population’s dissatisfaction, while also directly adding to the discontent: a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity, a creeping new appropriation of public resources and a weakening of the strength of central public power to the profit of various elite groups, and finally the use of an out-dated normative model leading to misunderstanding and disconnect as long as the demand for new understanding is not satisfied.

To be continued…

Reference

Moore, B., Injustice: Social bases of Obedience and Revolt, (London: Macmillan, 1978)

2212 EVT: Rising Discontent (The Chronicles of Everstate)

Summary of previous episodes: Everstate (an ideal-type for our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state) is part of the international liberal order and ruled under a democratic parliamentary regime.

Lately, its governance started being less efficient and as a result began to fail to ensure the security of Everstate’s citizens. Meanwhile, its economy showed sign of losing efficacy and its powerful elite groups fought hard to keep their status although they do not believe to be really at risk.

The various degradations and tensions have started being felt and registered by the population. However, most Everstatan actors considered those as temporary crises and difficulties that will be shortly solved. At worst, some envisioned a serious crisis that would last a few years, maybe a decade of slow growth before everything went back to normal (link to previous article). Are they right? What does the future hold for Everstate?

(The reader will find detailed explanations on the methodology applied to this article at the bottom of the page).

Dissatisfaction and tension of the population

Confronted with various mild but growing inefficiencies in terms of governance and economy, Everstatans are increasingly dissatisfied. They perceive the overall security provided by their political authorities as having started to decrease. At the beginning, it was imperceptible. Now, their discontent increases and cannot be ignored anymore. Indeed, more and more people feel relatively deprived as they contrast what they remember about their past satisfaction, what they had sought to achieve and what they now manage to obtain, whatever their efforts.

First, obvious new external military threats have arisen from foreign groups trying to implement their own state power. Those threats are widely labelled and known as “terrorism” or sometimes “radicalization” and have been partly solved through various efforts, notably those made in the areas of domestic security and law enforcement. Other threats have emerged from states that are considered as unfriendly, indeed at times dubbed “rogue states.” Both have started introducing an element of permanent and pernicious fear and unease in the population.

Then, the satisfaction of the population is affected by other factors that are not yet perceived and even less considered, integrated and successfully dealt with by Everstate’s political authorities.

The evolution of society has, over time, affected the ecological milieu, which has given rise to new types of pressures. In Everstate and in international settings, the reality of those pressures is still debated, which often leads to ignore or minimize their importance. Among those controversies, we find the end of cheap energy, notably oil-based energy, the safety of nuclear energy, food and water availability, climate change, the increase of various types of pollution, and the return of the fear of deadly pandemics. Furthermore, because those pressures are new or have not been felt for centuries, the existing normative models do not consider them. Those models, indeed, focus on other matters, those issues that were crucial when the norms were constructed. Considering the importance of normative models and related thinking, the lack of possible concern integrated within the normative model also contributes to minimise the perception of and interest in those new pressures.

Meanwhile, natural uncontrollable catastrophes such as earthquakes or volcano eruptions, linked to the fate of geography, are still hitting societies blindly. Everstate fears no volcano on its territory, but some areas, by the seashore notably, are prone to earthquakes, although no severe one has occurred for more than two centuries. Typhoons and hurricanes, floods and droughts are still devastating worldwide, but Everstate’s climate makes such happenstance quite impossible. And yet… an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events started being registered a few years ago (e.g. Munich-Re, 2010). Although the scientific understanding of many of those phenomena is still imperfect, a similar trend was registered in many countries of the world. Increasingly, it was identified as related to those changing conditions brought about by human activity.

Furthermore, previous evolutions have affected natural resources. Those that are finite have now been used by the population and thus are obviously not available anymore. Those that are considered as renewable have also sometimes been altered in a way that makes them unavailable for a specific location. For example, if water is fundamentally a renewable resource, the depletion of groundwater in some areas, or pollution, which can only be removed over centuries, in others transform water for specific areas and lapse of time into a finite resource. Such shortages directly impact the population, as people cannot benefit from those resources anymore, be it in terms of direct use or because whole sectors of activity disappear leading to unemployment and general impoverishment. Furthermore, by bearing upon the overall ecological setting, they contribute to create new kinds of pressure for survival. Meanwhile, other potential resources are emerging but are not yet fully integrated into ways of life. Thus, they cannot fully take the place of the past, used resources, when replacement is possible. They cannot either help face the whole range of new pressures for survival. So far, in Everstate, no complete shortage in response to a need had to be faced. On the contrary, in a still recent past as when coal mines were closed, whole sectors of activity have been swept away.

At the same time, evolution has generated new capabilities that are progressively used against society in a deadly and damaging way. Thus, new threats appear. Everstate and its allies have so far labelled those threats as unconventional, which definitely underlines their novelty, even in terms of thoughts. A few of them – but by all means not all as they permanently evolve –  have been identified and range from cyber-security (linked to the digital and communication technology and their use) to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

As long as Everstate has not designed the way to deal (through governance) with those new multiple pressures, the degree with which those pressures impacts society progressively increases, while the level of satisfaction of the population decreases. Now, this way cannot even start being imagined because those stresses are not fully registered and thus even less understood. Indeed, the Everstatan system, as the system of other countries, was built to deal with other – past – pressures.

Thus, dissatisfaction is bound to increase for some time in Everstate. This discontent itself, feeds progressively into a domestic escalation spiral. In turn, it increases incrementally the degree of pressure that is exerted on Everstate as a whole.

Meanwhile, Everstatans continue to seek a security that is appearing as increasingly distant and elusive…. to be continued.

How to?

Application of the methodology used to construct the narrative.

The variable that will serve to start the narrative is “pop level of satisfaction (sec) s3,” i.e. level of satisfaction of the population regarding security for the third phase or step of our dynamic model. To help the reader understand the methodology, the words corresponding to an influencing or influenced variable or node for the main narrative will be in bold in this post.

When needed, to obtain more information on those nodes, we shall display the corresponding ego network that will hep nourishing and constructing the narrative.

In terms of outline, we start with the variables causing what we try to narrate (the discontent of the population), looking first at those linked to s2 (the previous step, temporally), then moving to s3. Once all the causing variables have been seen, then one progresses to the impact variables, which will allow us moving the story forward, with the exception of groups of variables, both influencing and influenced, for which the story is clearer if told as a group or system, e.g. the first paragraph. The task of detecting those groups of variables is eased by the use of network visualisation tools as those groups are literally shown by the lay-out (here Force Atlas).

———–

References

Munich Re, “Extreme Weather Events – Signs of climate change?” 5 August 2010:

“These facts show that global warming is playing a significant role in the rising number of extreme events. Analyses performed by Munich Re’s natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive in the world, substantiate this increase: the number of extreme weather events like windstorm and floods has tripled since 1980, and the trend is expected to persist.” [my emphasis]

Everstate: Setting the stage (2)

Summary of our scenario so far: Everstate is an ideal-type for our very real countries created to foresee the future of the modern nation-state. In the case of this specific scenario-building, we are setting the stage for Everstate, by attributing values to key influencing variable to be able to develop the scenarios.

As previously set, Everstate is thus a middle-range power located on the Eurasian land mass and part of the international liberal order. It is ruled under a democratic parliamentary regime. It obeys an array of norms and their institutional administrative offshoots at international, regional and national level. Its governance is thus complex. Lately, that governance started being less efficient and as a result began to fail to ensure the security of Everstate’s citizens.

An increasingly inefficient economy

Meanwhile, the economy was starting to be less efficient. True enough, Everstate, with its still fair governance, inheriting a past positive economic situation was still receiving its share of foreign direct investments (FDI), while also investing in other countries, thus being fully part of the enmeshed globalised world.

Yet, the growth, upheld by the normative order as main objective, panacea and ideal, tended to increasingly stall and chronic unemployment had slowly started to settle in. Meanwhile, poverty had not been eradicated and was again on the rise, while inequality decupled. However, the normative model still justified the resource repartition and, for example, those who were poor tended to be seen as lazy, worthless and as social misfits, who did not want to enter the system and work.

Most analysts and analyses were focusing on old ways to understand economics, which had been so useful in the past, revisiting debates and quarrels over Keynes, Hayek, Marx, and others for example. Yet, most failed to find explanations and solutions to the current degrading efficiency and slowing growth. Meanwhile, obvious factors were most often overlooked.

The evolution of society towards more complexity affected not only governance but also economy and its efficiency. Its impact on the initial resources available was also playing a part: for example, science, production models, socio-political models, changes in ways of life, and demography had profoundly altered not only agriculture but also available resources such as land, water, seeds, and food resources. Furthermore, the evolution of society coupled with the evolution of resources had strongly impacted the ecological milieu, for example through biodiversity impacts and climate change, which in turn affected directly the efficiency of the economy. New resources could emerge that had been unheard of previously, e.g. biofuels, or massive influx of jellyfish that altered the whole life of Everstate’s seashore. More generally, resources also displayed a trend towards an increasing complexity, with consequences on the economy. Similar dynamics were at work in any sector, including the emergence of the very new (in terms of human history) virtual world.

Changes in the economy’s efficiency had effects on the security provided to citizens, would it be only directly through a more uncertain material security. Indirect effects, in as much as governance seemed unable to favour a return to the security ante, were also to be expected, with time. However, those consequences were still deemed as temporary and relatively minor in terms of scope (the number of people being affected) and intensity. Citizens had started expressing the fact they felt those effects, but only through relatively mild discontent (mostly without any violence).

Another impact, initially mainly unnoticed, was that the demand for liquidity had started to grow. Indeed, the still existing economic growth needed liquidity, as well as the usual functioning of the economy. More importantly, the gap between lowered efficiency and stable or increasing needs had to be bridged by something and it was by liquidity.

The powerful Everstatan elite* under threat?

As for all elite groups, Everstatan elite power stemmed initially from their search to protect and increase their status and privileges, their resources and income. Then, obtaining and maintaining this power promoted the search for even more power, in a relentless dynamic.

Becoming part of elite groups is obtained throughout time and space by holding mastery or power over something that is needed by one’s polity. Three major areas can be identified that generate and then maintain elite power: understanding, knowledge and skills, specific (material) resources (e.g. land for a long period of human history), and, last but not least, liquid assets or liquidity.

The dynamics, in essence, run as follows: a polity needs specific resources (e.g. energy), understanding and skills (e.g. how best to see the economy function, or how best to manage the state apparatus according to the ongoing socio-political model), and liquid assets, with variation in terms of content, quantity and timing. When the need appears or increases, then those who possess the corresponding resource find themselves in the position to become crucial to their polity. The less numerous those who master this resource, the higher the power and related status they will get in return.

Status itself can also be considered as a symbolic resource of a specific kind that is hard to obtain but, once reached, favours mastery over the rest. Similarly, elite groups derive income from their various masteries that help them, if wisely used, to maintain their mastery then power. Finally, elite groups also develop coercive powers – when coercion is not the primary resource over which they have mastery – that help them achieving and maintaining their power.

The stronger the elite power, the stronger the elite bargaining position when negotiating with the ruler of the polity for those resources they master, which, in turn, leads to a rampant and hidden appropriation of the public domain, as is the case for Everstate. Furthermore, Everstate being a modern nation-state, organised according to a democratic regime, the tension occurs directly between elite groups and the nation, the real ruler of Everstate.

In Everstate, the rising demand for liquidity, notably, had enhanced the elite power of lenders and of the various financial actors, while the rising economic inefficiency had similar effects on economic actors including pundits.

Most notably, in Everstate as in most other countries, new elite groups had started rising, for example those linked to the virtual world.

Any new demand that would emerge would lead to the rise of a new elite group.

However strong the position obtained by entrenched elite groups, they may also disappear. Indeed, what creates them may lead to their demise, as resources become plentiful or disused, as skills and knowledge once scarce become widespread or as understanding suddenly fails.

Yet, elite group will not willingly accept their own disappearance, and will use any means to keep their power and status. At best they will promote changes in a bid to uphold their mastery over crucial resources. At worst they will block changes and fully involve their remaining means of power (income, coercion, status) in contests spurred by the discontent of the nation, playing an active role in polarisation and radicalization of society, favouring escalation towards conflict and finally most often ready to engage in wars.

The situation had definitely not reached this level of tension in Everstate as our story begins. Yet, the changes at work could let expect that some elite groups’ power was challenged, and could eventually lead to their demise, but no full awareness of this phenomenon had yet taken place. Notably, pro-active elite involved in economic efficiency, governance-related administrative and political elite, and knowledge and understanding institutions meant to provide explanation and models and related elite groups were most probably at risk.

The various mild degradations and tensions had been felt and registered by the population, sometimes involving protests under various forms, from abstention during elections to strikes and demonstrations, by the various elite groups, the government and the state. However, most Everstatan actors were most often considering them as temporary crises and difficulties that would be shortly solved, while everything would go back to normal. At worst, some envisioned a serious crisis that would last a few years, maybe a decade before everything went back to normal.

Are they right? What does the future hold for Everstate? Whatever happens on the shorter term, will it have impacts on the medium then longer term, and which ones? How will Everstate fare if or when confronted to tragic events, considering decisions taken during the first years?

To be continued

Notes and References

* Along many scholars having worked on this topic, and on sub-issues, and who have informed the building of the overall map, I am more particularly greatly indebted to Thomas Ertman for his enlightening and masterful understanding of state-building. All mistakes and misunderstandings remain my own. Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997). For a review of Ertman’s book, see, for example: Ariel Zellman’s Review: Birth of the Leviathan by Thomas Ertman.

Anderson, Benedict, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, (New York: Verso 1991).

Ertman, Thomas, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Robert Taylor, The State in Burma, (London: Christopher Hurst, 1987) – notably for the separation between public and private domain, see p.66.

Zellman, Ariel, “Birth of the Leviathan by Thomas Ertman” Blog post

Constructing a Foresight Scenario’s Narrative with Ego Networks

In many foresight methods, once you have identified the main factors or variables and reach the moment to develop the narrative for the scenarios, you are left with no guidance regarding the way to accomplish this step, beyond something along the line of “flesh out the scenario and develop the story.”*

Here, we shall do otherwise and provide a straightforward and easy method to write the scenario. We shall use the dynamic network we constructed for Everstate – or for another issue – and the feature called “Ego Network” that is available in social network analysis and visualisation software to guide the development and writing of the narrative.

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

2012 predictions (4)

Jennifer Mc Lean, What Will Happen In 2012? (video) Various authors for beyondbrics: a series – 12 for 2012 – that beyondbrics is running on key emerging markets topics for the coming year, The Financial Times, starting Dec 27, 2011: Ivan Tchakarov of Renaissance Capital, 12 for 2012: Will Putin 2.0 be any different? Dec 27, 2011 Murat Üçer, 12 for 2012: Turkey’s tightrope, Dec 28, 2011 Jonathan Garner, Morgan Stanley, 12 for 2012: expect an EM equities rally, Dec 29, 2011 Dong Tao of Credit Suisse, 12 for 2012: China will go slow for longer, but a hard landing is unlikely, Dec 30, 2011. Louise Arbour, Next Year’s Wars: Ten conflicts to watch in 2012, Foreign Policy, Dec 27, 2011 …

Continue reading “2012 predictions (4)”

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