Wise Before the Event: 20/25 Years

Wise before the event 20/25 YEARS SCIENTIFICCOUNCIL FOR GOVERNMENTPOLICY Wise before the event Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) 2, Plein 1813 P.O. Box 20004 2500 EA The Hague The Netherlands Phone +3170 3564600 Fax +3170 3564685 E-mail [email protected] Internet http://www.wrr.nl The volume 'Wise before the event' was composed by an editorial board, consisting of the following members of the Scientific Council for Government Policy and its scientific staff: prof.dr. H.P.M. Adriaansens, J.C.F. Blea, J.P.H. Donner, dr. P. den Hoed, H. van Kempen, dr. S.J.Langeweg. Ms. Van Kempen also compiled the register of think tanks and the other surveys. Studio Daniels in The Hague took care of the graphic design. The volume was printed by Opmeer Drukkerij bv in The Hague. Technical advice was provided by F.W. van Dijk (RVD). Translated into English by J.W. Arriens and J. Ross. Wise b+re the event A To rule and to foresee Distance and nearness - H.PM. Adnaansens Not by policy alone - G.]. Kronjee and R. Rabbinge Exploring uncharted territory - H.C. van Latesteijn and1.J Schoonenboom Expertise in development - P. den Hoed B Surveys In search of the impossible - Think tanks throughout the world Problem-oriented and contextual - Literature on think tanks 25 years WRR - Publications Functions and composition of the council and bureau Establishment act WRR 066~laUI6z do peeJ ap uee qaOZaqqlJM JEDq llq XlqB.9 U@UIUO~WUIOI(IPMlIA EpYIV 'M'Jp'p~dJaUIUWA-MUM INTRODUCTION Scientific advice and planning for government policy evoke different asso- ciations today than twenty-five years ago. The founding of the Provisional Scientific Council for Government Policy was born of the idea that governments had an insufficient insight into the opportunities and threats posed by the future, and that a scientific approach would improve that insight. Scientifically based information, it was felt, could protect politicians from errors and enable them to make choices between alternative future scenarios. In a time when flexibility, decisiveness and the 'primacy of politics' have acquired a positive note, however, a scientific approach to policy has in many eyes become entangled in the inertia ofwhich much policy is accused. The radical reform of the advisory structure surrounding the government is indubitably also a reflection of this viewpoint. This is only one side of the reality,-however.The other side is the almost insatiable need on the part of modern governments for information, research and advice. No policy is formulated without the help of thick piles of reports, recommendations, studies and impact reports: were this not the case, the courts could conclude that a policy was insufficiently solidly based or well researched. The number of advisory bodies may well have been cut drastically, but the number ofbroad social debates, consultations, enquiry procedures, referenda and other forms of 'interactive administra- tion' is increasing by leaps and bounds. This apparently conflicting development arises from the paradoxes with which modern government is confronted. Initially the need for planning, exploration and analysis of social trends was a reaction to an overly strong 'primacy of politics' within a relatively closed national economy and society. This created the need for research, planning and exploration of relationships in order to enable policy to be oriented and if necessary imbued with discipline. The disappearance of these closed economies, and of the 'primacy of politics' within them, has however not led to a decline in the need for advice, knowledge and insights. The key focus today is less and less on a framework and orientation for policy, and more and more on obtaining a lead in the international policy race and strengthening the supporting base for policy aimed at winning that race. In this sense, a government's need for information is almost inversely proportional to the freedom of that same government to make use of it. This is the paradox within which the Scientific Council for Government Policy operates. The literature pigeonholes the Council in the category of WISE BEFORE THE EVENT 'think tanks' or 'policy research institutes' which have arisen in almost all Western countries since the 1960s. The trend was initiated by calls in 1966 by a committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in which renowned scientists such as Raymond Aron, Briggs, Dahrendorf, Lazersfeld, Oppenheimer, Massart and Hofstee sat. They concluded that there was a gap in the political support system in the area of long-term thinking, and called on governments to do some- thing about this. One way of doing this was to create independent insti- tutions at the interface of politics and the academic world. The formation of the Provisional Scientific Council for Government Policy in 1972 fits into this context and can be seen as a response by the Dutch government to the identified need. Form and function Generally, 'policy research institutes' show correspondences in terms of aims and functions, but they can differ in terms of their form and position in the social system. The Dutch variant, the WRR,has been given the form ofa public-law research, planning and advisory institute within the government apparatus, with the legislator emphasising the independent status of the Council and the interdisciplinary nature of the envisaged activities. Fears of a dependence on both the scientific world and the individual government departments led to a high degree of independence of opera- tion, under the responsibility of the Prime Minister/Minister of General Affairs. The purpose of the Council was to offer a counterweight to both technocracy and the power of the ministries. Fears of a lack of balance in content and discipline led to the stipulation that the reports must come from the Council as a whole. All these factors together resulted in a subtle balance of substantive freedom and organisational discipline. The WRR is part of the government apparatus, but is also bound to keep that same government at a distance; the Council is free and independent, but is publicly accountable for its activities through its reports; the WRR is independent, but the government can change its composition completely once every five years. In terms of function, the WRR clearly meets the wishes of the OECD committee referred to above: it seeks to make a contribution through scientific means to creating an insight into the development of the economic, technological and social conditions under which policy has to operate; to examine the repercussions of those developments on that policy; and to indicate the possible courses of action resulting from that INTRODUCTION interaction. In common with virtually every other country, the practice of policy research and future studies has undergone a shift in the Netherlands. This applies not only to the methods used, but also to the nature and function of such research. Based on the underlying idea of a cogent, scientific reality of facts and correlations, the initial aim was to undertake general explorations which would both encompass and predict all relevant social trends. This approach was quickly replaced by attempts to sketch alternative developmental possibilities, as the Interfutures report from the OECD itself also did. This revised approach also determined the next step, towards explorations of alternatives in a limited policy domain: thematic future surveys. This is no more than a logical development: as soon as the idea of general, compre- hensive and objectively cogent developments is abandoned and replaced by explorations of potential scenarios, the developments in a limited domain can also be studied as possibilities without it being necessary to elaborate a general framework first. Future for the present The shift described above also led to a change in the function of explor- atory surveys. As the future comes to be seen less as an inevitable and scientifically determinable continuation of trends in the past and present, a survey of the future acquires more the function of a deepening of today's insights. It can be compared to a period of residence abroad, which sharpens one's insight into one's own, familiar society. A broadening of the function of think tanks is a corollary of this development. In addition to exploring future trends, that function now also involves unravelling contemporary normative views, prejudices, facts and the cogent nature of paradigms and concepts within which those facts are encapsulated. It is very common to see images, metaphors, concepts or principles (e.g. 'ecoscope', 'supporting base', or the unexpressed choice for the present as a reference point when assessing future developments) forcing themselves into the perception of developments and the ability of policy to respond to those developments. The importance of policy research and future surveys then no longer lies in identifying the boundaries of policy, but in pushing back those boundaries and increasing the number of alternatives by placing question-marks alongside the 'obvious'. And this is often the most fruitful contribution ofresearch to policy, albeit simultaneously the most thank- less. It may be that this function is particularly important in a democracy, in which the need for political support and democratic control also har- WISE BEFORE THE EVENT 20/25 yCLIf3 WRR bours the danger of the formation of political taboos, with no-one wishing to 'bell the cat'. The foregoing does not mean that new 'truths' or methods replace the original ones. The WRR has published both reports such as Groundfor choices, in which model-based extrapolation was used to formulate a framework for land-based agriculture, and Sustainable risk;, which demonstrates that such methods when applied to the environment and nature lead to false certainties, because a fixed content is suggested for what are in reality political concepts, such as 'ecoscope' - i.e.

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