Broader participatory and reflexive deliberation is an increasingly popular method for collective problem solving; this is one way of challenging top-down decision-making, and there are a range of practical methods for undertaking this work, from formal inquiries through to citizen juries that convene “mini-publics” to consider important issues. This is relevant to our framing of the Civil Society Foresight Observatory because it is one of the most tangible current challenges to "official" information gathering, and is a shift towards “bottom up” – the first, and most obvious, step in challenging the established flow of power.

Participatory, "bottom-up" foresight practices tend to aim towards consensus rather than toward a plurality of possibility. This is in part because scenarios need to be imagined and imaginable and emit relatively strong signals to be interrogated in this way. Questions need to be posed in relatable and understandable contexts, and a shared language can be desirable to enable effective communication across different areas of lived, learnt and practice expertise. 

Often these processes also attempt to offer a microcosm of public opinion because their aim is to create a new norm for a significant new paradigm, such as devolution, a new use of technology[34] or a new public behaviour.[35] Citizen juries are an act of balancing the requirements of individuals with society as a whole, rather than a reflection of different publics’ experience, expectations or sentiment. Accommodation of broad public sentiment in this way can, however, mean that giving ease at majority scale is prioritised over harm mitigation for any one minority or collection of minority interests.

“Democratising Decisions about Technology: A Toolkit,” The RSA, accessed August 12, 2021, https://www.thersa.org/reports/democratising-decisions-technology-toolkit.

Jason Chilvers, Helen Pallett, and Tom Hargreaves, “Public Engagement with Energy: Broadening Evidence, Policy and Practice” (3S Research Group, University of East Anglia, n.d.), 3; Andrew Stirling, “Precaution, Foresight and Sustainability,” in Sustainability and Reflexive Governance, n.d.

As Arnstein says, “participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless”, and the ladder shows the extent to which anything short of citizen control, delegated power and partnership are tokenistic and fundamentally non-participative.[36] Consultation sits in the middle of the ladder, and Arnstein says, 

Inviting citizens’ opinions, like informing them, can be a legitimate step toward their full participation. But if consulting them is not combined with other modes of participation, this rung is still a sham… People are perceived primarily as statistical abstractions… What citizens achieve in all this activity is that they have “participated in participation”.

When members of communities are given collaborative decision-making power, alongside traditional experts and officials, Arnstein goes on to state that “rights and responsibilities” need to be clear to ensure that participation is effective and effectual, rather than tokenistic. 

Arnstein’s framing shows that, even at the top of the ladder, citizen control is still limited by who sets the terms of engagement, and that participative process must be accompanied by a meaningful redistribution of power. 

Even the terms “bottom-up” and “top-down” suppose both a hierarchy and a linear progression of knowledge; instead we want to situate the Foresight Commons in the expansive and relational space that sits between the two, subverting traditional notions of power through collapsing them and according equal respect to lived, learnt and practice experience. 

In “Rethinking the Public Sphere”, Nancy Fraser puts forward the concept that society has always been a set of competing publics, rather than a single coherent whole. For Fraser, a universal public sphere in which there is “a deliberative area … where extant status are bracketed and neutralised” is simply an illusion created by the already powerful, and she advocates instead for “contestation among a plurality of competing publics”.[37]

This kind of contestation may seem uncomfortable in the context of contemporary narratives of social division, but making the edges and concerns of different publics and counter-publics more visible will show emerging areas of concern, points of leverage, and highlight things in common. In fact, our hypothesis is that highlighting differences is a useful and necessary part of setting out a plurality of preferable futures.

Sherry R. Arnstein, “A Ladder Of Citizen Participation,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35, no. 4 (July 1, 1969): 216–24, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225

Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” Social Text, no. 25/26 (1990): 56–80.

The Civil Society Foresight Observatory is entering a larger ecosystem of innovative foresight projects that prioritise collaboration and do not un/consciously replicate existing power hierarchies and injustices. 

We have begun to map the projects that currently exist to see where exactly the Foresight Observatory fits in. Keeping in line with the idea of relationality that is central to the Foresight Observatory, we believe it is important for us to acknowledge this necessary work already underway and the lessons we can learn from them. We also want to specify how the Foresight Observatory differentiates from existing projects and the opportunities such gaps present for our work.

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