Public administration tools: Forecasting vs Designing

• Main Authors: Evgeny V. Balatsky, Nataly A. Ekimova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural State University of Economics 2021-03-01
• Series: Управленец
• Subjects: public administration; forecasting; designing the future; foresight; economic growth
• Online Access: http://upravlenets.usue.ru/ru/-2021/745
• ISSN: 2218-5003; 2218-5003

The article discusses the expediency of abandoning the tool of social forecasting in the practice of public administration in favor of planning and design methods. The methodological basis rests on the conceptual imperative of the impossibility to produce adequate forecasts in the modern world, which is supported by such respected researchers as Douglas North, George Soros, Nassim Taleb and Arnold Toynbee. The fairness of this thesis is illustrated using methods of comparison and analysis. The study analyses the main factors that cast doubt on the possibility and expediency of preserving the tool of social prognostics: the failure of the scenario forecast format; the need for foreknowledge of events rather than values of traditional macro-parameters; the extension of Arnold Toynbee’s principle from a historical retrospective to studying the prospects; the economic growth rate indicator (GDP) losing its indicative universality and the emergence of alternative measures of social development (Gross National Happiness, culture and environment preservation); critical attitude of the intellectual elite to the possibility of social forecasting; unreliability of the source statistics; the expectation of the end of economic growth, a change in the development regime and quantitative forecasting devaluation by the leading experts – Douglas North, Robert Lucas, Tom Piketty, Richard Heinberg; the completion of the mission of capitalism in the form of the Neo-Malthusian trap and robotomics (mass introduction of robots to the economy). The authors prove that amid fading interest in traditional forecasting, alternative prognostication methods are emerging, such as planning, designing, futurology, foresight and strategic intelligence. Devaluation of forecast tools leads to the need to change the old doctrine of public administration, based on forecast documents, to a new one implying a transition to active construction of the future through directive designing and planning. The theoretical and practical significance of the study lies in substantiating the principles of a new management system: expanding the planning and design horizon (up to 30 years); introducing a mechanism for implementing plans and projects; introducing mechanisms for pre-project foresight; creating a twolevel economic management system; and moving from the quantity paradigm to the quality one.