Futuring World Politics: The politics of foresight in International Organizations

In a time of resurging military conflict, looming climate disaster, technological disruption and global pandemics, the future of international politics seems radically uncertain.

Amidst this upheaval, political organizations on the world stage are adopting new techniques for thinking and acting in relation to the future.

At the place of linear forecasting, modelling, and risk assessment that seek to render the future knowable through prediction, speculative ´foresight´ and ‘futures thinking’ that posit the future as multiple, contingent, and undetermined are gaining increasing popularity.

This research project aims to investigate how foresight methodologies are enacted by contemporary International Organizations (IOs) and to problematize the politics of foresight.

In doing so, it addresses an empirical research gap across Political Science, International Relations (IR) and neighboring disciplines.

It also contributes to theoretical innovation in these fields by drawing on performative theorizing on futures in social theory, historical future studies and critical historiography.

Empirically, the project explores the use of foresight in three IOs, each of which represent a different global policy domain: NATO (security), WHO (global health) and UNDP (development).

It adopts an interpretative retroductive research design that combines a variety of in-depth qualitative methods (interviews, policy document analysis and participant observation) with empirically grounded theorizing.