ABSTRACT
Citizens’ movements and people’s associations of all kinds cover the whole range of human concerns-from service clubs, churches, self-help and spiritual groups to chambers of commerce and professional associations of teachers, doctors, farmers, scientists, musicians, and artists. All share some concern for human society that crosses national borders. The rise of such organizations as one of the most striking phenomena of the twentieth century is described by Elise Boulding as ‘a major shift in the nature of the international system.’1 Other futurists who study citizens’ organizations and social movements as precursors of social trends include Magda McHale, Johan Galtung, Eleanora Masini, Ziauddin Sardar, Robert Theobald, Riane Eisler, Anthony Judge, David Loye, the late Barbara Ward and Robert Jungk, as well as this author. Criminal and terrorist groups, urban gangs, mafia-type syndicates, drug cartels, and other violent religious and ethnic extremist groups have also proliferated. Their negative potential in the post-Cold War period is studied more by military, intelligence, and law enforcement strategists than by futurists. A notable exception is the insightful War and Anti-War (1993) by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. My own inquiry examines the more positive potential of groups, movements, and associations for social innovation and their attempts at evolving human ethics and societies.
