ABSTRACT

The foresight approach, as used in business planning and technological innovation, can also be applied to the design of policy instruments. This chapter presents conceptual ideas and procedures for the application of foresight to promote reflexivity in the process of policy formulation, and thereby to contribute to sustainable policy implementation. The chapter discusses political aspects and contingent dynamics of policy formulation, using policies on biodiversity offsets and conservation trading schemes as case study examples. It reviews empirical insights from the evolution of policy instruments in these different contexts in interaction with broader political discourses. Instead of developing a purely technological discourse among a closed circle of policy experts, the foresight approach involves a more diverse set of actors affected by policies in different ways. In workshops, the evolution of different policy instruments over past decades is reconstructed as ‘innovation journeys’, highlighting underlying patterns of development and mechanisms of innovation. These experiences provide a template for constructing a range of scenarios for the future of policy instrument development and the application of different approaches to policy instrument design in a variety of domains. We reflect on the challenges involved in developing policy in dialogue with multiple actors with varying orientations, influences and expectations.