ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the theoretical perspective of the book. The argument builds on juxtaposing the traditional election- and voter-centric idea of a constant and pervasive ‘political myopia’ against institutional theories of the policy process, which posit that real-life policymaking operates with a far more past-dependent and future-sensitive functional orientation. The chapter begins by discussing some key foundational concepts of long-term governance, including its meaning, e.g., the length of the ‘long term’, and normative features, which have been prominent in the literature of political myopia. After revealing the rather unambiguous nature of the foundational concepts, the chapter proceeds to a more focused analysis of the temporalities of policymaking. Challenging the tendency of traditional political science to focus excessively on institutional and political power distributions at some distinct decision-making moments, the chapter introduces a temporally extended perspective on policymaking. Underplaying the overemphasis on present conditions, it first highlights the constraining effect of the past on current policymakers, and then acknowledges the generalized, and increasing, expectation of contemporary policymakers to explicitly consider the future when they govern the society. The chapter concludes with a sketch of an ideal policy network for future-regarding governance, which highlights the role of non-elected policy experts.
