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147
9
Exploring Possible, Likely and
Desirable Global Futures: Beyond the
Closed vs Open Systems Dichotomy
Heikki Patomäki
9.1 Introduction
The current era of neo-liberal globalisation is in some important ways
similar to the era of new imperialism from the early 1870s to 1914. In
The Political Economy of Global Security (Patomäki, 2008), I suggest that we
can learn from the study of the causes of the late nineteenth-century neo-
imperial competition that led to the Great War – an outcome that was not
necessary but possible and likely. However, as history does not repeat itself,
only limited aspects of historical processes may prove sufficiently similar to
provide insights into future possibilities. The point is not to look for exactly
similar episodes or sequences, but for comparable structural liabilities and
tendencies that may yield in some ways analogical outcomes, albeit in a
non-deterministic way. Moreover, what is needed is a causal analysis of the
existing structures and ongoing processes, on which scenarios of possible
futures can be built.
The key point of The Political Economy of Global Security is to analyse the
dialectics between limited-scale future wars and economic crises, and the pos-
sible rise of a transformative movement that could respond to the problems
and contradictions of the global political economy in terms of collective
learning, and by building new global institutions. Because I do not exclude
the possibility of catastrophic outcomes such as an all-out nuclear war or a
runaway process of global warming, my analysis – although the argument
is about institutional transformations – has been characterised as ‘sceptical,
realistic and dismal’ (Rivas, 2009: 93).
The three scenarios I propose are not mutually exclusive, but they do
differ in the ways they envisage the main dynamics of twenty-first-century
history. Scenarios A are concerned with a politico-economic competition
among great powers that is partly analogical to the developments that led to
the Great War. Scenarios A are also based on an analysis of the consequences
of neo-liberalisation as a self-reinforcing process involving securitisation and
enemy constructions. Scenarios B focus on the possibilities for emancipatory
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148 Scientific Realism and International Relations
transformations towards something that may be called green-democratic
global Keynesianism (seen as a transient state of world history and global
governance). And scenarios C spell out the implications of possible nuclear
and climate catastrophes.
In this chapter, I respond to the criticism that has been raised against the
methodological and ethico-political underpinnings of my scenarios and,
then, use the opportunity to update the scenarios of The Political Economy
of Global Security and develop the overall argument a step further. In his
review entitled ‘Sawing Off the Branch on Which We Sit? Critical Realism,
Open Systems, and Possible Futures’, Lars S. Skålnes (2009) complains that
I while I stress – in line with critical realism (CR) – that prediction is proble-
matic, I also claim that the key goal of social sciences is to identify possible
global futures. ‘If the scenarios of possible global futures are not predictions,
then what are they?’ (ibid., 195; the same point has been made, in relation
to my earlier theoretical writings, also by Fred Chernoff, 2005: e.g. 129)
Following a sympatethic summary of the substantial scenarios, Skålnes
concludes his review by raising again his main point against critical realist
ontology and methodology:
Apart from peace researchers and scholars in future studies, The Political
Economy of Global Security will have particular appeal to students inter-
ested in the nature of the relationship between empirical research and
meta-theoretical positions such as that of critical realism. Particularly
interesting in this regard is the book’s emphasis on treating social systems
as open systems. It seems paradoxical, however, that to gain the analytical
tractability necessary to develop its scenarios, the book relies heavily on
theories or models that at least implicitly treat social systems as closed. The
problem, I suspect, is that the future is just too open if we take the notion
of open systems seriously. To act in the world, we seem forced to pretend
(most likely wrongly) that social systems are closed. Put differently, the
insistence on treating social systems as open risks sawing off the closed
system branch on which we all sit. (Ibid., 197)
From a different perspective, Anna Leander (2008) has raised concerns about
the ethico-political implications of building scientific scenarios of world
history as a whole. Leander agrees with me that it is critically important to
study possible futures. So far ‘thinking about the future, let alone model-
ling it, is a marginal activity in IR/IPE’ (ibid., 447). But from her point of
view, the attempt to ground scenarios on real tendencies and real working
of spatio-temporal causal complexes is bound to be too abstract, selective
and in some ways also too close to positivist prediction ‘to be useful in
thinking about where to direct action, what kind of emancipatory struggles
are possible, why, where and how’ (ibid., 449). She evokes suspicion that
scientific realist scenario building may become a practice of symbolic power
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Heikki Patomäki 149
in its own right, narrowing in an authoritarian manner imagination about
possible futures:
There is no easy way out of this competition over the legitimate authority
to scientifically depict the world, by no means unique to scenario-building.
But precisely because that is so, making symbolic power visible rather
than producing scientific scenarios might be the more fruitful approach if
the aim is to equip us with images of possible futures. Patomäki has spent
quite some time making symbolic power visible and does it also in this
book. However, the scientific scenario production works in the opposite
direction. It may therefore end up sidelining rather than fostering political
imaginations. (Ibid., 449)
Skålnes and Leander have raised important points, worth tackling in some
depth and detail. In response to Skålnes, I stress that systems are always
open and closed only to a degree. The allegedly radical asymmetry between
explanation and prediction does not hold (unlike what some critical realists
claim). The future can be analysed in terms of conditional and more or less
likely possibilities of becoming. The closer we get to a given point in the
future, the more shaped and structured it is. Moreover, it is possible to apply
the Bayesian theorem in assessing the intersubjective–qualitative probability
of different scenarios. I do this with my scenarios A–C, in light of (i) the
election of Barack Obama as the President of the US and (ii) the outbreak of
the global financial crisis of 2008–9.
In response to Leander, I discuss briefly the humanistic moment of futures
studies. While scenarios are scientific and based on explanatory models,
they are also self-critically reflexive exercises in cultural studies, moral philoso-
phy and creative ability. Thus I conclude this chapter by summarising the
key normative arguments, concrete utopias1 and dramatic stories embedded
in The Political Economy of Global Security.
9.2 Closed vs open systems
Skålnes’ criticism that the concept of open systems means ‘sawing off the
branch on we sit’ is valid only if the distinction between closed and open
systems is taken as categorical. Many critical realists have been verging on
committing this mistake, which originates in the formulations of Bhaskar’s
early texts (e.g. Bhaskar, 1997/1975: 19). While I have always talked about
systems being ‘more or less open’ (Patomäki, 1996: 112), I did not thematise
the relativity of openness and its implications before ‘Realist Ontology for
Futures Studies’ (Patomäki, 2006). I am of course not the first to make this
essential qualification to CR. In Dialectic. The Pulse of Freedom, Bhaskar
(1993: 235) himself makes an important distinction between epistemo-
logical predeterminism and ontological determination, and then goes on to
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150 Scientific Realism and International Relations
theorise time and the ontological determination of the future (ibid., 140–4,
250–8). Similarly, but from a specific angle, Petter Næss (2004) maintains
that qualitative and rudimentary predictions concerning the aggregate-level
effects of particular policies and measures are, and for pragmatic reasons
must be, possible. Pertti Töttö (2004: 269–84) criticises the dichotomy
between open and closed systems and makes the point that almost all
systems – including our solar system, the object of Newton’s mechanical
theories – are in fact situated somewhere between absolutely open and abso-
lutely closed systems, i.e. they are in fact closed to a varying degree.
One of the key arguments of CR is that scientists are actively involved in
creating artificial closures in laboratories – they must work hard to reveal
the secrets of nature. Scientists isolate a particular mechanism of nature
and thereby study its law-like effects. In A Realist Theory of Science, Bhaskar
(1997/1975: 14) starts by first defining a closed system circularly as one
in which a constant conjunction of events obtains. Then he proceeds by
examining what this might entail. Bhaskar explains that cutting off a space-
time region from non-constant external influences is not enough. It must
also be ensured that no qualitative changes will occur within the system.
Thus its individual parts must be atomistic or remain constant and the
whole of the system can be described exhaustively by the behaviour of its
parts (ibid., 69–77).
While helpful in trying to understand and overcome the empiricist
position in the philosophy of science, Bhaskar’s concept of closure (ibid., 76)
does not fully accord with the use of the concept of a closed system in
science. The concept of a closed system is often used to refer to a theoretical
scenario where perfect closure in a sense of isolation from the surroundings is
an assumption. However in practice no system can be completely closed in
this sense; there are only varying degrees of closure. Except at the quantum
level, real world systems are thermodynamic systems, i.e. various quantities
are flowing through it, such as matter, energy, work, heat and entropy. In
thermodynamic systems, the boundary does not isolate the system in any
absolute sense.
In physics, a closed system can thus exchange heat and work, but not
matter, with its surroundings. However, for systems which are undergoing
a chemical reaction, all sorts of molecules may be generated and destroyed
by the reaction process. In this case, the fact that the system is closed is
expressed by saying that the total number of each elemental atom is conserved,
no matter what kind of molecule it may be a part of. In life sciences, living
systems appear to defy the second law of thermodynamics by constantly
creating order from disorder.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy within closed
systems should gradually become maximal and disorder should eventually
reign (entropy is a measure specifying the amount of disorder or randomness
in a system that contains energy or information). In other words, closed
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Heikki Patomäki 151
systems are not stable but experience a tendency of increasing disorder
called entropy (Kauffman, 1995: 9). Yet living beings are structures and systems
exhibiting high levels of order. An organism stays alive in its highly organized
state by taking energy and information from outside itself and processing
these to produce, within itself, a lower entropy, more organized state (see
Mingers, 1994; Schneider and Kay, 1994). Humans are complex living beings
and self-organized systems. The point about living systems is therefore
applicable to embodied human beings and indirectly to social structures as
well (see Figure 9.1).
All levels of reality seem to allow only for what Bhaskar calls the epis-
temically recessive case, namely, for the constancy of extrinsic and intrinsic
conditions and the non-additive principle. All systems – including those
artificially created in laboratories – can only be closed to a degree, whether
naturally or artificially. This applies also to Bhaskar’s key example of the
only apparent closure that has occurred naturally, the solar system (Bhaskar,
1997/1975: 61, 68, 198). Despite being stable and regular in many ways, our
solar system is not really a closed system.
Firstly, it is part of the Milky Way galaxy and its huge gravitational
field, orbiting around its massive centre once in about 200 million years.
Secondly, the short-term comets originate in the outer solar system; they
are thrown inwards towards the Sun by gravitational perturbations not only
from planets but also from nearby stars. In the scale of 100,000 astronomical
units, we can also see the entirety of the Oort Cloud of long-term comets that
surround the Sun and extend to the boundaries of interstellar space (Sagan,
2006: 8–11). This part of the solar system is recurrently being shaped by the
fields of gravitation of nearby stars (also depending on how close the Sun is
to the plane of the galaxy at any given time, as our solar system is oscillating
vertically across the plane of the galaxy), which also explains why the orbits of
the comets are not in the same plane as planets’ orbits. Multiple gravitational
SYSTEM
SURROUNDINGS
Boundary
Figure 9.1 A system and its environment
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152 Scientific Realism and International Relations
fields within the solar system also cause small perturbations to the orbits
of planets, which change over time and which cannot be calculated with
perfect accuracy. Similarly, the behaviour of asteroids exhibits disorganised
complexity, being partly chaotic and irregular, although the system as a
whole possesses many orderly and analysable average properties (for a classic
text in complexity theory, see Weaver, 1947).
Hence, as the example of the solar system demonstrates, practically all
systems are closed only to a degree. Although thought or laboratory experi-
ments and artificially created or natural approximations of closures have
played a very important role in modern science, and should continue to
do so, we should not exaggerate their role. The closure/predictive approach
does not work at all if (Jakosky, 2006: 71):
the system is too complex;
it is too large;
it operates over too long a timescale;
or if random events can have a large effect on the outcome.
Partly for this reason, and partly because it has now been realised that the
cosmos as a whole is a historically evolving entity, many sciences have
become increasingly historical. Often their object of study consists of a
particular historical episode or process such as the development of our
solar system and planet Earth, the latter involving plate tectonics, climate
changes, etc. For instance, the ways in which the planets in our solar system
came together involved random collisions that cannot be predicted solely
from an initial set of conditions. Yet given the narrowness of the habitable
zone in a solar system and the specificity of many other celestial conditions
of life, these chaotic outcomes have been decisive for the possibility of life.
Explanations consist of an inferred sequence of events to construct a histori-
cal narrative of what must have taken place in order to leave the evidence
that we see today (see ibid., 71–84).
On the other hand, no system can be categorically open without losing
its order, structures and identity. If ‘no constant conjunction or regular
sequence of events is forthcoming’ (Bhaskar, 1997/1975: 33), we can have
no knowledge of what will happen next. In principle, anything can happen.
Yet, fields of science such as meteorology, ecology or medicine, while studying
open and chaotic systems, which exhibit markedly multiple and complex
causation, can also predict many practically important things within the
confines of particular categories of significance to us and limited space-
time areas. Their predictions can usually be expressed probabilistic terms.
The specified outcome is within a given range of variation with certain
probability. The required accuracy depends on the exact purpose. The pos-
sibility of some useful predictions indicates that for many practical purposes
sufficiently regular events do obtain also in comparatively open and in some
•
•
•
•
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Heikki Patomäki 153
ways chaotic systems. Hence, if the closed/open systems distinction is taken as
categorical, it is a misleading guide to science, including human sciences.
As virtually all systems are in fact situated somewhere between absolutely
open and absolutely closed systems, i.e. they are closed to a varying degree,
we should expect to find not only tendencies but also some regularities.
This is acknowledged by Tony Lawson, who has introduced the concept of
contrastive demi-regularity, indicating the existence of partial closures also
in society. Contrastive demi-regularities concern contrasts between catego-
ries or space-time areas and are expressed in terms of regularities within a
given range of variation with certain probability. They are not strict regu-
larities but probabilistic, limited to a particular space-time area, and liable
to change (Lawson, 1997: 204–13). Critical realists are of course right that
it is not sufficient to find contrastive demi-regularities and, then, specify
the conditions of their continuation. Rather, there should be a movement
towards analysing the deeper social structures and causal complexes gene-
rating these manifest phenomena. Also the degree of closure of social
systems can vary and become the explanandum of critical social sciences
(this is a key theme of many critical theories from the Frankfurt School to
CR, concerned with freedom, but it has been perhaps most clearly articulated
by Unger, 2004).
Moreover, what is the use of social sciences if they can say nothing at
all about the future, conditionally, possibilistically or otherwise? From the
pivotally important point of view of futures studies, it is legitimate to search
for contrastive demi-regularities also as partial guidance to and illumina-
tion about possible and likely short- to mid-term futures. Contrastive
demi-regularities are pervasive also in relatively open systems, and many
aspects of world futures are very difficult to study systematically without
resorting to empirico-analytical models. Although not the only task of
futures studies, the anticipation of possible and likely outcomes of existing
processes, tendencies, mechanisms and fields is an important part of what
relevant human and social sciences should do. In future scenarios the focus
is on ongoing and future choices and actions rather than on something that
has already happened. A futurologist:
explains the development of various conjunctures and compounds;
specifies boundary conditions for the existence and continuation of
trends and demi-regularities and for the endurance and transfactual
efficacy of the related historical structures and fields;
develops plausible scenarios and narratives of world history up to a
particular, relevant future point.
Sciences, including human and social sciences, study everything from
the beginning of the cosmic evolution to the long-term future of life and
humanity. Most social sciences are concerned with short- and mid-term
•
•
•
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154 Scientific Realism and International Relations
futures, but as I will make clear in the conclusion, our scenarios can be and
often are enmeshed with much longer-term considerations as well.
9.2.1 Global future as an increasingly shaped possibility
Also in nature, structures, fields and mechanisms operate transfactually and
generate effects in open systems. The interplay of many conditions, fields
and mechanisms results in a diversity of outcomes. However, human and
social sciences are different from the areas of science such as meteorology,
ecology or medicine in that human agency involves the reflective capacity
to act otherwise – the possibility of deviating in principle from any given
and known expectation or anticipation.
As social beings are historical and actions temporal, time is involved in
social phenomena in a complicated and reflexive fashion. Expectations
and anticipations of the future are a necessary part of social action, and parti-
cularly so in the world of modern organisations. Structured and reflexive
anticipations may also constitute a part of the organising rules and principles
in a social system. A case in point is an organisation that plans its future
actions on the basis of various anticipations and forecasts. Actors may try
to shape others’ anticipations in a variety of ways. Prophecies can thus
be self-fulfilling or self-denying – also on purpose (for an interesting discus-
sion, see Houghton, 2009).
Nevertheless, it is not true that anything can happen, or that all real
possibilities are equally likely. Our reflective agency is built upon layers
of biological evolution, human prehistory, and history; and geo-historical
structures, mechanisms and fields constitute and shape action possibilities.
Many social structures and fields endure for long times. Social systems are
closed to a varying but significant degree, and while also changing, they
exhibit multi-layered continuities.
There are poorly known and not very reader-friendly passages in Bhaskar’s
Dialectic (1993, especially 142–4) providing useful concepts and ontological
ideas for futures studies. Bhaskar explains that tense is irreducible and the
future is real. He argues that the future is an increasingly shaped and
structured possibility of becoming, mediated by the presence of the past.
‘The future is paradigmatically shaped possibility of becoming’ that, as a
possibility, ‘may be closer or more distant from us, more or less about, and
more or less likely to be actualized’. People and institutions are structured
entities that contain various possibilities as powers, liabilities and tendencies.
The future is thus an increasingly shaped possibility, existentially constituted
by layers of geo-histories embedded in the relevant actors and institutions
and interacting in complicated ways.
In The Political Economy of Global Security, I assessed the relative probability
of the actualisation of four possible global futures. The first is the contrastive
case of smooth neo-liberal and neo-imperial developments without changes
in the current principles and institutions of global governance. This is
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Heikki Patomäki 155
rather unlikely, albeit not impossible (this possibility cannot be excluded
also because of the limits of our knowledge and epistemological relativism).
Probability assessments of more or less unique historical processes can at
best be well-informed but readily revisable qualitative judgements based
on knowledge of (i) similar and contrastive historical cases and (ii) existing
structures and processes that are, however, liable to change sooner or later.
My probability estimate for the ‘40 years of neoliberal business-as-usual
scenario’ is less than 10 per cent.
The US turn to new imperialism in the early twenty-first century was a
jump-off point in the sense of creating a new imperialist horizon of pos-
sibility, not only for the US but for others as well; and a branching point,
gradually foreclosing possible lines of development towards a pluralist security
community in the world as a whole. This nodal point involved the presence
of layers of the past, especially the legacy of the Cold War, itself in part a
result of the First World War (the Russian Revolution would probably not
have happened without the Great War). But most importantly, this nodal
point has resulted from the self-reinforcing process of neo-liberalisation.
The main mechanisms, reinforcing the turn to new imperialism, include
(i) uneven growth, economic imbalances and contradictory responses to
them; (ii) neo-imperial competition over increasingly scarce resources;
(iii) crisis-prone global finance and the precarious role of the US dollar in
the global monetary system; (iv) de-democratisation and the increasing
role of vested interests, and (v) securitisation, enemy construction and an
armaments race.
On this basis, I developed three versions of scenarios A about possible
paths involving escalation of the emergent conflicts that will gradually assem-
ble the conditions for a global military catastrophe. In scenario A1, the
long downturn and uneven growth will persist in the world economy.
Neo-imperial competition between superstates and blocs will lead to
securitisation, enemy construction, new alliances and an armaments race.
In scenario A2, the US will crumble economically and react aggressively,
causing a rapid process of securitisation and antagonisation. In my assess-
ment, the third scenario A3 appeared as the most unlikely one, as it is
built on the assumption of a new surge in the global economy as a whole.
However, in A3, following the jump-off point of the early 2000s, rapid new
growth will co-generate conflicts and an arms race and thus will prove lethal
in the sense of lateral pressure theory, as the world remains on the geo-
historical path opened up by the nodal point of the rise of new imperialism
in the early twenty-first century.
Scenarios B are based on the alternative idea that peaceful and democratic
reform of global governance is possible without any major global catastrophe.
In scenario B1, the long-term learning processes, combined with some sort
of generic understanding of global threats, will suffice to generate a
movement to transform and rebuild the systems of global governance.
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156 Scientific Realism and International Relations
This movement will eventually also convince a number of governments to
change and create new international and global law. In scenario B2, the same
thing will happen only after a series of relatively limited economic crises and
wars. Crises and wars are likely to generate resistance to the neo-liberal
and neo-imperial framings of the problems of the global economy and
security. They can also create momentum for transformative movements to
organise collective action.
There are three scenarios C. The first two, scenarios C1 and C2, anticipate a
major catastrophe, but as a result of global warming, or as a consequence of
a catastrophic strike by weapons of mass destruction by lesser states or other
actors, not as a result of a war between superstates. C1 and C2 may nonethe-
less result indirectly from the competitive and neo-imperial policies essential
to scenarios A. The industrial revolution has increased human capacity to
produce and destroy, particularly as a consequence of the use of fossil fuels,
developments in explosives and metallurgy, and emergence of nuclear
power. However, their increasingly large-scale use has had a major impact on
the climate of the planet. This may set in motion cosmopolitan movements
and lead to far-reaching changes. Finally, scenario C3 spells out the possi-
bility of a major catastrophe as a direct result of competing new imperialisms,
enemy building and an armaments race (or something equivalent); and radical
changes in the decades following the massive catastrophe.
Scenarios are not predictions. They start with an analysis of the exist-
ing structures and processes and their inherent potential, coupled with the
assumption that futures remain open until a particular possibility is actualised.
It is possible to assess the probability of various possibilities in a qualitative
manner on the basis of systematic scenarios by employing contextual human
judgement, open to intersubjective contestation and argumentation. In The
Political Economy of Global Security, I merely proposed an order of likelihood,
amended here to include all the inter- and intradependent possibilities:
p(B2) ⬎ p(C1) ⫽ p(Ai) ⬎ p(C2) ⬎ p(C3) ⬎ p(B1)
Ai : p(A1) ⫽ p(A2) ⬎ p(A3)
On the basis of historical comparisons and analysis of existing structures
and tendencies, the scenario of further economic crises and wars creating
a momentum for reform movements is the most likely one, followed by a
scenario of global warming triggering essential changes in global governance.
Given the existing mechanisms and tendencies, further wars involving the
US, and possibly also other superstates, are very likely, and it will also be very
difficult to avoid financial and other economic crises. These developments
are part of scenarios Ai as well, which may co-generate C2 (a strike by weapons
of mass destruction) and/or ultimately amount to C3 (changes after a mas-
sive global catastrophe). Global warming is already happening; the question
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Heikki Patomäki 157
is only how much, how fast and with what consequences. B2 (changes
following a series of limited wars and crises) and C1 (changes triggered by
global warming) are mutually reinforcing which increases the likelihood of
both of them.
Economic crises, wars and global warming are likely to generate not only
resistance to the prevailing orthodoxy but also democratic cosmopolitical
responses among peoples, movements and parties. However, everything hinges
upon timing. A critical question is whether global warming might become
self-accelerating before sufficient measures have been taken. A runaway
global warming process without legitimate and effective systems of governance
and a widely shared sense of climate justice is likely to contribute to the
materialisation of scenario C2 (a strike by weapons of mass destruction) as
well as perhaps scenario C3 (changes after a massive global catastrophe),
the latter via Ai (superpower conflicts and possible catastrophe). Another
critical question of timing is whether reforms will make a difference before
it is too late to prevent a gradual transformation from world politics to
the logic of security and violence, involving a high risk of a major global
military catastrophe.
Scenario C2 (a limited strike with weapons of mass destruction triggers
global changes) is more likely than scenario C3 of fundamental changes
following a major catastrophe. This assessment is in part based on the
unpredictability of the outcome of such a huge catastrophe as the 2044
nuclear war imagined by W. Warren Wagar (1999). It is overly optimistic to
think that the outcome of such a catastrophe would be a cleaner and safer
world and a global federation run by a world parliament.
However, C2 is also undesirable, risky and dangerous. A strike with weapons
of mass destruction would be a unnecessary and unwanted disaster. There
is also a risk that its effects would not be confined to a particular time and
place but would be uncontrollable. Most importantly perhaps, this kind of
strike could actually lead to hypersecuritisation, spelling an end to formal
democracy in many places, and strengthening tendencies towards scenarios
of a major violent catastrophe. Although this kind of a catastrophe would
probably also strengthen democratic cosmopolitan sentiments, it might
simultaneously weaken people’s and non-state actors’ capacity to organise
collective action. Intensive securitisation and divide-and-rule policies may
make the conditions for emancipatory actions next to impossible.
9.3 How to revise scenarios over time: the role
of the Bayesian theorem
Since writing these scenarios, many relevant things have already happened.
Here I would like to focus on two episodes: (i) the election of Barack Obama
as the President of the US in 2008 and the commencement of his term in
2009; and (ii) the outbreak and development of the 2008–9 global financial
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158 Scientific Realism and International Relations
crisis. The importance of (i) lies in the way President Obama may have
been partly reversing the policies of neo-imperialism that constituted the
jump-off and branching point during the George W. Bush administration in
2000–8. On the other hand, the global financial crisis (ii) was a key ingredient
of my scenarios A1, A2 and B2 and thus seems to have reinforced the original
assessments and their background assumptions.
It is helpful to use the Bayesian theorem as a heuristic device to estimate
roughly the extent to which these new events and turns necessitate
amendments or revisions to the original probability assessments – and
at the same time use it to specify the limits of our precise knowledge about
the future (for basic texts on Bayesian statistics, see Bolstad, 2004; Lynch,
2007). The prior distribution of probabilities of the actualisation of different
possibilities is based on historical and structural analysis, and on inter-
subjective judgements about the likelihood of different possible paths of
history. The plausibility of the assigned probabilities is conditional on meeting
the standards of qualitative historical and futurological research and on the
scrutiny of intersubjective criticism.
Now, the basic idea of the Bayesian theorem is that we revise our beliefs
on the basis of quantitative data acquired from observations:
ppp
p
()()()
()
BA AB B
A
=
where
ppp
ii
i
() ( )( )AABB
BS
B
=∑
∈
The theorem says that a conditional probability for event or development
B given event or development A is equal to the conditional probability of
A given B multiplied by the marginal probability of B and divided by the
marginal probability for A (the sum of the conditional probability of A
under all possible events Bi in the sample space). The intuition behind the
Bayesian theorem is similar to the idea of the hermeneutic circle. We do not
calculate probabilities blindly, on the basis of the data only and then compare
it to the abstract distribution of probabilities across abstract space-time (this
interpretation implies universally regular probabilities).
Rather our prior information of likelihoods and understandings of structure-
and field-specific and changing causal relationships must co-determine the
answer. Nonetheless, our answers must be criticisable and revisable on
the basis of new observations. For example, if an original probability is very
low, a single contrary occurrence does not necessarily increase probability
even to a noticeable chance; but even in the case of a very low original
probability, like occurrences should have a cumulative effect of making a
difference to our estimation of probabilities.
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Heikki Patomäki 159
When assessing the probability of future scenarios, many relevant
observations become available only in the course of history. A key problem
is, however, that we do not have numerical values for the original probabilities.
Furthermore, the new observations tend to be theory-laden descriptions of
geo-historical events and processes rather than systematic quantifiable data.
And yet, somehow the occurrence of these events and turns should slide
the estimated probability in the direction of the occurrence in accordance
with the Bayesian theorem. The theorem helps to analyse the impact of an
occurrence of something by decomposing the problem into smaller parts.
For instance:
ppp
ppp p
i
ii
ii i
() ()()
()()( )(
AObama Obama A A
Obama A A Obama not A
=+−
AAi)
What is the probability that the possible path of world history outlined
in scenarios Ai will be actualised given that Barack Obama became the
President of the US in January 2009? This depends crucially on our estimation
of the likelihood of the occurrence of Obama administration policies, given
(a) that the world history is actually following one of the paths Ai or (b) that
it is not following path Ai. The question is really about how compatible
the Obama administration policies are with each of these possibilities. If
Obama does not make much difference and is fairly compatible with both
possibilities, the chances of Ai are in fact being increased by Obama’s
election (as the relevant processes are anyway moving towards the direction
of Ai). The probability of Ai is decreased only if Obama is (highly) compatible
with not-Ai and simultaneously (highly) incompatible with Ai. Not-Ai can
mean two things:
1. Either the world will muddle through the next 40 years and beyond
without any of the above scenarios being realised. This may be in line
with the expectations of neo-liberalism, but in my estimation an unlikely
possibility (as stated above, likelihood less than 10 per cent).
2. Or adequate changes in global governance will be realised through the
fulfillment of B1 or B2 before any of the scenarios Ai is fulfilled, creating
the conditions for a global security community and constituting a leap
in ‘the long march of mankind toward its unity and better control of its
own fate’ (Triffin, 1968: 179).
Barack Obama’s liberal public rhetoric seems more in line with not-Ai than
with Ai. The key question is: how much difference do the actual policies of
his administration make? In The Political Economy of Global Security, the paths
outlined in scenarios Ai are being produced by the self-reinforcing process of
neo-liberalisation and its intended and unintended consequences, including
the rise of the neo-imperial mode of responsiveness. The actualisation of
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160 Scientific Realism and International Relations
Ai is in line with a slide towards late nineteenth-century style geopolitics,
militarisation and arms race. Especially A1 and A2 are fully compatible with
slackening economic growth and increasing inequalities; and with the
occurrence of economic crises and interventions and wars in the troubled
zones of the planet, especially in the global South. A3 is otherwise similar
but involves more growth, perhaps to a significant degree generated by
military Keynesianism.
Briefly, while the US is pulling out from Iraq and eliminating the long-
standing US arrears to the United Nations, and pushing for disarmament
negotiations, at the same time the Obama administration is increasing
military spending by 4 per cent over the fiscal year 2009 and has not revised
the US security doctrine in any significant way. There are preparations to
improve US capacity to make further military interventions (Los Angeles
Times, 2009). The war in Afghanistan is continuing and may be escalating
into Pakistan. The financial crisis of 2008–9 has prompted some Keynesian
measures, but so far without any significant deviation from the substantive
path of neo-liberalisation in most dimensions of policy (Patomäki, 2009a).
The responses to financial and economic crisis have not involved attempts
to build new global-Keynesian institutions, but have remained national
and contradictory.
Elsewhere, I have argued that it is likely that if (a) the negative real per
capita global growth rate remains, on average, at the annual level of not
much more than 1 or 2 per cent, and (b) if the crisis can be contained and
a recovery starts in 2010 or at the latest in 2011, we will see just another
round of neo-liberal and technical business-as-usual ‘reforms’ (Patomäki,
2010). After a partial economic recovery, governments, central banks, media
corporations and other authorised bodies are likely to return to their official
optimism, grounded in the standard neoclassical theory; and the bulk of reg-
ulators and lawmakers can continue to pursue relative state competitiveness
at the expense of long-term stability and collective development, also because
they do not see any alternative. If the ‘recovery followed by neo-liberal
business-as-usual’ scenario proves right, the underlying superbubble that
has already lasted for three decades will continue to grow, gradually creating
conditions for an even bigger crash in the late 2010s or early 2020s.
So far, the evidence indicates that Barack Obama has not made a significant
difference either way. Unlike Obama’s rhetorics, his policies are compat-
ible with Ai and not-Ai alike. If anything, it appears surprisingly compatible
especially with A1 and may even be working against not-Ai. This seems to
indicate that scenarios Ai are now closer to being fulfilled than at the time of
writing this book. A3 would postpone the possible catastrophe the furthest,
whereas A2 would bring the catastrophe much closer. A1 – which now seems
the most likely of the three scenarios – is somewhere in between.
Moreover, on the basis of a similar analysis (no space for details here),
scenario B2 – involving major changes of global governance through a rise
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Heikki Patomäki 161
of a transformative movement after a series of limited wars and crises – has
not yet become more likely after the 2008–9 crisis. Only if the crisis proves
really deep and long, short-term transformations of global institutions are
likely. In that case, two things will probably happen:
The tendency towards beggar-thy-neighbour policies by states will become
stronger, reinforcing the already ongoing neo-imperial competition over
resources and markets and accelerating the already ongoing armament race.
Demands for global reforms will become stronger and more radical and
are likely to include major regulatory and institutional reforms, paving
the way for the actualisation of B2.
This implies a dialectic between two opposing tendencies: (i) a general
tendency towards a repetition of the mistakes of the eras 1871–1914 and the
1920s; and (ii) a tendency towards a rise of a global ethico-political imagi-
nary and new globalist movements focusing on global sustainability, justice
and democracy. In the two years since completing the book, neither ten-
dency has gained much strength. However, while there are signs of rising
economic nationalism (Economist, 2009) the actualisation of B2 has not come
any closer. No worldwide transformative movement has risen, and global
civil society remains marginal for high politics. A few more occurrences into
this direction will suffice to change the order from [p(B2) ⬎ p(Ai) ⫽ p(C1)]
to [p(Ai) ⫽ p(C1) ⬎ p(B2)].
But, for the sake of argument, assume that Obama’s policies are in fact
making a difference, working dialectically with global movements that
represent the long-term learning of humankind. In the first half of the
2010s, the momentum for major democratic, ecological and Keynesian
changes in global governance is rapidly building up even in the absence
of any further crises or catastrophes. Or alternatively, decades will pass by
smoothly without any major changes or catastrophes; even global warming
turns out much less serious than anticipated. Any clear discrepancy between
probability assignments and the actual course of history should be taken as
a reason to revise also our models of the underlying structures, liabilities
and tendencies. History should be allowed to falsify also our pet theories and
models of the world.
9.4 On the humanistic moment of futures studies
As Leander (2008) points out, the construction of global scenarios is a highly
selective process. It is necessary to decide which actors, structures/mechanisms
and nodal points to use in the construction of scenarios. How do we know
whether I have included the right ones? Perhaps other ones should have
assumed the main role instead? Perhaps. The upshot is that iconic mode-
lling and scenario construction are continuous and dialogical processes.
•
•
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162 Scientific Realism and International Relations
Well-taken substantial criticism and alternative and possibly better scenarios
can and, if there are good reasons, also should lead to revisions and learning.
Ideally the process would constitute a small step in the collective learning of
humankind. Furthermore, it is not only the scenarios themselves that can
and should be improved but also the methodology of revising them.
Scenarios are in some ways similar to claims about past ‘eras’, such as the
Middle Ages, the seventeenth century, the Westphalian era or the Bretton
Woods era (cf. Staley, 2006: 73). Claims about eras or epochs are not in them-
selves causal explanations. Geo-historical events and processes are generated
by complexes of structures, fields, powers and actions. There may be any
number of important processes within a location or period, involving a
variety of possible scales of time and potentially different tenses. Claims
about past eras are abstractions that are relevant only in relation to certain
particular questions. Moreover, within the hermeneutic circle of research,
and also given subsequent geo-historical processes, claims about past eras
may turn out to be inadequate or misleading. Likewise, the global politico-
economic scenarios about the first half of the twenty-first century are
abstractions that are relevant only in relation to particular questions; the point
is not to exclude numerous other possible and legitimate normative and
emancipatory concerns.
But even then, does this kind of scientifically realist methodology of
scenario production impede our capacity to see and size historic opportuni-
ties? Does it not lead to authoritarian objectivism and to the exclusion of
unforeseen possibilities and historical opportunities for change? To para-
phrase the classical point about philosophy, the alternative to futures studies
is not no anticipation of possible futures, but implicit and bad assumptions
about possible futures. In The Political Economy of Global Security, I have
done my best to identify also weak signals of healthy collective learning
and transformative movements and opportunities. Nonetheless, I agree with
Leander and Jorge Rivas (2009) that the overall conclusion is somewhat
pessimistic. The twenty-first century has a lot of potential to turn out even
worse than the twentieth. There is nothing I would welcome more than
plausible scenarios proving me wrong.
A key point of exploring scenarios of major conflicts is early warning.
The focus is on how a major global conflict might be expected to evolve
in the absence of various preventive causal interventions and emancipatory
transformations. While the three variations of scenario A deal with the
gradually accumulating potential for a major military conflict, the two
scenarios B analyse the potential for emancipatory transformations of global
governance in terms of global Keynesianism, justice and democracy, involv-
ing worldwide redistribution and planning of economic growth (the
direction of emancipatory changes is also a matter of normative political
theory to assess). While I estimate the probability of transformations based
merely on long-term learning and related activities of political movements
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to be fairly low, there are still good reasons to expect the dialectics of limited
economic crises/wars and critical movements to yield emancipatory out-
comes in the next 10–30 years (despite B2 becoming less likely and Ai and
Ci more likely.
The first two variations of the C scenario present global warming or a
one-off catastrophe (such as the use of weapons of mass destruction by
a non-state actor) as a trigger for global reform. In both cases, the prospects
are ambivalent and a lot depends on timing. For instance, in the case
of global warming, the future of global security depends on the timing of
learning the lessons from the by-products of industrialisation and growth,
and the resultant remedial actions. The third variation of the C scenario
is the most pessimistic and tragic of them all. In this scenario, humanity
can learn historical lessons in a Kantian manner only by suffering the cata-
strophic consequences of its inaction first – exactly what happened in the
twentieth century, but this time with more devastating consequences.
Apart from being scientific and based on explanatory models, scenario
construction should also be seen as a critically reflexive exercise in cultural
studies, moral philosophy and creative ability (in the same way that both
research and development and the arts are creative). Social scientific models
involve structured stories that may contribute to the resignification and
transformation of practices. Although each possible line of world development
is an alternative story of how the future may unfold, all scenarios thus
involve narratives and, when put together, different stories may also consti-
tute a kind of myth and grand narrative of the possibilities and outlook for
humankind. Temporal myths and stories have a structure which is based on
both the general human condition and cultural variations in storytelling
and world understandings. Every myth and story locates presence as part
of a wider and structured temporal whole. Myths and stories organise the
anticipation of futures.
The overall narrative structure of my scenarios A–C is a storm warning,
which at the same time constitutes a normative argument for global institu-
tional transformations. Storm warnings are typical of a lot of futures studies
and science fiction. In contrast to the mainstream of these genres, however,
I try to be self-critically reflexive about the storylines I adopt. Within the
confines of the scenarios A–C, it is indeed possible to tell many different
stories about the likely world history of 2010–50. But what is the best way
of telling these stories? The key ethical and methodological question was
formulated by Hayward Alker (1996: 269–70): ‘Is there a way of making world
historical accounts empirically revisable while at the same time allowing
them to have the reflective character and dramatic force of a tragic morality
play or the ironic happiness of a Russian fairy tale?’
The point is that accounts of possible futures have to be simultaneously
empirically revisable and reflective about their dramatic force and implications.
Any account of the prevailing mechanisms, fields and processes can be
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164 Scientific Realism and International Relations
challenged on conceptual and empirical grounds. The theoretical framework
on which causal explanations and scenarios are based must be open to
various empirical, conceptual, philosophical and methodological criticisms.
As history unfolds, new events and turns can be taken into account and
scenarios and their likelihood of being actualised must be reassessed accord-
ingly. But it is equally important to be mindful of the dramatic force and
motivating power of scenarios.
Thus, in the last chapter of The Political Economy of Global Security, I
compared the merits of farce, comedy and tragedy (but omitted epic, lyric
and fairy tale, although in particular a modernised version of epic would
have been quite pertinent). Interesting and complex combinations of these
genres are possible and often desirable. I argued that on both ontological
and ethical grounds we should avoid Manichaeism, i.e. the construction of
binary self–other relations in terms of good and evil. Manichaean thinking
and discourses may be part of the world we are studying, but they should
not be a part of the researcher’s own meaningful story of temporal events
in reality. Moreover, I suggested reading the ongoing era not as an inevi-
table tragedy, but rather as a farce that may still turn into either a comedy
or tragedy – as a story with an open end.
9.5 Conclusions
The idea behind the study of possible futures is to shape worlds that are yet
to come rather than merely adjusting to given future realities. The future
is an increasingly shaped possibility but at no point predetermined. This is
the ontological ground for human freedom. However, given the current
institutional context – the lack of adequate planetary institutions – the ability
of humanity to control its own fate and shape the path of world history is
severely limited. Modernity might have revolved around the principles of
autonomy and self-determination, but there are few if any global institutions
that would embody these principles.
This suggests an epic tale, involving a much wider timescale than that
of The Political Economy of Global Security. The tale opens with a prehistoric
humanity spreading from Africa to all corners of the planet and gradually
cultivating separate languages and cultures. Developments started to speed
up about 10,000 years ago, during the agricultural revolution. Some things
may have been invented independently by separate cultures and civilisations,
but in the Afro-Eurasian continent people also learnt religious, social and
technological innovations from each other. Nonetheless – despite occasional
vast empires – communication was relatively slow (at least compared to the
standards of the early twenty-first century) and awareness of the distant others,
of the same human species, was often highly mythological. Some of this
started to change with the expansion of the European states-system and
the capitalist world economy, from the long sixteenth century onwards.
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The consequent ‘waves of globalisation’ (Robertson, 2003) – starting with the
imperial reintegration of the American continent with Europe and thus
the rest of the world – have meant a new coming together of humanity,
even if it is often under violent, oppressive and tragic circumstances.
The global industrial age has generated new modes of existential inter-
connectedness. The fate of humanity is now inseparable, and yet humanity
remains partitioned into separate communities and states. The meaning of
the twenty-first century lies in the way this contradiction will be resolved.
The muses of this epic tale are those who are ready and willing to create
new concepts, myths, models, scenarios, stories and concrete utopias of new
global institutions, i.e. new realities. The main themes are political economy
and security. The muses stress that coordinated actions anticipating possible
futures, whether real and concrete or illusionary, shape the present and
thereby also contribute towards the materialisation of a particular line of
development in world history.
There are long lists of global problems that have to be addressed in the
coming decades to avoid catastrophe. Thousands of formal scholarly articles
and books are being written on these problems; and thousands of speeches
are being given by scholars, politicians, international civil servants and
representatives of civil society organisations. In the absence of divine or
extraterrestrial intervention into human affairs, however, the shocks and
turning points of this epic tale are man-made, even if often unintentionally.
‘Heroes’ – this concept may the most suspicious and ethico-politically
problematic part of the epic tale – emerge that embody the values of a new
planetary civilisation and propose new myths to respond to the ‘quest to
ensure human and intergenerational security on and for the planet, as well
as democratic human development and human rights’ (Gill, 2003: 211).
Like in classical tales, the planetary heroes will face adversaries and serious
difficulties and will be significantly transformed in the course of twenty-
first-century history. But ultimately, they will establish worldwide movements
and new forms of political agency – and turn the planet into a home for all
of humanity and all life on it.
This is an epic tale par excellence. It is exciting and dramatic. Even better,
there is a sense in which it can be said to be thus far true, the future remain-
ing open-ended. This epic tale is certainly compatible with scenarios A–C
(which in turn are compatible with a multitude of developments and
emancipatory concerns not captured by these scenarios). It has motivating
power and may thus play an important role in the emergence of new
movements and forms of political agency.
But we have learnt the value of scepticism, too. While all identities are
constructed and open, it is all too easy to fix one’s identity, in various ways,
with potentially or at least metaphorically violent effects. It is also difficult
to create ethico-political spaces free from asymmetrical or biased relations of
power; and all stories have effects of power. There is thus no substitute for
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166 Scientific Realism and International Relations
self-critical reflexivity and openness about the stories we tell. Democracy is
valuable also because we cannot trust anyone to know a priori better than
others. In democracy, all stories must be open to contestation and revision.
This applies to global democracy too.
Note
1. The term ‘concrete utopia’ emerged in the late 1960s discussions within the
Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. I have used it in my previous writings,
including in passing in The Political Economy of Global Security, but I now realise
that ‘utopia’ is misleading. The term ‘utopia’ comes from Greek, combining ou
and topos, meaning no-where. Even a concrete ‘no-where’ would be nowhere.
The logical counterpart to modern dystopia is actually eutopia, where the Greek
prefix dys means ‘abnormal’ or ‘defective’, and eu means ‘good’. An abstract
eutopia, and similarly an abstract dystopia, may never be any-where except
in human imagination because it is geo-historically impossible, but ‘concrete
eutopia’ and ‘concrete dystopia’ designate real geo-historical possibilities. For
further discussion, see Patomäki (forthcoming), especially Ch. 8, ‘the humanistic
moment of futures studies’.
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