European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 161

European Policy Analysis

occupation of construction sites, mass
demonstrations, and the blocking of
nuclear transports, scenarios emerged as
a part of the contentious repertoire used
by the antinuclear movement to make its
voice heard and influence German energy
policy” (Aykut 2015, 120). Other studies
are more skeptical, arguing that their
findings show that instruments such as
integrated assessment modeling (IAM)
in climate policy are still dominated by
a closed circle of “expert arbiters”. To be
able to politically and ethically explore
scenarios without refraining to some
sort of scientifically proven rationale,
the authors suggest to find ways of
“deliberating beyond evidence”: “The
challenge is to produce ideas on possible
futures without relying on a validating
scientific counterfactual and, instead, to
take up a position of deliberation without
evidence (as opposed to justification
through evidence)” (Vecchione 2012,
18). Indeed, deliberation beyond
evidence might present one of the
greatest challenges for policymaking if
it is to explore the political and ethical
dimensions of different trajectories into
the future without colonizing it.

7. Outlook

T

his article has focused on theories
of time in policy analysis. Existing
concepts were compared in terms
of how they answer Schütz’ questions
on knowing the future. Table 1 gives an
overview of the results.

It could be shown that the various
ways time is conceptualized are closely
related to underlying understandings of
politics and political action. Theories of
time are also always political theories with

practical implications. When they become
chrono-technologies, they may change or
reaffirm existing temporal orders. Today,
one of the most influential theories is that
of rational and evidence-based problem
solving. In their science-based fiction “The
collapse of Western Civilization”, Oreskes
and Conway “imagine a future historian
looking back on the past that is our present
and (possible) future” (Oreskes and
Conway 2014, ix). What their protagonist
describes in his fictitious account of how
things were before the “fall” are the fatal
consequences of a highly rationalized
and “reductionist” epistemic culture that
dominated Western science. This culture
was built on the premise “that it was worse
to fool oneself into believing in something
that did not exist than not to believe in
something that did” (2014, 17). Indeed, it
is a well-known insight that in striving for
rationality and objectivity, political actions
can have highly irrational consequences
(Elster 2015). When listening to the
prophet, it is well advised to keep in mind
that he will always only provide fragments
of the future. In a similar vein, Schütz
reminds us that scientific prediction can
provide not much more than a certainty
taken for granted “until further notice”
(1959, 83). Every action, however, has the
potential to question these certainties “by
way of fantasying. It is, to use Dewey’s
pregnant description of deliberation, a
dramatic rehearsal in imagination” (1959,
84). It seems that both policymakers and
(social) scientists alike need to choose
between two alternative knowledge-ways
by either aiming at foreseeing the future
based on seemingly certain evidence or by
continuously re-imagining it in search for
new options.

161