The future of government: Trends and emerging conditions

Includes a response by Eileen D. Cooke. What might happen to government in the next ten to twenty-five years? I will review two approaches to the future and the trends they suggest, and three conditions which could affect the direction of those trends and their impact on the government. My approach will be to examine two views of the future, one from the perspective of the federal budget, the other from the images provided by an overview of major futurist works. Both approaches raise questions about how the agenda of the government will be shaped. The following sections review : ( 1 ) activities to place on the institutional agenda the discussion of a shift in our societal paradigm and its implications for policy, (2) the growing interest within government for a more systematic consideration of the future, and (3) trends in citizen participation.published or submitted for publicatio