International Energy Workshop: A Progress Report

The International Energy Workshop (IEW) is a network of analysts concerned with international energy issues. Its aims are to compare long-term energy projections and to understand the reasons for diverging views. The IEW conducts iterative polling on key energy issues and publishes the results of these polls semi-annually. The poll results are discussed in annual meetings alternating between Europe and North America. Participation in the IEW is informal and is open to anyone supporting the aims of their Workshop. This report by Professor Manne of Stanford University and Dr. Schrattenholzer of IIASA describes the status and progress of the IEW in mid-1985. It served as background for the meeting held at IIASA in June 1985

Writing Russia's future: paradigms, drivers, and scenarios

The development of prediction and forecasting in the social sciences over the past century and more is closely linked with developments in Russia. The Soviet collapse undermined confidence in predictive capabilities, and scenario planning emerged as the dominant future-oriented methodology in area studies, including the study of Russia. Scenarists anticipate multiple futures rather than predicting one. The approach is too rarely critiqued. Building on an account of Russia-related forecasting in the twentieth century, analysis of two decades of scenarios reveals uniform accounts which downplay the insights of experts and of social science theory alike