Exploration of future governance based on technology and foresight

Abstract

By defining governance as a decision-making process in achieving organizational objective and a capacity (or power) of individual, organization, society, and government to achieve them, this study explores future governance based on technology and foresight. For this one integrated theme, this study follows the logical sequence of research and analysis - delving into ‘what governance is’, ‘roles of science and technology in governance’, ‘what type of governance is applied in a human affairs including organizations and how’, ‘what types of instrument can help this new governance along with fundamental conditions’, and ‘what will be the future of governance’. It first studies governance ‘by’ technology and ‘of’ new technology-based organized system, namely the degree of centralization (or decentralization) of major blockchain systems through the lens of governance. Subsequently, governance of disaster management ‘with’ technology is explained by exploring roles and benefits of digital technologies in governance of 2019 coronavirus disease disaster management, healthcare containment and mitigation strategies. This study then shifts its focus to foresight in the domain futures by understanding governance and its capacity-building aspects. Specifically, it analyzes governance ‘in’ national foresight, a framework-based comparative country analysis (e.g. the U.K., South Korea, Finland, the Netherlands) to provide lessons learned for newcomers in the arena of a foresight-linked anticipatory governance. Lastly, this study concludes with governance ‘for’ foresight-based policymaking, how foresight integrates to policy agenda setting based on a single case study of the future conflict foresight project in South Korea. This study concludes with a certain deduction that technology should be incorporated into futures of governance

while new governance of the organized systems should center ‘human or people’ and their governing knowledge and capacity in the heart of its philosophy.