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The European Union Study Guides

 

European Coal and Steel Community:

Definition: an economic union created in 1952 and providing for the pooling of coal, iron, and steel production in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany.

Importance: The European Coal and Steel Community regulated steel prices, steel amounts made, and free trade among member states at a supranational level. The ECSC institutions mirrored the institutions of today’s European Union. This hallmark of history is commonly viewed as the birthday of European Union.

 

The High Authority:

Definition: The equivalent of the Commission of the European Union, but named the High Authority during the time of the European Coal and Steel Community.

Importance: The European Coal and Steel Community endured some name changes due to French opposition. The opposition mainly focused on the perception that European Bureaucrats had too much power through the institutional name – The High Authority. This opposition facilitated the name change of The High Authority to The Commission as it is still named today.

Jean Monnet:

Definition: A Frenchmen born to a family of cognac producers. He was a problem solver and a technocrat that was never elected to official office. He was responsible for developing a plan to coordinate war supplies across England and France.

Importance: Jean Monnet is often known as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. He believed that no peace would exist in Europe if states realigned on national sovereignty after World War II. He advocated the idea of forming a single economic entity (European Coal and Steel Community). He would later become the first President of the High Authority (an institution of the European Coal and Steel Community).

Schuman Plan:

Definition: Created the plan for establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, proposed by Robert Schuman, French political leader, in 1950.

Importance: Schuman saw the potential of Monnet’s plan to unify European coal and steel. He thought it was a great idea to use French iron ore and German coal. He particularly believed this would be important in creating a stable Europe. So, Schuman proposed the idea to German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Adenauer agreed which was helped by the two men’s shared political views. This actually brought about the declaration for the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community.

Empty Chair Crisis:

Definition: In July 1965 President Charles de Gaulle ordered a French boycott of the Council of Ministers, withdrew France's permanent representative to the Community and instructed the Gaullists to absent themselves from the European Parliament.

Importance: In 1965, the Commission proposed a new funding method for the Common Agricultural Plan (CAP) in order to create a source of funding for itself. France, led by De Gaulle, vehemently disagreed with this measure claiming that this would give the European Community its own resources. De Gaulle attacked the notion of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV), insisting that France needs veto power over issues of national interest. France proceeded to boycott the council meeting. This resulted in France getting their way and a postponement of Qualified Majority Voting which made it rather difficult to accomplish anything in European Union politics.

Charles De Gaulle:

Definition: French general and statesman who became very popular during World War II as the leader of the Free French forces in exile and played an integral role in EU integration.

Importance: The fourth republic of France was considered a weak government with weak coalitions. After the crisis in Algiers, De Gaulle offered to come back out of self-imposed exile under the condition of rewriting the constitution. This is exactly what happened and De Gaulle’s rewritten constitution created a strong presidential position. He wins the presidency and creates the French fifth republic. During his leadership he created the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which became a major component in European Union politics..

European Monetary System:

Definition: a Common Market program designed to narrow the fluctuation of western European currencies against one another

Importance: Due to the ending of the Bretton Woods System (gold standard), which pegged the value of the U.S. dollar to the value of gold, many problems were created for European currencies. This was because all other currencies were pegged to the value of the dollar which declined due to excessive printing for the Vietnam War. In 1979, headed by Commission President Roy Jenkins, the European Monetary System was launched. This would only allow national currencies to fluctuate within a small band. This also became problematic. All of these efforts led to the goal of creating a common market by 1992 ending Eurosclerosis.

 

Common Agriculture Policy:

Definition: The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a system of European Union agricultural subsidies and programs.

Importance: The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was a very effective way to quickly modernize European agriculture. Europe went from using a horse and plow to modern farming, the CAP created a face for European Union, and this was the first major achievement of Charles De Gaulle.

Intergovernmental Conference:

Definition: An Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) is the formal procedure for negotiating amendments to the founding treaties of the European Union.

Importance: This gives understanding to integration. The integration occurs through rational decision making of member states at intergovernmental conferences (treaty negotiations). Treaty negotiation furthers integration.

 

European Council:

Definition: Forms the second part of the European Unions dual executive (the other part is the Commission).

Importance: Council has executive political power in terms of long term goals (through writing treaties). The Council is responsible for setting medium to long term European Union goals.

 

Council of Ministers:

Definition: the policy-making body of the European Economic Community, representing all the member nations

Importance: Forms the legislative branch of the European Union. Composition is in sync with issue areas. Legislation is formed through this expert knowledge on particular issues.

 

Council’s Culture of Consensus:

Definition: A belief in which once it is clear that a bill has a majority and is certain to pass every member votes for it to avoid confrontation and create an atmosphere of cohesion.

Importance: This creates a harmonious appearance (face) between all European Union member states. Unanimous voting conveys a certain amount of success and confidence within the system and happens rather frequently even though Qualified Majority Voting is an option.

 

Qualified Majority Voting:

Definition: A voting practice in which legislation can pass with less than unanimity in the Council.

Importance: Qualified Majority Voting makes it possible to get things accomplished with the European Union system. This is the solution to an era where unanimity was the rule and it was very difficult if not impossible for all member states to agree in order to get important legislation passed.

COREPER:

Definition: Committee of Permanent Representatives of EU Member States.

Importance: Theses representatives allow the Council to accomplish much more work. With this part of the European Union system much of the work is done by these lower level diplomats rather than directly completed by the Ministers.

Comitology:

Definition: A system of oversight committees set up by the Council for the purpose of transparency.

Importance: This system helps with transparency and insures a certain level of quality in legislation. The Commission is cognizant of Comitology norms and is careful in their actions as a result. The trade-off is that with more oversight comes insurance that the Commission is doing what it is supposed to be doing, but the result is a  slower legislative process.

Principal-Agent relationship:

Definition: The arrangement that exists when one person or entity (called the agent) acts on behalf of another (called the principal).

Importance: This relationship saves money by accomplishing goals through agents when it would have been too costly for the member state government to achieve the goals themselves. This arrangement has its own inherent problems, known as the Principal-Agent problem. The Principal-Agent problem centers around agency loss which is also known as bureaucratic drift.

Police patrol oversight:

Definition: Regulatory agent’s setup by government for the purpose of monitoring everything.

Importance: This attempt to remedy the principal-agent problem through constant monitoring of the agent’s actions to make sure policy is being implemented appropriately. However, this type of monitoring is very costly.

Fire alarm oversight:

Definition: Institutions setup which allow citizens to inform government if policies are not being implemented appropriately.

Importance: This attempt to remedy the principal-agent problem through informing of the agent’s actions to make sure policy is being implemented appropriately. This type of monitoring is less costly than police patrol oversight.

Commission President:

Definition: The top position of the Commission which is chosen by member states.

Importance: The Commission President has the very important role of approving (or not) Commissioners appointed by member states.

Jacques Delors:

Definition: a French economist and politician, the only person to have served two terms as President of the European Commission (between 1985 and 1995) during which he was rather influential.

Importance: Delors helped pull the European Union out of Eurosclerosis by being one of the forces driving for the Single European Act in 1986.

Directorates-General:

Definition: The bureaucratic wing of the Commission which covers a specific part of a policy area.

Importance: The European Unions civil service bureaucracy which allows Commissioners to fulfill more than one role through policy development, drafting legislation, and monitoring implementation.

POSSIBLE ESSAY

Neofunctionalism:

Definition: a theory of regional integration. Jean Monnet's approach to European integration, which aimed at integrating individual sectors in hopes of achieving spill-over effects to further the process of integration, is said to have followed the Neofunctional School’s tack.

Importance: Facilitates integration at a modest, but steady pace. The problem is that the spill over tend to encourage integration in one area at a time which leads to Eurosclerosis.

Multi-level governance:

Definition: Multi-level governance characterizes the changing relationships between actors situated at different territorial levels, both from the public and the private sectors.

The multi-level governance theory crosses the traditionally separate domains of domestic and international politics and highlights the increasingly fading distinction between these domains in the context of European integration.

Importance: The Multi-level Governance theory, which grew out of Neofunctionalism, stresses that supranational actors have power and that they are important actors. This theory helps to remedy the shortcomings of Neofunctionalist theory by the process of delegation to supranational actors.

Liberal Intergovernmentalism: (refutes Neofunctionalism)

Definition: a political theory to explain European integration in which explanation for European integration is to be found in the factors (process of bargaining among member states) that created treaties.

Importance: Facilitates integration under the notion that groups organize when benefits are targeted and costs are diffuse. This theory argues that states are the ultimate power and control (through treaty negotiation) in integration. It is not the result of spill over or supranational actors that Neofunctionalism overemphasizes. The problem is that supranational actors do play a strong role.

 

Institutionalism: (refutes Neofunctionalism and Liberal Intergovernmentalism)

Definition: the system of institutions or organized societies devoted to public, charitable, or similar purposes.

Importance: Examines daily politics with the European Union. It does so by focusing on the relationship between preferences, institutions, and policy and how each component effectively changes the other. The problem with this theory is that it is concerned with mow member states affect policy outcomes, but lacks in examining how the institutions are actually made.

Separation of powers system:

Definition: A political model in which the state is divided into branches and each branch of the state has separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The normal division of estates is into the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial.

Importance: Separation of powers leads to a stronger party discipline and more cohesive parties.

European Parliament committees:

Definition: The Committees of the European Parliament are designed to aid the European Commission in initiating legislation. Standing Committees are made up of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

Importance: Committees do the work as divided in the legislative body.

European Parliament elections:

Definition: A system in which members of European Parliament are elected. These elections are held once every five year period.

Importance: Member states are allowed to choose their own electoral structure. In which, each state gets a fixed number of members of parliament based on size and national parties can choose their own candidates.

European Party Groups:

Definition: The European Parliament organizes itself around ideological groups. These political groups of the European Parliament are groups of MEPs (minimum of 19 from at least 1/5^th of member states). Groups are not parties, but looser coalitions. But each Group is assumed to have a set of core principles. These core principles fall into distinct categories.

Importance: Can wield great power concerning issue politics. This is possible because the coalition structures of these groups are provided with several resources. They are also extremely influential in legislation as they are in charge of committee assignments, allocation of speaking time, and rappoteurs (the person in charge of seeing a bill through the legislative process. Party Groups can really aide in helping someone’s career.

Party of European Socialists:

Definition: The Party of European Socialists (PES) is a European political party comprising of thirty-three socialist, social democratic and labour parties from each European Union member state and Norway.

Importance: PES forms a parliamentary group in the European Parliament, the Socialist Group, which is the second largest grouping with over 200 MEPs. This majority can have a great influence in the outcomes of the European Parliament.

Codecision procedure:

Definition: The codecision procedure was a reform of the cooperation procedure. Codecision was first implemented in 1992 with the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht). The codecision procedure is now the main legislative procedure by which law can be adopted in the European Community.

Importance: The codecision procedure gave the European Parliament more power. The codecision procedure gives the European Parliament the power to adopt legislation jointly with the Council of the European Union. This requires the two bodies to agree on an identical text before any proposal can become law.

Consultation procedure:

Definition: The Consultation procedure is one of the legislative procedures of the European Community. Under this procedure the European Commission sends its proposal to both the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, but it is the Council that officially consults Parliament and other bodies.

Importance: However, the Council is not bound by Parliament's position or by any other consulted body, but only by the obligation to consult the Parliament, so the Parliament can only delay the adoption, but not change the text or prevent its adoption. If the Council amends a Commission proposal it must do so unanimously. This procedure is, obviously, preferred by the Council because it grants the most power to the Council.

Conciliation committee:

Definition: A conciliation committee is an alternative dispute resolution process. This process only occurs in a codecision procedure.

 

Importance: If the Council does not accept any or all of the European Parliament’s amendments or if the European Parliament rejects the common position a conciliation committee is convened. Some of the rules that were implemented regarding conciliation committees gave the European Parliament true veto power for the first time and made them a legislative equal.

Conditional agenda setting authority:

Definition: Under consultation, the Council makes amendments by unanimity, but accepts the proposal by Qualified Majority Voting.

 

Importance: This gives the Commission agenda setting power. When the Commission is aware that an amendment is close to being passed it will propose it to the Council (knowing it will get in under QMV) as long as they are certain that the amendment will not be overridden by unanimity.

Legal basis:

Definition: Legal basis requires that all European Union legislation must be based on some aspect of European Union treaty law to ensure that the European Union has the authority to make decisions in the particular area.

 

Importance: Legal basis is important because it also determine which procedure is appropriate to use.

Procedural politics:

Definition: Procedural politics allows actors to not only negotiate the content of the proposed law, but the procedure under which that law will be negotiated.

 

Importance: Different procedures give more or less power to certain actors. For example, the Council would prefer Consultation and the European Parliament would prefer Codecision because these procedures give the respective actor the most power.

Titanium dioxide directive:

Definition: The titanium oxide directive was a piece of legislation for the purpose of harmonizing waste standards in the European Union.

 

Importance: This is one case that highlights a piece of legislation that could be decided under multiple procedures. The Council argued that it was an environmental issue to be decided under the consultation procedure while the Commission argued that the legal basis was the internal market and should be decided under the cooperation procedure. This case showed that political actors not only care about policy, but also the means used to make that policy.

Direct effect:

Definition: Direct effect is a principle of European Community law according to which certain pieces of European legislation are enforceable by citizens of the Member States.

 

Importance: Direct effect showed European Union citizens that they could not only rely on national law, but on European Union law as well.

Supremacy:

Definition: In the event that there is a conflict between national law and European Union law, European Union Law trumps national law in areas where European Union law applies.

 

Importance: This increased the power of the European Union because, where applicable, European Union law was not supreme to national laws.

Preliminary ruling procedure:

Definition: Preliminary ruling procedure allows national courts to submit cases to the European Court of Justice.

 

Importance: Preliminary rulings were extremely important in increasing the rule of European Union law in member states. Preliminary ruling procedure meant that national governments could not simply ignore European Union law because it was now being enforced by national courts.

Infringement proceedings:

Definition: Cases brought against member states that are not complying with European Union law. Non-compliance is the result of several factors such as political will, quality of bureaucracy, or type of oversight.

 

Importance: Ruling over infringement proceedings is one of the main tasks of the European Court of Justice.

Cassis De Dijon:

Definition: Cassis De Dijon was a case concerning a dispute between France and Germany. In the Dijon region of France monks produced a blackcurrant liqueur with an alcohol content of 15% to 20% and attempted to import it to Germany. The German Health Board banned the importation because the alcohol content was too high to be considered a beer and too low to be considered a liqueur under German standards.

 

Importance: The European Court of justice ruled that to promote trade and eliminate non-tariff barriers member states must apply the principle of mutual recognition.

Costa v. ENEL:

Definition: A court case in which an Italian citizen refused to pay his electricity bill arguing that the nationalization of the company infringed on European Union law by distorting the market. The case was sent to the European Court of Justice through the preliminary ruling procedure.

 

Importance: Costa lost the case because of no direct effect. However, the European Court of Justice stated that the Italian government was wrong to state that individuals could not use European Union law to challenge national law. This was the first statement of the principle of supremacy in European Union law.

Francovich:

Definition: A case regarding Italy’s failure to implement a directive requiring full payment of employees’ salary in the case of bankruptcy. Courts ruled that this case did not technically have direct effect. However, member governments are liable to compensate individuals for losses resulting from the non-implementation of a directive, even if national legal systems do not permit such a liability.

 

Importance: This ruling greatly expanded the scope of direct effect.

Dassonville:

Definition: A case in which Belgian trader were required by national law to posses a certificate of origin for Scotch Whiskey that was acquired in France. The traders argued that it would be difficult to obtain a certificate for a product already in free circulation in France.

 

Importance: The court ruled that, under European Union treaty, national law cannot hinder intra-community trade and any law that does so is illegal.

Sheep-meat:

Definition: In 1979, the British wanted to sell cheap mutton to France, but France kept deterring this. The French lost this case.

 

Importance: This was a European Court of Justice case that upheld precedents advocating for the elimination of tariffs.

Non-tariff barriers and ECJ:

Definition: The European Court of Justice has ruled in a number of cases that have advocated for the elimination of national non-tariff trade barriers such as subsides, safety standards, and quality standards between member states.

 

Importance: Through these cases and the establishment of the principles of supremacy and direct effect the European Court of Justice has had a tremendous effect on European Union economic integration.

Intergovernmental Conference:

Definition: Intergovernmental Conferences are European Union treaty negotiations where member states come together to discuss treaty rules.

 

Importance: There are many methods of bargaining at Intergovernmental Conferences such as garbage can theories, two-level games, and ratification constraints.

Garbage can theories:

Definition: A method of bargaining at Intergovernmental Conferences.

 

Importance: In garbage can theory bargaining states do not have fully formed preferences over outcomes. Preferences are shaped in the bargaining process and from interaction with other actors. The garbage can refers to all member states have some sort of initial preferences which are “thrown into the garbage can” and then another preference comes out.

Two-level game:

Definition: A method of bargaining at Intergovernmental Conferences.

Importance: Two-level games are European Union level negotiations consisting of simultaneous member state negotiations. Member state actors have concern over other member state actors and build coalitions with them at the European Union level. In doing so each actor tries to implement these concerns without committing to anything that will have deleterious effects at home. An agreement is most likely to occur when the concerns of actors at both levels overlap.

Ratification constraint:

Definition: A method of bargaining at Intergovernmental Conferences.

Importance: When concern over success ratification with a particular member state is evident it may actually help bargaining. If a member state actor with ratification constraints (for example, Denmark requires 5/6^th majority in Parliament for ratification) is too skeptical it may facilitate additional negotiation from other member states to avoid all member states from being worse off.

Laeken declaration:

Definition: The Laeken Declaration was where, on December 15, 2001, the European Union adopted the Declaration on the Future of Europe.

 

Importance: It was proposed that the European Union seriously examine: 1) the division and definition of powers, 2) the simplification of the treaties 3) the institutional set-up, and 4) moving towards a Constitution for European citizens.

Constitutional Convention:

Definition: At Nice, member states failed to make the institutional changes to the European Union necessary for enlargement. The Intergovernmental Conferences process was too status-quo biased. In order to accomplish the change an expansion from 25 to 27 member states a reform to Intergovernmental Conferences was needed. A proposal for a European Convention was made that became known as the Constitutional Convention of Europe.

 

Importance: This entirely changed the way in which treaties are produced.

Valerie Giscard d’Estaing:

Definition: Valerie Giscard d’Estaing was the former President of France and he became the President of the Constitutional Convention of Europe.

 

Importance: d’Estaing manipulated rules to make changes in the Convention that were never seen in Intergovernmental Conferences. d’Estaing expanded the Convention’s mandate by declaring that the Convention would produce a draft treaty. d’Estaing would use every tool available to make the draft treaty mirror his ideals. In addition, he declared that acceptance of the draft treaty would be based on consensus rather than voting. These manipulations lead the treaty to mark a substantial break from that of previous treaties.

Democratic deficit:

Definition: The democratic deficit occurs when European Union institutions are seen to be falling short of fulfilling the principles of the parliamentary democracy in their practices where representative and linked parliamentary integrity is discussed.

 

Importance: It is argued that the European Union takes away power from directly elected national Parliaments and gives that power to unelected bureaucrats. As a result, the European Union is seen as too distant, technocratic, for voters to understand.

Permissive consensus:

Definition: The idea in which citizens do not have much knowledge about the European Union and entrust governments to make decisions on their behalf.

 

Importance: This implies that the people have a generally favorable prevailing attitude about the European Union. However, the issue has low salience. In general, it is believed that, unless a pressing concern prevails, the people really do not care much and just allow politicians to be their voice.

Second order elections:

Definition: Second-order elections are elections that have less importance for voters. European Union elections to the European Parliament are considered to be second-order national elections. Voters may use their choices for representatives to send signals to their national governments; for example, by voting for fringe parties that may not be viable in a national election.

Importance: Due to perceived decreased importance they are often used by voters to punish or reward the current governing parties because the people do not really care about the outcome.

Education and EU support:

Definition: The ideal that educated voters are more likely to support education than uneducated voters.

 

Importance: The European Union has implemented programs that support education. The Erasmus program (every European Union student receives money to study abroad in another European Union country) and the Socrates program (Supports study abroad for adult education and technical training) are example of European Union educational support.

Class and EU support:

Definition: The ideal that class difference will make a difference in support for European Union integration. It is generally believed that professional and white collar workers will support integration while skilled and low skilled workers will not.

 

Importance: The makeup of European Union countries, based on a number of factors, is telling of class standing and in turn gives insight to that member states support of integration.

 

 

Global Futures Study Guides

 

IDs:

 

1) Drivers of Change – Drivers of change are attributes that facilitate change on a domestic and global level. There are three main driver of change – 1) technological innovation 2) demographic changes 3) nature. These drivers are necessary to study in the forecasting of future circumstances.

 

2) Back casting – A practice of focusing on preferred futures. In using this practice a futurist would define a goal that would be beneficial to meet at a future date. After this goal is defined, a futurist would then backtrack to determine the chain of events that would be necessary to meet the goal.

 

3) Delphi Technique – This is named after the Delphic Oracle of Ancient Greece. A process by which a group of experts are gathered to make a projection. This is accomplished in multiple stages. 1) A questionnaire is distributed to experts that do not know each other anonymously. 2) After state 1 information has been collected and exposed another projection is made. 3) Then the experts make an argument for the projection that they made in stage 2.

 

4) Utopia – The belief that we can create our own future. This is accomplished by assessing were we are going, critiquing it, and creating policy to make a better future. This utopian future would be the ideal place comprised of social and political perfection.

 

5) Dystopia – This is the opposite of a utopia. A dystopia is a future that is extremely negative. A dystopia can be characterized by human misery and oppression.

 

6) Self Negating Prophecy – This is where you pay attention to the looming disasters that people take seriously. In doing so, you fix the problem. However, the fixing of the problem just creates new problems. This is to the peril of a forecaster.

 

7) Extrapolation – This is the basis of all forecasting. This is the practice of inferring an unknown based on something that is known. It is the practice of estimating by extending the trend of current data.

 

8) Primary Forecast – Look at the drivers of change and predict the likely progression. This is the practice of the extrapolation of current data. A futurist would look at the direction that things seem to be headed in (e.g. population growth/decline). This taken into account, if things remained the same the forecast would reflect this extrapolation.

 

9) Secondary Forecast – This reflects how people and the places in which they live are likely to respond to the primary forecast. Some attributes to be considered are values, institutions, and the reaction of the global system. This looks at the governments in how they can anticipate and respond to the primary forecast. Given the acceleration of history, likely responses to future challenges must be analyzed.

 

10) Wildcard – This is an event that has a low probability of occurring, but if it does occur will have a big impact. These unexpected events cannot be precisely project and are too rare to incorporate into a forecast. We may monitor for an occurrence of this type (e.g. an asteroid striking the Earth), but we have no capability to deal with the event if it does occur.

 

11) Socio-cultural Evolution – Humans are organized by society and species. Humans are unique in their ability to organize. Socio-cultural evolution is the ability of societies to evolve over time in order to adapt and avoid perishing.

 

12) The Enlightenment – This was a movement in the 18^th century in which people started to believe they can determine their own future. This marked a reduction in religious importance and as a result the belief that people we in charge of their own fate. This was brought about by the abundance of innovation during that time. The role of the futurist was to determine where all of this innovation would take us.

 

13) Dominant Social Paradigm – This is the way that we define the world. It is a set of assumptions, values, and practices that constitute reality as shared by society. Futurists are interested in looking for paradigm shifts.

 

14) Acceleration of History – The belief that everything is changing at an accelerated pace. For example, the amount of change that previously took a century to accomplish would only take a decade to accomplish in today’s terms. This acceleration is due to science and technology. The acceleration of history is causing many challenges to the drivers of change.

 

15) Anticipatory Thinking – This is a characteristic of successful people. It is a practice of trying to anticipate the future and plan appropriately for that future. This is an important practice on all level from individuals to governments.

 

16) Group Think – This is a barrier to successful forecasting. When you are part of a group you tend to think as the group thinks. You follow the main group voice.

 

17) Secularization – The reduction of the influence of religion. The world is becoming less under the influence of religion.

 

18) Cornucopian’s – An ongoing debate has occurred in the futures field between optimists and pessimists. These are the eternal optimists. They believe that the future will be a future of abundance. Technology will always provide a solution to make us happy.

 

19) Neo-Malthusians (Pessimists) - An ongoing debate has occurred in the futures field between optimists and pessimists. These are the optimists. They believe that the future will be a dystopia. They are always worried about a decline or fall.

 

20) Curve Fitting – An attempt to identify what category the data you are looking at belongs to. A forecasting technology seeing what curve it fits (e.g. S-curve). This gives the ability to see the cycle an event adheres to.

 

21) Lag Effect – The idea that Socio-cultural society lags behind changes in the real world. This characterized the amount of time between that action that has occurred and the effects of that action are realized.

 

22) Fatalism – This preceded the Enlightenment. It was a characteristic of agricultural society believing that their fate is in Gods hands. The future was pre-defined and pre-determined. The role of the futurist was to divine the creators of philosophy.

 

23) Millennium Development Goals – These were 8 goals set during the Millennium to be met by 2015 during the World Summit on Sustainable Development. These goals are based on economic, environmental, and human development issues. Although these goals have mobilized many organizations, institutions, and governments it is unlikely they will be fully met.

 

Essay Examples:

· Socio-cultural evolution:

- Humans are organized by society and species. Humans are unique in their ability to organize. Socio-cultural evolution is the ability of societies to evolve over time in order to adapt and avoid perishing.

 

· Difference between evolution and revolution:

- The difference between evolution and revolution revolves around time. Evolution is a process of gradual change and development. Revolution is a sudden and complete change in something.

 

· The 3 revolutions we have talked about.

- Agricultural revolution: This revolution was caused by technological change. In particular, the domestication of animals and the development of irrigation. The agricultural revolution was centered on sedentary life. This was a period when the division of labor became prevalent. People stayed in one location for their entire lives tending to their farms. Nature was no longer viewed as harmful. These practices led to farmer surplus. This led to the creation of cities and empires.

Industrial revolution: This revolution was facilitated by the invention of the steam engine. Again, this was a time of surplus. The revolution centered on innovation research and development, science and technology, mass education, and mass democracy were commonplace. This became a time for the domination of nature in which we would develop solutions to problems rather than changing our own behavior. Consumerism and materialism became prevalent. A period known as the Enlightenment occurred during this revolution in which religious importance was reduced. As an effect people realized that they were in charge of their own fate.

Post-Industrial (Cybernetic) revolution: The Post-Industrial revolution is a time of great technological advancement. The world is increasingly becoming interconnected.

 

· What is the third revolution (post-industrial revolution) going to look like?

- The Post-Industrial revolution could very well lead to dystopia. The acceleration of history is challenging our values, institutions, and bio-physical world in ways never experienced in the past. It is very difficult to keep up with technological advancement. Also, technological advancement is exploring areas that may be better left unexplored. Some examples include, cloning, surveillance, and nanotechnology. All of which have positive uses, but also very dangerous uses that can threaten society to the very core. This is also a time that is likely to see the peak oil and maybe the completed depletion of the natural resource. The increasingly fading of borders brings new concerns of infection transfer possibly resulting in epidemics and pandemics. During this revolution we are facing a host of challenges that may be far out of our control before we realize the disaster they have caused. The dangers seem evident. If our global leaders do not practice anticipatory thinking this future may just be one that we find impossible to adequately adapt to.