Scenario praxis for systemic governance: a critical framework

Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 2014, volume 32, pages 623 – 640

doi:10.1068/c11327

Scenario praxis for systemic governance: a critical framework Ray Ison Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia; Engineering and Innovation Department, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Bucks, England; and Systemic Development Institute, Richmond, New South Wales, Australia; e‑mail: [email protected] Andrea Grant School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia; e‑mail: [email protected] Richard Bawden Systemic Development Institute, Richmond, New South Wales, Australia; e‑mail: [email protected] Received 17 December 2011; in revised form 10 January 2013; published online 17 June 2014 Abstract. Scenario praxis, critically explored as the theory-informed practice of scenarioing, is proposed as a modality for institutionalising knowing within a systemic governance framework. Framing and institutional considerations associated with a constructivist inquiry-based learning approach that might open capacity for innovation in future scenarioing praxis are outlined to complement and counterbalance positivistoriented evidence-based approaches. Drawing on espoused theoretical and epistemological commitments, background literature, researcher experience, and our framing choices, we describe a heuristic device for use ex post to critically examine accounts of past scenario development, or ex ante to generate scenarios. The heuristic and its process of generation are designed for use in context-sensitive ways suited to the systemic governance of climate change adaptation and similar situations that can be framed as ‘wicked’ or uncertain. Keywords: governance, social learning, scenarioing, institutions, learning systems, practice contexts

1 Context There is considerable rhetoric about whole-of-government approaches using methods of foresight and ‘joined-up’ government, but it seems difficult to realise this in practice and to shift the dominant culture of sectors working in isolation (Docherty and McKiernan, 2008). Too often there are unintended, deleterious effects; short-termism; and worsening of situations when traditional approaches to policy development and implementation are employed (APSC, 2007; Leach, 2008; Tompkins et al, 2002). This is a systemic failure of governance which has become pronounced in situations that are best framed as complex, uncertain, and contested or ‘wicked’ (APSC, 2007; Frame, 2008; Head, 2008; Ison, 2010; Ison et al, 2007; Rittel and Webber, 1973). Governance praxis that is nonreflexive—lacking appreciations of the centrality of practice, particularly framing and institutional design (Schön, 1973; Schön and Rein, 1994)—contributes to this systemic failure. For example, Barnett and O’Neill (2010) identify five maladaptive responses to climate change which increase the social, environmental, and economic costs of adaptation because of a failure to consider the consequences of actions in relation to wider systemic effects—actions that: (i) increase emissions of greenhouse gases; (ii) disproportionately burden the most vulnerable; (iii) have high opportunity costs; (iv) reduce incentive to adapt; and (v) create path dependencies.

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It can be argued that framing failure is a precursor to maladaptive responses because ‘frames’ are used by humans to negotiate the complexity of the world by determining what requires attention and what can be ignored. A frame is the context through which a person interprets the world, also known as his or her perception, perspective, worldview, mental model, script, or schema (Dewulf et al, 2009; Isendahl et al, 2009). Framing failure occurs when policy makers and researchers fail to recognise that they have agency, and thus choices, about how to frame situations of concern. This failure may be due to ignorance, neglect, or the strategic diversion of purpose, as when attempting to meet short-term political ends. For climate change and other wicked issues there is a need to think and act more systemically and reflexively, as noted by Rittel and Webber (1973). Scenarios provide one possible way of doing this, but in the main scenarios are embedded in a systematic (sequenced and linear) process that usually ends with the scenarios reified in some published form. In contrast, we seek to explore how scenarios could be approached systemically and reflexively through understanding processes of their creation as forms of performance shaped by theories and the researcher’s epistemological commitments. We draw attention to the centrality of ‘practitioners’ to all practice and the need to be aware that all practitioners come to practice theory-laden (see section 2). Whilst reflexive practitioners are aware that practice and theory inform each other—that they are recursively related—many practitioners do not know how to use theory, or fail to consciously use it, when engaging in forms of purposeful action. For example, policy makers may not be aware of the theories that underpin ‘new public management’ (Ghoshal, 2005); readers are also invited to be aware of the dangers of approaching scenarios from a positivist rather than a constructivist(1) and context-aware way—that is, recognising that we each have a unique tradition of understanding out of which we think and act whilst at the same time always being within a social context (Russell and Ison, 2007). The research reported here contributes to a broader programme concerning the contribution of scenarios to climate change adaptation in the state of Victoria, Australia (see Fünfgeld et al, 2014; Wiseman et al, 2011). As will be outlined, we step back from the original framing of the research programme to critically explore conceptual and methodological issues that address the question: how might the processes of scenario development be understood and institutionalised as part of climate change adaptation governance? In the sections that follow we first elaborate on praxis, theory-informed practical action as a branch of praxeology, then explore governance as conceptualised in this research. Further aspects of context relevant to scenario practices that arise in the literature are then considered alongside author experience. Drawing on our espoused theoretical and epistemological commitments, the background literature, and our framing choices, we have developed a heuristic device for use ex post to critically examine accounts of past scenario development, or ex ante to generate scenarios, a process we describe as scenarioing praxis. The heuristic and its process of generation are designed for use in context-sensitive ways suited to the systemic governance of climate change adaptation. The outcomes of preliminary ex post testing of the heuristic in a comparison of three past cases of scenario praxis in subnational, national, and global contexts follows. We finish with some final reflections and concluding comments.

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 In this paper we do not wish to enter into the distinctions between ‘constructivist’ (indicating individual’s cognitive assembling of meanings) and ‘constructionist’ (indicating socially and culturally constructed meanings assembled through interactions with others) as within a second-order cybernetic theoretical tradition based on the biology of cognition these divisions are not meaningful (Maturana and Poerksen, 2004).

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2 Praxis and praxeology The dominant paradigm or the ‘mainstream framing’ of how knowledge relates to practice, practice as applied knowledge, is what Cook and Wagenaar (2011) call the ‘received view’. These authors posit that: ““knowledge and context can be explained in terms of—and are evoked within—practice, and not the other way round—and that this transpires within real worlds each of which has its own unique constraints and affordances, histories and futures” (page 1). From this perspective, the practice of developing scenarios generates both context and new ways of knowing: the choices that Cook and Wagenaar offer exemplify why theoretical framing choices matter in relation to scenario processes. Through practice that engages with situations, a range of framing choices make themselves apparent and lack of awareness in policy and professional practice as to how much agency exists in relation to framing choices has subsequent, or ‘downstream’, implications. Unfortunately, the current mainstream approach stems from adoption of a narrow understanding of how science informs policy (eg, Leach, 2008). This paper offers a critical exploration of scenario praxis in which the term ‘praxis’ rather than practice is used to make the point that all practice is theory informed. We adopt a stance consistent with praxeology, the branch of knowledge that deals with practical activity and human conduct (Ison, 2010). We note that all praxis is contextual and dynamic. Thus history matters, as do circumstances, stakeholders, small­‑‘p’ politics, skills of those involved, and the institutional arrangements [‘rules of the game’, in the new institutional economics sense (North, 1990)] which characterise the praxis domain. We use the term ‘scenarioing’, a verb, to deliberately draw attention to the praxis dimensions of acting out or performing our theoretically informed understanding. Because practice is rarely an isolated activity—and most situations of social concern demand forms of collaborative, or concerted, action— we extend our understanding of ‘performance’ to what Wenger (1998) describes as a ‘joint enterprise’, much as the performance of an orchestra is the product of a joint enterprise in which understandings and interpretations of the music must be appreciated by all, even if the practitioners, the musicians, do different things. Our inquiry explores themes of long-standing interest to Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy readers pertaining to complex science-policy issues involving intractable social and scientific uncertainty (Amundsen et al, 2010; Owens et al, 2006; Tompkins et al, 2002), but from a different disciplinary perspective. In the spirit of social learning, and the emerging interest in framing (eg, Leach, 2008; RCEP, 2010), a contemporary systems-theoretical approach (Ison, 2010) to understanding scenarios is introduced within a broader framing of systemic governance or, as more appropriately expressed from a praxis perspective, systemic governing. Governance, though now in common parlance, is a contested term thus warranting explication from our theoretical perspective (see section 3). We also draw upon soft-systems methodology (SSM) as a sense-making approach (Reynolds and Holwell, 2010) that can synthesise our theoretical choices with an exploration of the scenario literature (see section 4). In exploring this literature, we frame our inquiry through a praxis lens, something which SSM is adept in facilitating because the core ‘modelling’ elements of SSM are all the verbs in the English language (Checkland and Poulter, 2006). 3 Governance and uncertainty Within the fields of water governance and climate change adaptation, claims for strategies that involve different ways of knowing for policies and practices have been made (Ingram, 2008; IPCC, 2007). Earlier, Hajer and Wagenaar (2003) explicated a rationale for this consideration in several domains and disciplinary fields, claiming that the “vocabulary of governance speaks

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to a widely acknowledged change in the nature of politics and policymaking” (page 2) that “opens up the cognitive commitments implicit in the thinking about governing and political decision making” (page 2). This, they said, “seems to help practitioners and theorists alike to unlearn embedded intellectual reflexes and break out of tacit patterns of thinking” (page 2). Within this decade-old ‘governance turn’, the way in which governance as a concept is understood, and how its enactment is pursued in context-sensitive ways, remain contested and subjugated in policy processes. In environmental sociology, governance encompasses the institutional interactions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised and stakeholders are included (Davidson et al, 2006). Within the lineage of cybersystemics, governance is understood in terms of the design, enactment, and response to feedback processes (Ison, 2010). The cybersystemic lineage of framing governance issues which we adopt is not new [see the special issue edited by Blunden and Dando (1994)], but it is possibly neglected in recent governance discourse. Within this framing, the central organising metaphor is that of a helmsperson (sailor) steering, or charting, an ongoing viable course in response to feedback (from currents, wind, etc) and in relation to a purpose that is negotiated and renegotiated within an unfolding context—that is, in response to uncertainty (Cook and Yanow, 1993; Ison, 2010). Thus governing encompasses the totality of mechanisms and instruments available for influencing social change in certain directions including a practitioner’s own history (ie, identity). Whether purposeful or not, the collective activities of governance produces effects comprising varying degrees of coordination or lack of coordination, control or loss of control, and certainty or uncertainty. The point is to arrive where a loss of control does not lead to fear but to social learning and innovation. Systemic governance, or governing, is the context in which adaptive planning, designing, regulating, and then managing sit. Governance that is ‘adaptive’ incorporates learning and change in response to uncertainty; but despite the growing need, it is, in the main, poorly done (eg, Allan and Curtis, 2005). Often this is because of a lack of clear rationalisation (and critique) of the interacting effects of private and public forms of action (Osberghaus et al, 2010). In a dynamic socioecological environment such as one involving a climate-changing world, governments, and others, are now required to make shifts in governance towards a greater capacity for accommodating uncertainty. Maxim and van der Sluijs (2011) have noted the limitations of treating uncertainty as a scientific phenomenon, opening discussion of the social and political relevance of uncertainty that influences the negotiations between stakeholders. Engaging in inquiry-based practice, such as scenarioing, which is more attuned to contingency and surprise than most institutions associated with project and programme management, is one important means to alter praxis (Ison, 2010). As part of this shift, conditions need to emerge for the purposeful creation of platforms in which those performing scenarios are more critically engaged in scenarioing practice. Social learning, as a model for critical reflection (and one which has the potential to engage and build agency for realising the conditions for social change) with greater investment and capability building offers a governance model conducive to further refinement and use of scenarioing (Collins and Ison, 2009; Colvin et al, 2014; Ison et al, 2007; Keen et al, 2005). Within our chosen governance metaphor we seek to explore the bases upon which future scenario praxis, as a new modality of action (Ison et al, 2011), might contribute to more effective governance through social learning. Of particular interest is understanding how governance mechanisms and associated praxis can be more usefully employed in the ongoing governing of situations framed as structurally coupled, socioecological

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(or sociobiophysical(2)) systems (Holling, 1973; Ison, 2010; Rockström et al, 2009). To be actionable, the framings we propose need to be grounded, through practices, in everyday living and language and, perhaps above all else, require sensitivity to initial starting conditions so as to: (i) break out of constraining pathway dependencies; (ii) appreciate how current situations are understood and/or framed from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (systemic reflexivity); (iii) be aware of institutional complexity and ‘blindness’; and (iv) adopt imperatives to move away from concepts such as ‘decision support’ to new theoretical and metaphorical framings such as ‘choreography of effective performances’ (RCEP, 2010; Russell and Ison, 2005).(3) 4 Scenarioing: some historical framings There are many lineages of scenarioing praxis (Docherty and McKiernon, 2008; Wiseman et al, 2011). Scenarioing is generally seen as part of forecasting, but there is a critical difference. Forecasting generally works in a paradigm of separation between what is known and unknown using probability techniques for assessing likelihood, but does not acknowledge the varied nature of knowledge and the assumptions embedded within various disciplines, including different forms of ignorance and uncertainty (Smithson, 2008). Gidley et al (2009) discuss how foresighting as a particular use of scenarios might contribute to adaptation of communities vulnerable to climate change such as those living in coastal areas. Their typology of key terms used in futures studies and associated approaches helps, in part, to situate our own work. The approaches they identify with key terms (in parentheses) include: (i) predictive or empirical (probable futures); (ii) critical postmodern (preferred futures); (iii) cultural or interpretative (possible or alternative futures); (iv) prospective or action research (prospective or participatory futures); and (v) integrative or holistic (planetary or integral futures). In respect of climate change, they associate iv with bottom-up approaches concerned with coevolution, social learning, and cocreation. Linguistically, this is the category where our own approach would fit, but conceptually we are concerned to avoid the rigidities of typologies in favour of forms of context-relevant praxis within an overarching systemic governance framing. As a planning device, scenarios are regarded as a way of not trying to get the future right but avoiding getting it wrong (Schwartz, 1991). They are seen as more effective in deciding what has to be done and how it might be achieved within the constraints of uncertainty (Saliba and Withers, 2009); but it can be argued that scenarioing, as praxis, all too often falls between the incommensurable demands of different epistemological positions. We believe scenarioing as praxis sits most comfortably within a social constructivist epistemology. In contrast, evidence-based policy development, a trajectory in the positivist knowledge paradigm, is often, knowingly or not, the prevailing epistemology in contexts of scenario development and use. As Healy (2004) and Carolan (2006) argue, drawing on discussions of postnormal science (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1992; Ravetz and Funtowicz, 1998), the latter position needs some reconstruction for problem situations that are arguably framed as wicked.

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 We reflect here on what makes the concept of ‘ecological’ different from ‘biophysical’. Ecological has dimensions of self-awareness in cultures of cooperation and coevolution in the presence of other sentient beings. Biophysical suggests an inanimate nonhuman reality that is separate from and subject only to the sentience and ethical manipulations of nature by humans (see Carolan, 2006; Maturana, 1988). (3)  Our paper posits a number of steps towards new languaging as key for governance praxis in which scenarioing can feature as a platform for a context of decision making and learning. ‘Effective performances’ can embrace ethical as well as relational dynamics—that is, by asking what constitutes ‘effective’, we are also asking what is desired in the performance—cooperation, change, control, etc.

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We suggest critical awareness is needed as to who is involved in the framing of situations from which so-called problems emerge, in the design of research questions, that leads to particular ways of ‘seeing and doing’, and the associated policy issues they produce. Reflexive praxis, whether research or policy praxis, in which epistemological commitments are transparent and discussable, is warranted (Blackmore et al, 2007; Boxelaar et al, 2006; Ison et al, 2007; 2012). It is also the practices or ‘imperatives’ of governing organisations (based in traditions of understanding and practice) in researching socioecological problems that can constrain a more open form of inquiry (Allan and Curtis, 2005; Russell and Ison, 2007). Tompkins et al (2002), in a developing world context, note the constraints experienced by management practitioners associated with ‘level of staff skill’, ‘information hoarding’, and ‘project timetabling and project cycle’ that are replicated in similar governance contexts in Australia (Allan and Curtis, 2005). In a policy paper for the Australian Parliament, James (2001) noted some uptake of scenarioing in Australia but limited institutionalisation. His analysis raised the question of whether the then emerging institutional context associated with new public management was inimical to scenarioing praxis. For example, de Laine (1997, unpaginated) raised concerns about new public management reforms leading to a “loss of institutional memory”. She argued that the increasing pace of change associated with modern governance had the propensity to induce “change-fatigued” organisations that lacked time for reflection and functioned “more as forgetting rather than as learning organisations.” The extent to which commitments to new public management remain embedded within the public sector is thus a key contextual factor for appreciating how scenarioing might succeed or fail. Scenarioing, as with any form of purposeful practice, does not arise in a contextual vacuum. Schools or historical lineages of scenarioing can be differentiated as different praxis lineages. An example of a praxis lineage is exemplified by material in table 1, a typology with three levels of transformative scenarioing praxis at the individual, group, or organisational level. For Bawden, on whose praxis this table is based, the effectiveness of scenarioing praxis is essentially time-dependent—the more time a practitioner has and the more serious the intention and commitment of the ‘client’, the more capability there is to extend the focus of the exercise from the narrowest ‘cell’, the first-order transformation of strategic appreciation by individual participants, through to the most comprehensive third-order transformation of the strategic direction of entire organisations and the establishment and development of a scenarioing culture. Reflecting on his experience, Bawden (personal communication, January 2010) says: ““the flavour and significance of all three levels of individual transformation and, to a lesser degree, of group (collective) transformation … are greatly reinforced in exercises when there are rigorously developed scenarios by nominated participants and their critical application to the different stages of strategic formulation from the identification of relevant strategic domains through to the modelling of actual strategic intentions as human activity systems [following SSM—see Checkland and Poulter, 2006].” Amongst his many scenarioing assignments, Bawden experienced only three actual scenario planning and learning projects where the grand aim was ‘the bottom-right cell’ as described in table 1. This cell encompasses all others and was the aim of those at Royal Dutch Shell who first actively employed the scenario planning process. There are those in the literature who claim considerable success across the matrix outlined in table 1, including a number where whole nation-states have been the target of the transformations, including South Africa, Canada, and Singapore. Others claim success within individual public service organisations as well as those within whole corporations. However, the limited reports of success, and Bawden’s own experience, point to a wider systemic failure—an inability or unwillingness to engage in critical discourse in the enactment of current governance regimes.

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Table 1. A matrix developed as a framework for both designing scenario planning and learning projects and evaluating their outcomes (source: Bawden, personal communication, January 2010). Individual

Task groups

Organization

First-order transformation: scenarios and strategies

personal development of strategic appreciation; generation of scenario(s); identification of strategic domains

development of collective strategic appreciation; collaborative generation of scenario sets; collaborative identification of strategic domains of relevance to nominated task areas; collaborative modelling strategies as human activity systems of relevance to particular task areas

distributed strategic appreciation as organisational capacity; adoption of scenario sets as context for strategic developments; identification of strategic domains and modelling human activity strategy systems relevant to organisational strategic direction

Second-order transformation: planning and learning

development of personal strategic planning competencies; scenario planning method—competency development; development of appreciation of individual processes of learning

development of collective strategic planning competencies; scenario planning method—competency development; collaborative development of shared appreciation of processes of collective learning

development of organisational strategic planning capacities as functions of distributed group strategic planning competencies; development of shared appreciation of processes and an organisational culture characterised by collective learning

Third-order transformation: epistemes and culture

personal worldview (epistemic) identification and development; development of selfreflexive foresight competencies

transformation of collective group worldview and reflexive foresight capacities

transformation of prevailing organisational worldview; development of organisational foresight capacity through the distributed development of foresighting competencies by individuals and task groups

It could be claimed that little has changed for the better since Schön (1973) wrote Beyond the Stable State in the early 1970s. The process of engaging in scenarioing is thus subject to a complex set of framing conditions, and more-or-less conducive institutional settings may exist. Capability may vary and shift as, for example, with staff turnover. The critical challenges are, we suggest, to: (i) recognise the historicity of scenarioing as a form of praxis; (ii) appreciate different praxis lineages (see papers in this theme issue); (iii) conceptualise scenarioing as a coupled practicecontext system (ie, the long-term effectiveness of scenarioing may have as much, if not more, to do with the context than the scenarios themselves); (iv) understand scenarioing as a particular manner of living in language (Maturana and Varela, 1987); and (v), as previously discussed, recognise that effectiveness of scenarioing is likely to be highly sensitive to initial starting conditions.

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We now move from framing our theoretical and methodological approach to consider the enactment of scenarioing as an effective performance of, and enabler for, systemic and adaptive governance. We start by elaborating on our methodological approach. 5 Methodological approach We adopted a systemic inquiry approach (Checkland and Poulter, 2006; Ison, 2010) combining three strands of inquiry to develop our critique of scenarioing praxis and as a means to develop a heuristic useable by those who might commission, design, or evaluate future scenario-related practices or attempt to institutionalise scenarioing as part of a systemic governance strategy. The first, already presented, involved an explication of our chosen theoretical and epistemological position combined with a critical engagement with literature, including some first-person reflection that addresses the broader issues of scenarioing within an overall governance framework. The first-person inquiry was with an experienced scenario practitioner, and paper coauthor. Reason and Bradbury (2008) describe first-person inquiry and action research as adopting a critical, inquiring approach to one’s own practice. Bawden has many years of scenario praxis experience associated with the Systemic Development Institute (http://systemicdevelopment.org). The second inquiry strand developed a heuristic model of praxis considerations (or activities) to enhance and develop the theory-informed practice of scenarioing within a systemic process of governance; our purpose in doing this is to aid future praxis design. A heuristic model in the sense reported here is an epistemological device that captures the key conceptual outcomes of an inquiry process and which can be used to guide others in processes of context-sensitive process designing—that is, as an aid to design not a blueprint. SSM was used for this inquiry (Checkland and Poulter, 2006); there is an extensive, wellestablished, literature on SSM which we do not reprise here but may be of interest to readers as it offers a systemic framework for analysis of governing as a purposeful human activity (eg, see the journal Systemic Practice and Action Research). Activity modelling using verbs as the modelling language to create a conceptual system of interest is a key part of SSM. The set of activities, reported below, comes from considering, in the sense of SSM, what activities might be needed to create a scenarioing performance capable of coevolving with its context. We do not claim this set to be exhaustive and recognise that would-be scenarioing practitioners in the first instance need to be open to their circumstances; they would need to build their own activity models, as devices for learning and planning, which are sensitive to context. We have not employed a full‑on SSM analysis as, devoid of a specific action setting and engaged actors, it would not make sense. Also, an aim is to demonstrate to would‑be users and developers of scenario praxes how SSM-led inquiry could be utilised. The third inquiry was methodologically a comparative case study (Ragin, 2006) that tests, in a preliminary sense, the utility of our heuristic for ex ante analysis of scenarioing performances. Three contrasting cases of scenario praxis were chosen on the basis of three dimensions: (1) that they involved an examination of the past as well as the future; (2a) that they were multi-institutional; or (2b) that they involved a decision context for unlikely collaborators to draw in different perspectives to the discussions. Further distinctions were made between the cases on whether (3) considerations of ecological, social, and/or technological dimensions were made. The first case, Agrimonde, drawn from the international arena, utilises scenarioing as part of a broader platform of operations in agriculture and global food supply research. We compare this case with Australian national and state (Victorian) cases, Energy Futures Forum (EFF) 2004–06, and Goulburn-Broken Irrigation Futures (GBIF) 2003–07, respectively.

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6 A heuristic model for scenarioing praxis design Figure 1 is a third-iteration SSM activity model built in response to our theoretical framings, engagement with the literature, and first-person inquiry (table 1). In figure 1 we expand the boundary of concern in comparison with most scenario praxis. We suggest that Wenger’s conceptual work on communities of practice is relevant, and we draw upon his conceptions of participation and reification. Wenger (1998) understands the experience of knowledge, as acquired through practice, as a duality or totality, a position coherent with that of Cook and Wagenaar (2011). Participation and reification as a duality are critical aspects of scenarioing. Reification is the process of making a ‘thing’ out of something conceptual, turning it into a material object that can be shared with others, such as happens in the language and practices that occur around chosen scenarios (eg, giving scenarios names and translating them into the production of glossy publications including maps and trends are part of that reification). Reification lacking reflexivity commits those involved to seeing objects that are independent of the processes of their generation—this particularly happens when the scenario is used as a basis for communicating with people who were not involved in generating it. Participation is the means to dissolve reifications that are no longer useful or must be applied to a context that varies from their origin. In accommodating this duality, we also draw upon actor-network theory to offer a reframing of reified scenarios as technical mediating objects (Callon, 1986; Higgins, 2007)—that is, objects that draw people into and facilitate joint activity. The key high-level subsystems in figure 1 begin with creating a systemic and adaptive governance framework for scenarioing (1). This is a higher order system than the other activities and is thus the context in which the other subsystems sit; but, as it is recursively related to the subsystems, it is also a product of them. Strategic framing considerations and institutional assessment (see Wallis and Ison, 2011) are specified activities within the

Figure 1. A heuristic model of a learning system for appreciating scenarioing praxis either ex post or ex ante (ie, purposeful design) based on the soft-systems methodology approach to activity modelling.

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governance system (figure 1). The second activity, which operates at the next systemic level, is doing the work to reach agreement to use scenarios for some purpose, which operates iteratively with (3), purposefully addressing the possible contributions scenarioing might make to epistemic (and worldview) shifts of those who participate in scenario construction. Both 2, 3, and 5 + 6, process designing for using scenarios in a specific context and scenario building, are informed by answering who?, when?, who learns?, and who participates? (4). Activities 7 and 8 address the predesign and postdesign implications of reification. Activities 9–11, consistent with SSM modelling, are concerned with monitoring and evaluation of the overall ‘learning system’ against defined measures of performance (often generically expressed as efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness—that is, does it work using minimal resources and achieve its overall purpose?). Bawden’s typology (table 1) and figure 1 (including the process of generating it) can be used heuristically to explore past scenario praxis (eg, an analysis of practice-context dynamics of scenarioing cases) as well as designing new modes of praxis. When enacted, a ‘learning system’ can be said to come into existence (Bawden, 2010; Ison, 2010). 7 Comparative case study An ex post comparative case-study analysis to test the utility of our praxis concerns for deconstructing scenario processes (Ison et al, 2010) was used to review our heuristic model (figure 1). Using an ex post and comparative case-study approach can surface critical insights about the scenario praxis and design intent, which may have been implicit or explicit. Whilst it is unlikely that those responsible for the three case studies thought about the consequences of their design elements in our terms, the three cases can nonetheless be readily distinguished by what actually happened. What is reported reveals something about the intent of proponents (table 2); reporting implicitly frames scenarioing where epistemologies and worldviews are apparent in the selection of observations and narratives of the process. It is apparent that the three cases of scenarioing did go through a process in which purpose was defined and captured, at least in part, by those reporting on the process. For Agrimonde there was an institutional setting that enabled high-level stakeholding. Consideration was made to framing (we suspect there was some consideration of the different ways of framing the problem, and how they might be accommodated in the process). The framing used ‘captured’ the scope of interest of those involved. In this context, framing is a way of incorporating the extant field or community of interest by accommodating the diversity of perspectives. There was also a desire to reform international agricultural research systems; however, the reason for this desire was less well articulated, apart from a general understanding of the ecological limits of continued global development as experienced in the 20th century. Exactly what was wrong with the system that the practitioners were wanting to reform is not reported. In systems-related practice a failure to articulate and clearly differentiate between why, what, and how is common. Nevertheless, an understanding of purpose (why) emerged from the context. The historical development of institutions of trade and food production were seen as needing review in light of: new values; awareness of constraints of the existing system of food provision; and, it appears, an ethic of distributive justice. One of the primary successes of Agrimonde, in our view, was that they were able to realise their intentions as contributing to, and shaping, international debates. By seeing themselves as a communicative platform, they could articulate strategies and options to define priorities as well as develop “a mechanism that actually allows for reflexivity and in-depth discussion” (INRA-CIRAD, 2009, page 2). In contrast, the CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship (ETF) saw itself as a new player in the energy research sector needing to establish an identity in relation to its stakeholding. There was political will for transforming the energy sector, and a stakeholder forum was an important mechanism for linking the organisation to its environment. However, it was not

CSIRO Energy national Transformed Flagship, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

DPI, Tatura, Victoria, Australia

Energy Futures Forum 2004–06

GoulburnBroken Irrigation Futures 2003–07

1970–2030

1960–2050

1965–2065

Past–future reference

irrigated agriculture, regional development

energy technology perceptions/ supply– generation economics/ social uptake

diet, population, ‘food behaviours’

Sociocultural parameters

irrigation efficiencies and delivery technologies

static energy and transport alternatives

biomass balance, ‘technological options and trade regulations’

Technoinstitutional parameters

catchment management (reduced supply relative to need)

climate (change) impacts

agroecosystem diversity, ‘ecological intensification’, sustainable agriculture

Enviroecological parameters

state and regional bodies, including DPI, DSE, GBCMA, G‑MW, research irrigators and allied businesses, CRC for Irrigation Futures

Department of Industry Tourism and Resources, energy sector groups, environmental, and social interest groups (mostly self-funded participation)

agricultural research and education organisations in France, including INRA and CIRAD and think tanks

Collaborating institutions

local agricultural and community professionals, policy makers, regional stakeholders (ie, DPI, DSE, GBCMA, G‑MW, Shires)

CSIRO and other researchers, energy industry stakeholders, environmental and social interest groups (eg, council of trade unions, council of social services, and ACF)

researchers from different institutions/ disciplines, decision makers, key research stakeholders

Stakeholding/ participating

Notes: DPI = Department of Primary Industries, DSE = Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, GBCMA = Victorian Goulburn-Broken Catchment Management Authority, G-MW = Goulburn-Murray Water, CRC = Cooperative Research Centre, ACF = Australian Conservation Foundation, CSIRO = Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, INRA = French National Agricultural Research Institute, CIRAD = French Agricultural Research for Development Organisation.

regional/ catchment

global

Research for Agriculture Development, Montpellier, France

Agrimonde 2006–08 (phase one)

Scale

Reporting location

Case

Table 2. Summary description of scenario cases selected to explore scenarioing praxis (sources: Agrimonde—http://www.international.inra.fr/the_institute/foresight/ agrimonde; INRA–CIRAD, 2009; Energy Futures Forum—http://www.csiro.au/science/Energy‑Futures‑forum.html; CSIRO, 2006; Goulburn-Broken Irrigation Futures—http://www.irrigationfutures.org.au/ projects.asp?ID=17; Robertson et al, 2007; other material available on the website).

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clear whether this self-awareness was prevalent in the design team in a way that enabled a critical engagement with issues and to build stakeholding in the energy sector as a challenge to the status quo. As it turns out, the environment for scenarioing, as we conceive it, did not seem to arrive until well into discussions about the forum at a ‘critical moment’ in which a convergence of issues including climate change policy discussion, increased demand for energy, and an impending ending of the life cycle of existing infrastructure made up a fairly complex setting for change. Much of the concern at the time was about the highly uncertain investment environment for the energy sector based on discussions of emissions trading. There was a clear degree of success in mobilising commitment to the EFF with a wide stakeholding in the process from the energy sector. Organisations were enrolled to the process as self-funded participants, which was one way of ensuring commitment to its success was jointly shared. However, one of the constraints that emerged from this collaborative approach to help direct (and possibly support) the ETF research efforts was the tendency to draw a line between objective advice and its subjective interpretation. The organisers worked carefully to ensure that impartiality of technical contributions to scenarios could maintain the confidence of participants in CSIRO’s role as an honest broker of scientific knowledge (personal communication, Paul Graham, 1 December 2010). GBIF was the initiative of a small group of community leaders confronted by the challenges of drought and climate uncertainty, water trading and water movement, and global market variability. The context was framed as one of economic and environmental insecurity that required a transformation of local irrigated agriculture in order to persist in a more competitive commodity environment. This local leadership in a ‘crisis’ of coping with change offered an environment conducive to creative reorganisation. However, there was also a broader interest in this local initiative because of government dilemmas in water policy serving urban and rural development needs as well as those of the environment. Thus the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) provided resources to the task, and organisers were also able to attract resources from elsewhere (possibly using the DPI funding as a catalyst to enlist the commitment of other organisations). However, it was unclear what stakeholding was built within government and the wider community, as the primary focus for scenarioing was on facilitating key stakeholders “to build consensus on preferred regional options for future irrigation” (Robertson et al, 2007, page 7). The intention was to recommend regional follow-up actions; however, it appears that some stakeholders in water resources and regional planning that were ‘key’ to the strategic use of scenarios were missing from the discussions. Possibly as a result, the project has been criticised for a poor carriage of the outcomes and engagement of only a limited pool of irrigation farmers in the scenario building and their reification, which may have contributed to a loss of confidence among those not involved (personal communication, Roger Wrigley, 30 April 2011). This is partly the problem of deciding to use ‘scenarios for some purpose’, and we suggest that widening the lens at this early stage of development can bring more meaningful change and theoretical development of scenario practice. Ex post interpretation and attribution of purpose are fraught with difficulty without access to the key actors and their interpretative schemas; in this regard, our analysis has many limitations, but it does highlight how the reporting of scenarioing as praxis is all too often ill-equipped to support the adoption and adaptation of praxis to other domains—or, in other words, to build more rigorous designs for, and enactments of, scenarioing. 8 Discussion: implications and recommendations From our inquiries we offer two reframings as points of departure from the mainstream: (i) to consider scenarioing as a potentially important modality of praxis for enacting systemic governance and (ii) to appreciate the possibilities of scenarioing as an ongoing process of exploring possible futures by sustaining a strategic conversation and/or inquiry in governance

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situations of concern (such as climate change adaptation). Our inquiries are preliminary at this stage; the heuristic (figure 1) shows promise for ex post critical examination of accounts of scenario praxis, but we have yet to test it in an ex ante, design mode. However, in making this claim, there is a trap for the unwary—figure 1 is not a model of how to do scenarioing but the outcome of a context-specific inquiry process that can deliver design heuristics of potential benefit for scenarioing. Having framed our theoretical approach in terms distinguished by Cook and Wagenaar (2011), we exemplify an approach to scenarioing praxis that could be institutionalised based on a shift from knowledge to knowing. Unlike the comparative case study based on reports of scenario generation, first-person inquiry with an experienced scenarioing practitioner reveals many useful insights for the would‑be practitioner. But Bawden’s examples lacked a conducive governance context in which to do the scenarioing. His cases often involved inappropriate boundary choices to the system of interest—for example, one project was greatly confused by the fact that it was focused on the future of the teaching profession—and not on the (organisation) National Australia Institute for Teaching and School Leadership itself. In part, this is an institutional constraint associated with consultancy practice. We found that the scenario case studies do little to link together the different dimensions of their analysis—economic, technological, sociocultural, and biophysical—to build an interpretative capability between analysts and potential users of scenarios. They thereby miss opportunities for exploring ‘emergence’ of new phenomena through understanding of interacting systems (Ison, 2010; Norgaard, 2008). Despite holding much promise in terms of the multiinstitutional and past–future analysis, there was a limited degree of linking scenarios to the dynamics of an integrated platform that facilitated transformations in understanding and practice of those involved. In other words, the governance dimension depicted in figure 1 was weak or missing, as was the reporting of design considerations in a manner that opens up praxis to critical scrutiny and learning. Although longitudinal study would be required to better understand the legacy impacts of these scenarios, all three highlight, we contend, a failure to appreciate the recursive nature of purpose with governance context. Whilst the transformation described by Bawden is a transformation of personal accountability, an escape from the binding dimensions of culture or sociocultural structures that prevent one from realising self-awareness and critique is also required. This characterises the importance of scenarioing as a leadership discourse or discursive platform for developing new conceptions for leading discussions on futures. It brings new strategic conversations into being with those involved in the conversation. The epistemic shifts provide the potential for creative reorganisation. More simply put, it involves a sociocultural shift. The reflections of the EFF proponents were blind to this because they still treated ‘culture’ as if it were some externality to be observed and documented objectively. This perspective was not reflexive enough, in that those participating did not conceive themselves as active agents in the production of culture. The other two cases did not explicitly deal with cultural aspects in their reporting. We suggest that this is a failing of using scenarios in a positivist rather than a constructivist or social constructionist way. Engaging with history provides a valuable reference to reexplore the conditions through which new technologies or institutions emerge. Practice contexts that appreciate historicity, we argue, strengthen particular kinds of sociocultural realities with varying degrees of stability in the social and ecological environments they exist within (Law, 2009). Awareness of this dynamic can increase the possibility for new organisational learning to support the emergence of rearticulated purposes that are realised in the practice of scenarioing, as a shared interest in innovative policy approaches. This generates a form of accommodation that is not unequivocal but agonistic as it contorts the pluralism of worldviews into a form

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of negotiated agreement. Unlike the prevailing positivist paradigm that underpins so much scenario practice, stability from institutionalised scenarioing depends on the flexibility of relations that hold it in place. Scenarioing is thus strictly a means to generate a particular manner of living in particular settings. Historically, it has privileged a conversation about futures that, in most forms of scenario praxis, ultimately become connected to a conversation about the present. More attention needs to be paid, we suggest, to conversations in context about the past, particularly the traditions of understanding of those in the conversation (Russell and Ison, 2007). This is, we suggest, one of the main ways that epistemological commitments can become transparent and discussable. In realising the move from participation to reification that characterises much scenario praxis, we posit that ‘making’ decisions operates at the level of closing off possible options, thus reducing the capacity to realise alternative pathways. It is the closing off of possible pathways which is what ‘science’ (applied in this context) tends to do. Scenarios create conditions for choice by bringing certain realities into focus, and the subsequent decision making is that which becomes deterministic in a ‘path dependency’ (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010; Berkhout, 2002). A fear of error in judgment often hampers the capacity to take any action on what is known to be a bad situation (Levidow, 2001; Sunstein, 2003). A better understanding of how to close off a possible alternative pathway is needed to maintain an open end to learning such that actions can be taken in the present and revised in the light of experience and which is purposeful in monitoring and evaluating the consequences of actions taken [Schuler (2008); see also our 9, 10, and 11 ‘learning system’ aspects in figure 1]. If this approach is followed, uncertainty becomes a resource for learning and development rather than background ‘noise’ for elimination in risk assessment and decision analysis (Berkhout et al, 2002). 9 Final remarks As engaged theoreticians, we seek to initiate the development of more critically aware forms of scenario praxis that might constitute a viable praxeology as part of a shift towards systemic governance. Bawden’s typology (table 1) and our activity model (figure 1) offer opportunities, we suggest, for the commissioning, enactment, and evaluating of future scenarioing activity and for strategising in relation to organisational governance, particularly public sector governance where responsibility for climate change adaptation policies reside. Such an innovation could provide a means to break away from the prevailing epistemological and practice paradigms (Cook and Wagenaar, 2011; Haraway, 1991) and act as a counter to the constraints of new public management (Seddon, 2008). In this paper we have drawn attention to the potential role of scenarioing as a governance praxis in the context of knowing what activities might be needed to create a scenarioing performance capable of coevolving with its context. In order to realise the full potential of scenarioing as a praxiology for systemic governance, there is need to first declare an epistemological commitment—in our case, that all knowledge is socially constructed. Reflexive scenarioing has the potential to mediate an epistemological conversation from which collective enterprises of ongoing inquiry, which better construct socioecological realities able to endure and adapt, may emerge. We have offered a critical exploration of scenario praxis, drawing attention to the centrality of practitioners in the theory-informed practice of scenarioing. As all practitioners come to practice theory-laden, there is a question of how to accommodate differences and to use scenarioing as a source of creative potential for reorganisation in the sense of Frame and Brown (2008). We have generated framing and design considerations that might open capacity for innovation in scenario praxis. Situating our concern within a framework of systemic governance, we argue that a coevolutionary dynamic between humans and the biosphere is the key dynamic of concern to governance.

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