Paper short abstract:

Following a socio-historical institutionalist approach, this paper retraces how foresight has been institutionalized within energy policy and health policy in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom. It then highlights factors of institutionalization of foresight within public policy.

Paper long abstract:

In many European countries, the study of the long-term future has often been a concern for public authorities since the 1970s. Several tools allow to explore the futures and this contribution focuses on one of them: foresight. It is understood as a long-term systemic and interdisciplinary policy-making tool aiming at identifying possible long-term futures and including trends disruptions and surprises. Following a socio-historical institutionalist perspective, this paper diachronically retraces how foresight has been institutionalized within public policy in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom between 1970 and 2010. Based on a broad literature review, a large-scale document collection and 53 semi-structured interviews in both countries, this contribution focuses on energy policy and health policy in both countries. Through a Nvivo-assisted analysis of the data, it highlights factors of institutionalization of foresight within public policy and comparatively discusses them in regard to the four case studies. Such factors encompass for example the adequacy of foresight practice vis-à-vis the policy advisory system and legitimacy issues related to practice theorization and success. By doing so, our aim is to contribute to both the futures studies and STS literature on how particular tools emerge and are embedded in governance processes as an informative policy tools in a specific context.