Introduction 13

Government

This brings us to the impact of technological change upon political life.

At the international level, the globalization of economic life means that
an increasing number of problems can only be dealt with by inter-
national collaboration or international institutions (see chapter 8, by
Timothy Besley). Obvious examples include problems of climate change
and transboundary pollution, of nancial stability, of trade policy, of
labor migration, and of capital mobility. Increasing interdependence in
all these dimensions makes it desirable that more decisions are taken
collectively, at a supranational level. Whether this will actually occur is
less certain, but political pressures for governments to realize their stated
objectives make it highly likely to happen, baring some disaster that
rekindles nationalism in the major countries of the world. At the same
time, as power goes upward beyond the nation-state, regions may feel
condent enough to claw down for themselves some of the remaining
functions now performed by the nation state, and which can as easily be
addressed at the subnational level. Thus the logic of greater economic
interdependence may move us toward a more diuse structuring of
political authority.
Besley's approach to the future is thus to identify the key functions
expected of government, to suggest that technological developments will
alter the characteristics of those functions, and to predict that in time the
structure of government will inevitably adapt to those changes, without
however specifying how long the process will take. Concretely, as the
activities of people impinge increasingly on others outside their national
jurisdiction, pressures will arise for greater international cooperation, and
even for delegating limited powers to supernational bodies. The Euro-
pean Union oers a contemporary example of this process at work.
Improvements in communication introduce new methods for assuring
political accountability, which could also diminish the importance of the
nation-state.

Modern Futurology

In chapter 9 Alexander Schmidt-Gernig places ``futurology'' into its in-

tellectual and historical context. Men have sought to foretell the future
for millenniathe oldest known Chinese writing is on ``oracle bones'' of