Who makes the world? Academics and (un)cancelling the future

Abstract

In this essay, we consider the role of academics as change-makers. There is a long line of reflection about academics’ sociopolitical role(s) in international relations (IR). Yet, our attempt differs from available considerations in two regards. First, we emphasize that academics are not a homogenous group. While some keep their distance from policymakers, others frequently provide policy advice. Hence, positions and possibilities of influence differ. Second, our argument is not oriented towards the past but the future. That is, we develop our reflections on academics as change-makers by outlining the vision of a ‘FutureLab’, an innovative, future forum that brings together different world-makers who are united in their attempt to improve ‘the world'. Our vision accounts for current, perhaps alarming trends in academia, such as debates about the (in)ability to confront post-truth politics. Still, it is a (critically) optimistic one and can be read as an invitation for experimentation. Finally, we sympathize with voices demanding the democratization of academia and find that further cross-disciplinary dialogues within academia and dialogues between different academics, civil society activists and policymakers may help in finding creditable solutions to problems such as climate change and populism.

Keywords

Multiplicity policy scholar-practitioners transdisciplinarity un-cancelling the future world-makers

Welcome to the Future(Lab)

In 2030, we find ourselves at the ‘FutureLab’ in Brussels. A diverse group of academics and experts initiates the FutureLab to create thinking space and new policy proposals. It soon becomes a collective effort to bring together world-makers: policymakers, activists, business and religious leaders, (other) academics, youth organizations and so on. Often marginalized groups such as indigenous activists are included as well and encouraged to talk rather than merely to listen. The FutureLab is imagined to be a creative yet pragmatic space. A space that materializes for several days and in which working groups include participants with different professional backgrounds to allow for controversial but productive debates. Being a centre of exchange, consolidation and advancement for progressive social science, the FutureLab is described by some as a ‘political CERN’,¹ a space, where ideas (and matter) are accelerated, collide and – even if just in a tiny number of attempts – fuse and bring about something unexpected and truly ‘future-uncancelling’. To approach their goal, the organizers asked the participants to sum up the working group’s outputs in widely accessible language. Adopting a key academic practice to the spirit of the FutureLab, the outputs are reviewed by at least three academic and non-academic referees before they are turned into open-access publications, oriented towards decision-makers and citizens.

Yet the FutureLab is at a crossroads. In view of the organizers, they have a one-shot opportunity. Either they advance outputs that spur short- and long-term policy development or the experiment will collapse, and more and more world-makers will resign. The reasons for this pressure are manifold. Evidently, the FutureLab challenges habits, social conventions and the long-established logics of high-level encounters. Those who enjoy a prestigious position in the ‘old world’ see their position challenged. Moreover, the FutureLab relies on resources (rooms, money for travel expenses, etc.) which – against all visions – remain scarce and competed, again strengthening the need to deliver quickly and visibly.

Despite these obstacles, a space such as the FutureLab is desperately needed as in 2030, yesterday’s fears are today’s reality. Great power politics is back with a vengeance – a Russian oil tanker, returning from one of the newly accessed oil fields north of Greenland, has been sunk by a US missile, an incident that has quickly been labelled by both sides as a ‘dangerous accident’. The countries in the two powers’ spheres of influence nervously await their next moves. The impacts of climate change are ever clearer – rising sea levels just recently led authorities to evacuate the first islands in the Pacific. London, Rotterdam, New York and Shanghai fear the same fate. There are also massive and increasing two-way migration flows that meet with futile efforts at control: European countries fail to stop irregular entries by people fleeing conflict or seeking low-skilled work, yet face an exodus, a brain-drain of well-educated citizens with ‘other’ religious and ethnic backgrounds who feel threatened by persistent racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic attacks.

Years ago, academics from natural as well as from social sciences had already pointed towards these possible futures. Yet, many policymakers and pundits were unwilling or unable to hear them. Those who did often dismissed these concerns as ‘hysterical’ or ‘unpatriotic’. While ‘the concerned’ persisted for a while, many of them eventually accommodated, not willing or not having the strength or voice to contest the world’s approaching future any longer. The academics, for their part, hardly knew how to tell their story about the future, or how to change it.

Some policymakers, ‘global thought leaders’ and ‘influencers’ are sceptical about what the FutureLab might hold for them. As for any practitioner, time is their most valuable resource, and too often they have participated in academic conferences that did not result in any policy advice. Yet, they still go to the FutureLab because of their uneasiness with what evolves in practice under the conditions of bureaucratic routine and the multiple power-struggles in which they are entangled. At least, they think, the FutureLab tries to make a difference – and are not afraid to push boundaries to get beyond the same old, tired thinking.

The FutureLab’s experimental character is obvious. Leaders are now part of the crowd. Titles, appointments and professions are of no interest; all participants remain anonymous. The FutureLab is focused on arguments instead of titles or social prestige. Working groups are established in a bottom-up manner. The Future Lab invites everyone to come to the table with their visions. Only in a second step are those translated to different realms and roles. To make oneself small is not something the leaders are used to, and quite a few feel the risks of doing so outweigh the potential benefits. Yet, the scale of the challenges they face compels them to try something new.

Similar to policymakers, some civil society advocates and activists need to be convinced of the ideas underlying the FutureLab. Rather than being talked with, they have too-often been talked about in settings that brought together the blatant world-makers. In fact, for many of them joining conferences and networks has been impossible due to material and discursive barriers that still exist, and activists bear the full ‘risk’ of encompassing them. Unlike policymakers and academics, they are not paid to attend such gatherings but instead can be happy to pay nothing instead. The FutureLab organizers are well aware of this problem. Therefore, they approach every participant to ask them what in particular they need to be part of the FutureLab. While for some that amounts to a train ticket, for others this means a replacement for work that would otherwise remain undone elsewhere. Rather than searching for a ‘one size’ solution, the organizers choose this costly path hoping to counter self-selective biases.

In 2030, academics are divided. Many have lost their optimism. They think about intellectual/normative surrender and have, instead, started to put their careers first. Many more question the ability of their research to change the world. They know that (social-)scientific ideas might be able to solve some of the aforementioned problems, yet they worry about the social responses to rather radical proposals – and the consistent failure to put scientific knowledge into practical, political use. So, they force themselves to stay silent and pretend they have nothing more to discover. Others, nonetheless, believe that more and better knowledge will be able to turn things around, even save the day. They continue to search for that kind of ‘philosopher’s stone’ that will solve at least one problem once if not forever.

Another group of academics see it differently, arguing that the future is right around the corner, and that maybe it just needs to be ‘re-invited’, brought back in, not by them but by people finally being able to make sense of this future, to overcome their fear of failing, their felt injustices or their longing to please everyone. For them, insightful knowledge is all around us; it just needs to be brought ‘into use’ (Wiener, 2009). They assume that their research might profit from learning more about different problem perceptions. They also assume that their education of future and hopefully reflective practitioners might benefit from knowing more about practitioners’ and other agents’ discourses. Hence, they go to different places, speaking to and hearing from people who are different from those they have met until now at academic conferences, policy dialogues, and in their lectures. Hence, while some worry about their social status, other academics are willing to experimentally discuss their ideas to create new forms of knowledge.

Even for those who are willing to experiment, the FutureLab is a challenge. Academics here are forced to use accessible language and to listen to and engage with those who speak bluntly. They see that the creation of a consensus as unlikely, and that compromises that do not suit everyone are far more likely. Still, they continue debating the puzzle called ‘the future’ in a critical but still optimistic and pragmatic manner.

How academics approach the future: Perspectives for new methods of research

How did this group gathering at the FutureLab get there, despite their scepticism and despite the risks they all are afraid of ? What processes within academia and beyond paved the way for the FutureLab? Eventually, academics had to temper internal divides over the (critical, policy-advising, etc.) role of academia in society to create the FutureLab. They did so given new challenges (climate change and populism) and recurring intra-academic debates. They felt that such intra-academic debates about the role of academia tended to create space for the taking of familiar, all-too-comfortable positions, and that the future of academia should rather be a matter of dialogue and experimentation. Hence, they started experimenting with problem-focused rather than theory-focused thinking, often in an interdisciplinary and overtly ‘critical’, yet constructive manner. In the following, we will examine the academic debates and intra-academic developments in greater detail. In doing so, we shed light on academic (self-)conceptions before we outline how academics can contribute to uncancelling the future.

The role(s) of academics

Back in the present day (2020), debates about the (future) role of academics as social agents and change-makers contemporary have been spurred by manifold observations of the global rise of ‘post-truth’ politics and right-wing populism (Jahn, 2016; Lührmann et al., 2019; Schindler, 2020). What role should ‘we’ as academics assume (critical commentator, policy advisor, etc.)? Do we have a responsibility to protect democratic achievements through further engagements with the public? Do academics possess superior reflective capacities in comparison to other agents of change? What kinds of trade-offs might emerge when academics turn to the public more often? These questions have received much attention at academic conferences in recent years – both in paper presentations and in personal conversations (Tallis, 2016; Zambernardi, 2016).

Through grappling with these questions, we (academics) continue a long line of self-reflection that can potentially be brought ‘into use’ for the creation of innovative forms or future-making. Many of our predecessors who have been trained in political science and international relations (IR) have been involved in ‘real-world politics’ and have thought about their engagement (e.g. Wallace, 1996). Yet it should not come as a surprise that both the empirical assessments of what we as academics have achieved as well as normative prescriptions of what we as academics ought to do differ greatly (Abraham and Abramson, 2017; Lawson, 2008). While some call for more policy engagements and more ‘publicism’ (Michelsen, 2018), others worry about academics’ capacity to “speak truth to power”². Still, others reject the notion that academics should in any way shape their work to fit the needs of ‘relevance’, seeing that as a corruption of the scientific calling (Jackson, 2019).

Despite these disputes, there is a tendency to contrast ‘academics’ and ‘policymakers’ or ‘civil society activists’ even if some assessments observe that academics occupy different roles in different national and scientific contexts (Millar, 2018). Still, it is critical to see that contrasts that draw clear lines between more or less scholastic academics and other agents of change hide more than they reveal. Academics are often not ‘just’ academics and the different roles which they occupy greatly affect their ability to trigger change. While keeping in mind that there are further (sub-)types, we may distinguish broadly between three different types of academics. There are theorists with different theoretical and ideological affiliations; scholar-practitioners who commute between theory and practice; and empirically oriented researchers who use different methods to assess the state of society (Holthaus, forthcoming). Such a typology has the advantage that it considers overlaps between academia and policymaking circles. Indeed scholar-practitioners, in particular figure among the most influential change-makers. Because of their fluency in academic and ‘practical’ vocabularies, they can direct the course of research paradigms and bring in research insights to real-world politics (Nye, 2008).

Even if scholar-practitioners possess outstanding positions and capacities to trigger change, we find it imperative to appreciate pluralism in academia and to point to different opportunities of influence on the way towards a FutureLab. These range from the cultivation of the reflexive capacities of future practitioners through academic education over policy advice to critical interventions in public discourses through accessible publications. However, almost needless to say, each opportunity of influence bears its advantages and dangers.

Even if we appreciate pluralism in academia, our readings and own experiences suggest that much can be gained much from middle-ground positions (Holthaus, 2019). Critical scholars, who maintain a vast distance to fields of practice, risk the development of coherent but empirically meaningless critiques (Hajer and Versteeg, 2019). At the same time, academics who move close to fields of practice and use positivist research means may only repeat what is already well known among practitioners (Carothers et al., 2016). They may also reduce their options to exercise criticism or limit the scope of what they can criticize.

Frequent dialogue between academia and the world of practice, reflections on one’s different roles, as well as pragmatic research designs that aim at tackling ‘critical problems’ may help the avoidance of the outlined pitfalls within new forums of knowledge integration (Friedrichs and Kratochwil, 2009; Stone, 2013). Pragmatism, as a philosophy, views truth as a matter of social consensus and acknowledges that each ethical or academic claim is relative. In this view, truth claims need to gain social legitimacy and creditability. The terms describe similar yet different standards. A scientific claim might gain legitimacy when it satisfies institutional standards of transparency. But it only gains credibility when it is discussed in different scientific and social circles and when it appears plausible to different academic and non-academic policymaking audiences (Aradau and Huysmans, 2019). Creditability refers to more subjective judgments of accuracy and trustworthiness (Christensen, forthcoming).

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and communication

Hence, en route to the FutureLab, experimentation with new platforms that allow for the discussion of scientific claims concerning urgent environmental and social problems is imperative. To some degree, these platforms might be created within academia through inter- and transdisciplinary research (ITD). Within the last years, ITD has sparked more and more attention within the academic system because of its capacity to enable reflexive exchange between academics and practitioners. ITD might help the translation, integration and thus reflection on different knowledge within academia (Hajer and Versteeg, 2019; Ohlhorst and Schön, 2015). It is also problem-oriented and allows for experimentation with unconventional research practices (Feldhoff et al., 2019). Third-party funders – public as well as private – have therefore endorsed ITD as an assurance for research to bring around applicable outputs. This, in turn, has also influenced the thinking within academic institutions regarding appointment and resource allocation policies.

Nonetheless, ITD is still not fully established due to intra-academic hindrances such as the need to publish in specialized journals. Also, working in ITD research must be considered as being less linear than most disciplinary research paths. It needs considerable resources, both timewise and moneywise, to establish and sustain a well-thought ITD research context. Often academics will find themselves in a situation where engagement in ITD and experimental research more generally spoken might result in additional workload and the investment of personal resources combined with an unclear perspective on results and beyond. In an academic system that evaluates scholars (often solely) on academic success measured in fixed timeframes and indicators, such a situation might be perceived as toxic (Jaeger-Erben et al., 2018).³

Hence, even within allegedly interdisciplinary disciplines such as IR, further ITD or ‘multiplicity’ (Rosenberg, 2016) might help problem-focused instead of theory-focused research, without repeating the pitfalls identified with ‘problem-solving’ work in IR (Cox, 1981). The FutureLab might be understood as an ITD experiment in and for IR. If successful, it could well contribute to a reflexive appreciation of different practices of world-making, leading to an integration that does not remain over-theoretical, nor concentrates on producing abstract knowledge about a (stable) system. It might instead offer applicable orientation and transformative knowledge even if some epistemic and political controversies last or replicate themselves in new forms. Still, creating further dialogues might help the institutionalization of reflexivity and the production of creditable knowledge, or at least thinking about the creditability of different knowledge(s).

Outside of academia, think tanks often claim to provide platforms for ITD knowledge integration, but too often they only organize events in capitals aiming at the policymaking elite and their milieu. Policymakers’ supposed demand for neat and narrow policy solutions often proves to be in the way of critical thinking beyond these forums. To further broader and more inclusive dialogues, think tanks would need to leave the capitals where the policymaking elites reside and turn to the people who live in rural areas (Brockmeier and Nitzschke, 2017). Foundations already provide models for such endeavours: They claim (rightly) to bridge academic and non-academic discourses. However, Germany’s political foundations, for example, stipulate discussions only within their respective political circles. To contribute to broader discussions, including academics and non-academics of different ‘colour’, they would need to organize more common events, or weaken their profile for the aforementioned purposes.

This quest for thinking beyond established frames applies to think tanks and foundations alike, and probably to all actors working at the academia–practice interface. Such frames often anticipate certain ways of framing knowledge to an audience that they already ‘know well’. Furthermore, the validation of advice also tends to happen in closed, self-referential circles. As for academics, moving beyond the boundaries of these circles and their paradigms entails the risk of failing, something that is often thought of as unaffordable. At the same time, it is particularly the positionality of actors such as think tanks and foundations that points towards perspectives in establishing new ways of knowledge integration. Their capacity to communicate new ideas to political decision-makers as well as to the public is an asset that could be used in a far more constructive way if suitable, resilient forums such as the FutureLab only existed.

In this section, we have brought together different approaches sketching pathways towards future spaces in which world-makers from different realms might come together. As we have shown, these encounters promise to be challenging, especially for academics needing to reconsider their own role and positionality. In the following section, we will focus on these challenges in more detail.

Why does this matter? Lock-ins at the academic-political interface

Experimenting with further forms of academic engagement is critical because the future has already begun. The two greatest challenges – climate change and populism – shape the earth, the social discourses about it. They also shape the bodies of academics (Butler, 2019, 2020) and others that materialize in a new-fashioned way of great power politics. Yet, they work against each other – populism mostly takes a right-wing form and is often linked to the denial of climate change. Both challenges are also interlinked with a series of smaller challenges, or ‘wicked problems’ (Turnbull and Hoppe, 2019), such as the integration of migrants, even in cities keen to promote themselves as progressive front runners towards more inclusive and sustainable futures. In short, the future is here, and time is pressing. Yet academia is used to long time horizons (Nye, 2008: 598). To make a contribution, an academic needs to start experimenting quickly to find new methods and spaces of knowledge generation and integration.

As indicated, there is a need to democratize academia to enable identification of and work on critical problems, and ITD might provide a platform for doing so. New paradigms in the interaction of academics, policymakers and civil society may collide with the sacred status academic institutions have acquired as exclusive spaces of scholarly reasoning. Yet, in our understanding, academia ought to become more open towards society and thereby to include and produce new forms of knowledge (Connolly, 2008: 257). A rising openness towards ITD, therefore, matters, as it may help to target our most important problems (climate change) and academic elitism and related career-pathways (and requirements) that are deeply inscribed into the logic of the system (again Jackson, 2019). This task, we argue, is not only one for academics themselves, but likewise needs to be backed by policymakers and civil society.

Although we acknowledge climate change as a critical problem, democratization and experimentation within academia also mean that discursive openness in addressing this problem will be, and needs to be, maintained. While activists such as Greta Thunberg may say that ‘science has been crystal clear’ (Thunberg, 2019) and despite a scientific consensus about climate change, it is a strength of scientific reasoning that it puts any insight on trial again and again. This mode may help the identification and resolution of critical problems.⁴ At the same time, this type of ‘back and forth’ might distance problems from political action. Policymakers, rightfully criticized by academics for their (in)action, might easily feel misunderstood and offended. It, therefore, seems indispensable to find ways to get the problems back to political arenas in particular as well as to societal arenas in a wider sense. This requires ‘translation’ into transdisciplinary and trans-sectoral spaces to bring disciplines and roles together. Such a translation should be based on dialectic openness and aim at constructive cooperation rather than at overt, hostile conflict (Kurowska and Tallis, 2013).

Scholar-practitioners already help in the identification of critical problems at the blurred boundaries between academia and the policymaking world. Yet they compose a rather small group, enjoy a special status, and their existence has reduced the pressure for further experimentation and democratization in academia. Also, they are frequently criticized by fellow academics for watering down thresholds of ‘academic quality’ and it is implied they are compromised by political elites.

Nevertheless, scholar-practitioners might successfully advocate for new ways of knowledge integration or ‘niches’ that might at some point be able to challenge current regimes of knowledge and power (Avelino, 2017). It is necessary to move beyond the notion of ‘progress’ as a driver of scholarly reasoning, institutionally as well as individually (Hellmann and Müller, 2003). Instead, experimentation might require academia and academics to rethink their role in society and within crises (Jordheim and Wigen, 2018). This might include developing a constructive perspective towards failing alongside the research path. Right now, this presents as something which is often not affordable to academics working on fixed-term contracts, with extensive teaching and management obligations and in the light of other restrictions (Jackson, 2019; again Jaeger-Erben et al., 2018).

Many if not all of the critical problems raised above impact IR scholarship. Transdisciplinary efforts in IR face manifold challenges. On the one hand, ITD arguably needs further conceptualization and application in IR even though it has been brought on the agenda lately, for instance under the term ‘multiplicity’⁵ offering a framework ‘[…] which can allow IR to be reclaimed as an originary or generative discourse – capable of speaking […] – across the social world’ (Tallis, 2018: 241). On the other hand, critical IR scholars especially cannot escape the impression that they have to some extent unlearn the language of academic practice.

Frankly, large parts of the IR community face difficulties speaking about their research to non-academics and to convincingly expound its relevance for ‘everyday’ politics. This is even more remarkable since the advising role of intra- and extramural research institutions, especially in the fields of foreign and security policy, is a long-standing element of IR. To be sure, this advising role is predominantly focused on the interaction with the elites of world politics: Advice from academics is foremost sought by governments, international organizations or large, well-equipped civil society organizations. Also, rather than working on joint knowledge integration with academia and experts, political elites often strive to simply extract ready knowledge from ‘outside’ in a unidirectional fashion. This danger of complicity of advising scholars and policymakers has frequently been criticized. Spaces to widen the focus beyond the world’s elites and to enable substantial knowledge integration consequently remain a scarce good in IR and related disciplines.

‘Making worlds’ (Onuf, 1989) has conceptually been addressed in IR as a quest of actor-specific power (Berenskoetter and Williams, 2007). Different apparently powerful world-makers have been addressed or merely been researched, in IR debates. Studies on ‘entrepreneurs’, for instance in norm research but also other fields, have focused on the agency of political idols, celebrities and business actors (Panke and Petersohn, 2017; Partzsch, 2017; Stockmann and Graf, forthcoming). States, in a progressive (Elgström, 2017) or a destructive manner (Bloomfield, 2016; Wunderlich, 2020), have also remained an important reference point. Recent studies have also considered the role of social or indigenous movements but hardly that of academics themselves (for exceptions see e.g. Hamati-Ataya, 2012; Hobson and Sajed, 2017).

Where they are included, however, the dominating question is whether academics can and should influence the policy process in the international realm (Epstein, 2012; Shepherd, 2017). It presupposes a common problem-perception, a common language and perhaps even knowledge integration. It also presupposes that academics have more to offer than the contestation and criticism of what is going on in practice (Zundel and Kokkalis, 2010). However, research on academic attempts at influencing practice shows that the cited preconditions are often not given under normal circumstances. This is also why think tanks and scholar-practitioners, institutions and actors who are ‘bilingual’ are in so powerful positions. Academic influence on practice is most likely in moments of (perceived) crisis when practitioners are willing to consider the alternative, perhaps academic views. It is unlikely that we see routinized academic influence on practice. Finally, we should start thinking about influence as a two-way street. Academics may consider how they are influenced, and they should also expose themselves to non-academic discourses and critic.

To conclude, we see substantial existing and emerging research on how actors from different realms become world-makers. Much less, however, is known on if, where, and in what manner those ‘makers’ meet and what dynamics shape these encounters (Hansen-Magnusson, 2020; Kuus, 2019). The ‘local’ as a field of engagement for IR is still very much in the making (Anderl, 2016; Hameiri and Jones, 2017). How to approach it sensitively is disputed even among critical academics (see for instance the dispute among Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, 2014; Engelkamp and Glaab, 2015; Hofius et al., 2014). Shedding more light on these questions matters: IR scholars need to be more inquisitive and acquisitive about their potential role in ‘world-making’. This would then also raise the questions of if and how the idea of ITD could be rooted more fiercely in IR, and thereby how the role of academics in public debates could be reformulated. It is also a vital task for policymakers, who need to reconsider what form of knowledge they want to commission from IR (as well as other) academics, and what forums might be best suited to obtain this knowledge.

In the end, the question, in the words of Hajer and Versteeg (2019: 123), remains: ‘Do our own stories – and the way in which we tell them – contribute to making this world a better place?’ With our proposal of a FutureLab, we offer a space, that could – in the best sense – be open to discuss and eventually move forward with these pressing questions for IR scholarship: a place to tell better, more consequential stories. Addressing these different challenges in an integrated way will help IR to refigure its role among world-makers.

How can we learn from this future today? Four suggestions for world-makers

‘Try again, fail again, fail better’. This Samuel Beckett quote is currently enjoying a revival among democratic theorists and other academics (Runciman, 2013). The reasons for this are obvious. They want to encourage policymakers to hold on to democratic commitments and to experiment with new forms of democracy. However, the quote may also be oriented towards academia itself. The major lesson derived from the aforementioned future is that we (academics) need to experiment more. We ought to start learning now and should do so more fiercely and boldly.

Put in more scholarly terms, the reflections of this essay have pointed towards some dynamics of the complex art of making a future for the world. As makers of possible, yet uncertain futures, ‘we’ obtain different roles and responsibilities (Zehfuss, 2019). Reflecting upon these subjectivities as well as the spaces where we can live up to their situatedness seems a necessary effort. Hence, we attempted to refigure the contested role of ‘us’ as academics in the process of world-making. We outlined potential possibilities and hurdles on the way to experiment with new forms of social exchange and knowledge integration, referring to the vision of a FutureLab. We concede that the establishment and the sustaining of such a vision is not a task for academics alone but also for policymakers and civil society as they demand and engage with input given by scholars of diverse disciplines – here in particular in IR-related policy advice. Hence, it is not only the future that is contested, uncertain and insecure but also how to engage with it (Hajer and Versteeg, 2019). In the remainder of this intervention, we would like to briefly sum up some ideas on how to critically and likewise pragmatically work on these ways.

Broaden our understanding of who makes the world: As we have shown, the world is full of world-makers. Those include the obviously powerful who have long been the focus of research and political practice: political and social leaders, business actors, celebrities and also academics. But there are also activists and local champions who were for a long time not recognized nor heard or even given a voice. To approach and integrate these voices, a common language or attempts at translation need to be created (Connolly, 2008: 275), and academics may train their ability to listen to those who speak a different language (Shepherd, 2017; Wiener, 2017). Put differently, academics need to learn to lessen scientific language games and instead learn alien languages to be able to address those with whom we need to work. We need to translate our often-specific strategies of world-making, in technology, in diplomacy and so forth to gain or place at the table at places such as the FutureLab and be able to make a substantial, understandable contribution there.

These mutual translations would unveil a responsive web of actors with different roles and abilities. With our idea of the FutureLab, we wanted to map out such a network – one might even call it a self-sustaining ecosystem. What roles do we need to achieve transformative change? How can ties be bound and fastened? How do we keep the system inclusive, while in motion and possibly growing at the same time?

Create and sustain spaces of world-making: The dialogue we sketched does not happen in a vacuum but in real-world spaces. Whether actors can access these spaces is crucial to make them world-makers. Hence, spaces need to be close to people, especially to those less mobile than the small global elite that is normally heard in established forums of (global) governance. Already, such spaces have been created and numerous academics and activists are engaging in experimentally bringing ‘world-makers’ together here. We claim that more such spaces need to be created. Actors willing to do so need to be enabled through public resources and systemic changes, not simply by repeated calls for ‘publicity’ (Jackson, 2019: 118). One example we have briefly touched upon is (perceived) logics of the academic system. Where these spaces do already exist, they need to be sustained. Good practices within and across policy sectors and regions need to be shared and linked to each other. Threats to such experiments should be countered. World-makers need backing as they unite and try to work together across societal realms and languages at innovative yet institutionally fragile places like the FutureLab.

The FutureLab is likely not a one-time occasion for world-makers to meet but closer to a (space-bound) network of minds, different roles, working together. Arguably, academic networks – also those that are more attached to the academic-practice boundary – already do exist. However, physical encounters in a space that can be filled independently from established conventions are still a scarce good (because, e.g., we anticipate that we know how a typical ‘conference’ should be structured). Hence, we argue that a space such as a ‘political CERN’ would be a ‘moon-shot’ attempt, unknown to social science up to now. While there might be no ‘IR Higgs-Boson’, able to explain all future challenges we have outlined, such a space might still connect people and knowledge in an unprecedented manner.

Establish a new culture of experimentation, dialogue and reflexivity: There is a huge possibility that a ‘moon-shot’ as just sketched will fail, at least on first sight. Therefore, across the different realms of world-making, a new culture of productive failure – experimentation – needs to be established. In that sense, failing is an indispensable part of world-making, which is at its core a risky endeavour. From our point of view, one central reason for this risk is: Whether world-making is successful cannot be accessed by ourselves today. There is no certainty that something that looks risky or even failed by today’s indicators might not turn out as a success tomorrow. Enduring failure is a way of training our reflexive capabilities – we usually question our assumptions and actions if we are confronted with different perspectives or (perceived) failures.

As we have outlined, systemic logics of progress and success, in academia but also beyond, often put the risky and experimental ways of progressive world-making on the sideline. Individuals are evaluated on their linear progress and their achievements with little space for detour and failure. A sociocultural change will only be possible if already powerful world-makers will stand by their own experiments and failures.⁶ They need to take responsibility by telling stories about the ups and downs of their work and engagement. We, therefore, urge everyone to be more open about failing – and hope that a space such as the FutureLab might also be an incubator for such thinking. Experimentation might be turned into a productive asset acknowledging that – especially in policymaking – it will not be possible to please everyone, and that contestation is not only fundamentally political but also desirable. Certainly, it would be important to consider this aspect in the dissemination of results from as well as in internal procedures and (peer) feedback within the FutureLab.

Resist the allure of accommodating: Everyone – in their specific role as world-maker and as private citizens – might often long for their own ‘safe spaces’: places where our opinion is not contested and where we – personally as professionally – can live and work in relative calm. This feeling, we argue, is very natural, and from time to time surely also healthy. Exposing oneself as and acclaiming the role of world-maker takes courage and is often consuming. Building communities of trust and looking after oneself is therefore indispensable, and again a FutureLab might help to do that. We rely on it to build the endurance necessary to work on the jigsaw puzzle that could be ‘our’ future. Yet, making the future is necessarily uncomfortable: We will not get everyone on the same side. Thus, while upholding their ideas and strategies, world-makers – even at constructive spaces such as the FutureLab – will need to tell people that their ideas may not have a place in the future. Staying in a niche is not an option for world-making. Consequently, pointing to injustices and being a critical voice is an urgent task for academics as well as for responsible policymakers and activists alike.

We direct all of these ideas to fellow academics but likewise to policymakers, analysts and civil society advocates. We firmly believe that the future can only be ‘uncancelled’ if – by these means and others – different world-makers come together and courageously and progressively work together. Our vision of an experimental FutureLab can at best be a placeholder for ideas and visions already out there and we do not claim to be able to eradicate all hurdles that might be in the way of the institutionalization of such a space. But we invite readers – whether academics, policymakers, think tankers, activists or interested others – to shape this idea further and to reconsider their respective role in what we believe is the constant contestation, de- and reconstruction of futures. It involves endurance, a sense of responsibility, and, maybe most importantly, the art of listening. If this succeeds, we remain optimistic that the year 2030 will not see us all accustomed and surrendered – but equipped with a sense of being world-makers and acknowledging others – policymakers, activists and leaders – as being on the same side.

If this succeeds, we are looking forward to meeting all of you in the Future(Lab).

Footnotes

Authors’ note

This article stemmed from a workshop at the Hamburg (Insecurity) Sessions, a conference conceived and organized by Benjamin Tallis (who edits New Perspectives) for the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH). Specifically, the conference was supported by the project on Arms Control and Emerging Technologies funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. The authors were competitively selected to be ‘Future Leaders’ at the event and were assigned to cover workshop 4B: Future World-Makers. This piece, written as a speculative future with additional analysis and interpretation, was peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers. The authors of this contribution are listed alphabetically and have contributed equally to the conception and drafting of this essay. The authors are thankful for the editor’s and reviewers’ suggestions that contributed a lot to sharpening the argument of this contribution.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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