Foresight methods are often treated as transferable tools whose selection depends mainly on the object of analysis, the time horizon or the available data. This article argues that such a view is incomplete because foresight methods are embedded in governance settings and perform different institutional functions across them. The article does not claim that the context-dependence of foresight methods is new per se. Rather, it contributes by specifying this context-dependence through the lens of governance logics and by showing how the same foresight methods perform different institutional functions across technocratic, market-managerial, networked and anticipatory governance settings. <?noindent??>The purpose of the article is to develop a governance-sensitive framework that links foresight methods to institutional functions in public decision-making. Empirically, the article uses a contrastive case design. The European Union is treated as the focal case of institutionalised strategic foresight in a multi-level governance system, while Japan and South Korea serve as secondary contrastive cases. The design does not seek a fully symmetrical country-by-country comparison. Rather, it uses the Japanese and South Korean cases to contrast the EU trajectory with alternative governance settings in which foresight remains more strongly linked to technocratic priority-setting, developmental planning or data-driven policy adjustment. The analysis combines an exploratory bibliometric mapping of Scopus publications, VOSviewer-based semantic analysis of foresight-method terms, manual validation of 68 publications and qualitative case interpretation. <?noindent??>The findings suggest that foresight methods are not institutionally neutral. In technocratic settings, they mainly support expert prioritisation and cognitive opening; in market-managerial settings, strategic positioning and performance alignment; in networked governance, stakeholder alignment and legitimacy building; and in data-driven or anticipatory governance, early warning, resilience monitoring and policy adaptation. The EU case shows the most developed combination of networked and anticipatory functions. Strategic Foresight Reports, ESPAS, the EU-wide Foresight Network, the Better Regulation Toolbox, the European Green Deal, Open Strategic Autonomy and resilience dashboards together indicate that EU strategic foresight should be understood as a networked and anticipatory governance infrastructure rather than as a set of isolated forecasting techniques. <?noindent??>The article contributes to European futures research by shifting the discussion of foresight-method selection from universal methodological classifications to the institutional design of future-oriented governance. It also introduces the notion of function-sensitive foresight design as a complement to existing method taxonomies in futures studies.

Governance logics and foresight functions: European strategic foresight in contrastive perspective

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2026年7月9日

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Natalia Veselitskaya,
Dina Malekova

摘要

Foresight methods are often treated as transferable tools whose selection depends mainly on the object of analysis, the time horizon or the available data. This article argues that such a view is incomplete because foresight methods are embedded in governance settings and perform different institutional functions across them. The article does not claim that the context-dependence of foresight methods is new per se. Rather, it contributes by specifying this context-dependence through the lens of governance logics and by showing how the same foresight methods perform different institutional functions across technocratic, market-managerial, networked and anticipatory governance settings.

The purpose of the article is to develop a governance-sensitive framework that links foresight methods to institutional functions in public decision-making. Empirically, the article uses a contrastive case design. The European Union is treated as the focal case of institutionalised strategic foresight in a multi-level governance system, while Japan and South Korea serve as secondary contrastive cases. The design does not seek a fully symmetrical country-by-country comparison. Rather, it uses the Japanese and South Korean cases to contrast the EU trajectory with alternative governance settings in which foresight remains more strongly linked to technocratic priority-setting, developmental planning or data-driven policy adjustment. The analysis combines an exploratory bibliometric mapping of Scopus publications, VOSviewer-based semantic analysis of foresight-method terms, manual validation of 68 publications and qualitative case interpretation.

The findings suggest that foresight methods are not institutionally neutral. In technocratic settings, they mainly support expert prioritisation and cognitive opening; in market-managerial settings, strategic positioning and performance alignment; in networked governance, stakeholder alignment and legitimacy building; and in data-driven or anticipatory governance, early warning, resilience monitoring and policy adaptation. The EU case shows the most developed combination of networked and anticipatory functions. Strategic Foresight Reports, ESPAS, the EU-wide Foresight Network, the Better Regulation Toolbox, the European Green Deal, Open Strategic Autonomy and resilience dashboards together indicate that EU strategic foresight should be understood as a networked and anticipatory governance infrastructure rather than as a set of isolated forecasting techniques.

The article contributes to European futures research by shifting the discussion of foresight-method selection from universal methodological classifications to the institutional design of future-oriented governance. It also introduces the notion of function-sensitive foresight design as a complement to existing method taxonomies in futures studies.