COVER STORY • Future Design – Thinking About Our Legacy to the Next Generation • 6Future Design for
Political Systems

By Yoichi Hizen

What Is Future Design?
Future Design (FD) is an academic field (theory, experimentation,
inquiry) and its praxis that aims to build new social systems catering
to future generations, so as to achieve sustainable, future-readysocieties. Tatsuyoshi Saijo of Kochi University of Technology
established a research society together with Keishiro Hara andcolleagues of Osaka University to promote discussions, resulting inthe setting up of the Research Institute for Future Design at Kochi
University of Technology, and a Future Design Section in the Center
for Open Innovation Research and Education at the Graduate Schoolof Engineering at Osaka University.
The building of social systems draws on macro-issues of
economics, politics and engineering, all the way to micro-issues ofpsychology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience, to answer thequestion of whether humans are disposed to carefully consider
future generations (i.e. humans who do not yet exist) and, if they are
so disposed, what is needed to mobilize that disposition.
Furthermore, finding answers to questions regarding the nature ofwhat it is that will fundamentally benefit future generations draws on
philosophical issues. In this way, FD drives collaboration bysurpassing the traditional boundaries of academic disciplines.
Government officials of local bodies and ministries, too, areparticipating in the research, and results are being turned into
practicalities. The results are becoming visible in education, with FDclasses to start being held in 2019.

How to Include Future Generations
The fundamental question is how a new social system can cater tofuture generations. To answer this, the main current topic of researchin FD is the establishment of “Imaginary Future Generation”
discussion groups. That is, creating groups within citizens’ town
planning discussion forums and, for example, asking them toimagine that they are citizens in the year 2060, to discuss from thatpoint of view what they think will be of benefit to their society, andseeing what ideas they produce.
Sustainability research to date has used “backcasting”, asking
what sort of future conditions will be engendered by the current
generation and then considering what must currently be done for thesake of them. Nevertheless, it is difficult to reach agreement among
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Author Yoichi Hizen

the current generation about future conditions that, in order toachieve them, entail disadvantages. This is why policies necessary
for bringing about benefits for future generations, but to thedisadvantage of current generations, tend to be deferred. There is no
avoiding it: future generations must be brought into the debate. But
those future generations have yet to appear. This does not mean
giving up on participation by future generations. Rather, it means
creating an imaginary future generation in today’s society, andhaving it participate that way. Behind this approach is a powerfulsense of crisis: an understanding that without going to such lengths,
solutions to the issue of sustainability will be difficult to achieve, anda concurrent widening of the scope of shared consciousness. The
ideas and initiatives of FD have been covered by the major domestic
Japanese newspapers, and also introduced in 17 languages on theinternationally broadcast NHK World-Japan.
The FD method of creating imaginary future generations has beenused for town planning purposes, including the town of Yahaba in
Iwate Prefecture and numerous other local bodies, from Hokkaido to
the Kansai region. Observing what is happening on the ground there,
the trend is towards creative, concrete ideas being produced that aim
to leverage each municipality’s strengths. Furthermore, imaginary
future generation-style group discussions have been held in Japan,
Nepal and Bangladesh as experiments undertaken for research
purposes, and the results published as papers in Sustainability
Science, Futures, PLOS ONE, and other academic journals.
Evidence of the usefulness of imaginary future generation-style
citizens’ discussions for town planning is steadily growing, raising
expectations of their being noticed and taken up by other local
bodies and spreading nationwide. Such expectations extend to theadministrative staff of local bodies who organize these citizens’
discussion groups. It is hoped that they will create imaginary future
generations among themselves, establishing “Future Departments”
within local bodies, and take on the task of incorporating a future
generation perspective into current measures and policies. If thenotion finds currency among the Japanese people in general that
local bodies without such a department lack foresight vis-à-vis future
generations, then the spread of Future Departments throughout local
bodies across Japan can only accelerate. The Yahaba town hall has
already established the Yahaba Future 22 Research Center. Local
authority initiatives of this kind reaching the national level would
result in the establishment of a “Ministry of the Future”. The officers
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COVER STORY 6of the Ministry of the Future would involve themselves in all policies
that affected the interests of future generations, negotiate with otherministries, and work to ensure benefits for future generations.
(Although a limited-period project, an actual example of this is theSwedish government’s “Mission: the Future” – a long-term projectthat examined issues from 2015 to 2016. The minister responsible
was Minister for Strategic Development and Nordic Cooperation
Kristina Persson, who was referred to as the “Minister of the
Future”.)

Possibilities in Politics
The above initiatives and frameworks are posited as being
undertaken mainly by citizens and government officials; but theregular way of doing things is that politicians appeal to the people
concerning how the country’s future should be, are chosen throughelections, and proceed with bringing that about. So, is FD possibleby the hand of politicians?
In current elections, voters are citizens aged 18 years or over. It
follows, therefore, that for politicians to win an election on a platformthat brings disadvantages to the current generation in order toachieve benefits for future generations, they must have the supportof the current generation of voters. Saijo defines futurability as
follows: “A person exhibits futurability when this person experiences
an increase in happiness as a result of deciding and acting to forego
current benefits as long as it enriches future generations.” (“Future
Design: Bequeathing Sustainable Natural Environments andSustainable Societies to Future Generations”, Working Paper, SDES2018-4, Kochi University of Technology, 2018). To achieve benefits
for future generations by way of the electoral system in its current
state, the present generation must have futurability and exercise it in
its voting decisions. If this is deemed difficult, then the introductionof a new electoral system must be considered. I introduce anelectoral system design that establishes a representative seat for
future generations, and a ballot for the sake of future generations.

Creating Seats for Future Generations
Creating seats means establishing a special constituency for future
generations where election candidates can vie for seats on the basisof their public commitments made for the sake of future generations.
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The number of seats allotted to such a constituency could be
increased, and aggregated as one of two chambers, which chamber
could then be named the Future House. Ultimately, it would be given
supreme authority, with bills that passed through the existing househaving to be ratified by passage through the Future House as well.
However, voters in the special constituencies would, like those inother constituencies, be of the current generation, and election
winners could well end up being those candidates who minimized
disadvantages for the current generation.
Such a danger can be postulated, as demonstrated in the resultsof research on elections for the lower house in India (“Does Political
Reservation Affect Voting Behaviour? Empirical Evidence from India”
by Yuko Mori and Takashi Kurosaki, Economic & Political Weekly 51(20), 2016). In constituencies with large numbers of those from theformer untouchable class, there is a rule that only those of that class
may stand for election. (Electorates of this kind are known as
reserved constituencies.) This is a measure by which the sociallydisadvantaged can send representatives to parliament; but to look at
it from another perspective, voters living in such constituencies but
who belong to the upper social classes must choose who to vote forfrom among those belonging to what was once the untouchable
class. Mori and Kurosaki took data from the National Election Study
2004 (the results of a questionnaire survey conducted on
approximately 27,000 Indian voters by the Centre for the Study ofDeveloping Societies) and subjected it to regression analysis. While
the voting rate among members of the former untouchable class was
3.6% higher in reserved constituencies than in other constituencies,
no difference was found between constituencies in the voting rate
among those in the upper social classes. That is to say, giving
preferential treatment to a particular class makes no difference to thevoting behavior, in terms of whether to go and vote or not, of classes
not afforded such treatment. However, the opposite result emergedin regard to the decision as to which party to vote for. Namely, there
was no difference in the party vote between constituencies of former
untouchables; but compared with other constituencies, there was atendency for upper social class voters in reserved constituencies tovote less for parties supported by former untouchables and more forparties supported by the upper classes.

COVER STORY 6

Creating Voting on Behalf of Future Generations
The effectiveness of rules to try and give special groups a politicalvoice can be weakened by changes in the voting behavior of othergroups – a point that must be considered when establishing voting
on behalf of a future generation. Paul Demeny declared the need forgovernance that is keenly responsive to the voice of the younger
generation, as a measure to cope with the declining birthrate, andproposed a voting system that gives parents a proxy vote on behalfof their children who have not yet reached voting age (“Pronatalist
Policies in Low-fertility Countries: Patterns, Performance, andProspects”, Population and Development Review 12 (supplement),1986).
My own research group has been developing this idea, examining
by way of laboratory experimentation to determine what kind of
voting behavior ensues when certain voters vote as proxies for a
future generation (“Hearing the Voice of Future Generations: A
Laboratory Experiment of ‘Demeny Voting’” by Yoshio Kamijo, Yoichi
Hizen, and Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Working Paper, SDES-2015-8, Kochi
University of Technology; “Voting on Behalf of a Future Generation: A
Laboratory Experiment” by Yoshio Kamijo, Yoichi Hizen, Tatsuyoshi
Saijo, and Teruyuki Tamura,Working Paper, SDES-2018-2, Kochi
University of Technology).
A group comprising mainly university students was supplemented
in part with participants from the general populace and brought intoa laboratory. They were divided into two groups representing,hypothetically, the current generation and a future generation. A vote
was then held by the current generation group only on how to best
divide money between the current and future generation. The
participants were given a financial motivation in that the amount ofmoney received would comprise the actual fee paid to them forparticipating. Two elections were held about how to divide themoney: one based on the conventional rule of one person, one vote,and the other on the rule of certain voters being given an extra, proxyvote on behalf of a future generation (proxy voting).
The voting behavior of those who, because of the proxy voting
rule, did not get to vote on behalf of a future generation (i.e. those
not given preferential voting rights) was scrutinized. In voting basedon the conventional rule, there were those who voted to allocate themoney equally between the current and future generation. However,it was observed that some of the same people, in voting where theproxy voting rule was in place, voted to reduce the amount of money
allocated to the future generation and increase the amount allocatedto the current generation.
Even if the trouble is taken to introduce voting on behalf of a future
generation, voters not given this preferential voting right can change
their voting behavior in a way that weakens the effectiveness of such
an electoral system. However, encouragingly, it has also been
observed that an explanation of the purpose of proxy voting canameliorate this change in voting behavior.

Importance of the Process of System Change
A brusque change in the system can provoke resistance amongrights holders who do not enjoy preferential treatment under it in its
new form, and hinder achievement of the original purpose of thesystem change. For this reason, the design of such a system must
extend even to the process of change. Mechanisms must be in placethat prevent counteraction between the effects of the system, alongwith mechanisms that, from the outset, ensure that the systemchanges meet with approval. Considering that all system changes
take place in the context of current systems, then, of course, theyrequire the support of the current generation. It therefore follows that
futurability must be mobilized.
Finding solutions for the macro-issue of social system architecture(an election system that includes future generations) requires microresearch into human qualities (futurability). FD must be promoted in
an all-out mobilization of every discipline. We look forward to theparticipation of researchers and practitioners in various fields.

Yoichi Hizen is a professor at the School of Economics and Management &the Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology. He
specializes in political economy and experimental economics.

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