Governing for the future : designing democratic institutions for a better tomorrow

Front Cover -- Governing for the Future: Designing Democratic Institutions for a Better Tomorrow -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Introduction: What This Book Is about - A Brief Overview -- Setting the Scene -- Confronting Intertemporal Trade-Offs -- Critical Assumptions -- The Structure and Scope of the Book -- A Focus on Advanced Democracies -- Notes -- Part 1: The Challenge of Long-Term Democratic Governance -- Chapter 1 Intertemporal Policy-Making in Advanced Democracies: The Risk of a Presentist Bias -- 1.1. Politics, Democracy, and Time -- 1.1.1. Undervaluing Future Interests -- 1.1.2. A Presentist Bias -- 1.1.3. Types of Intertemporal Dilemmas -- 1.2. The Politics of 'When' - Analysing Governments' Intertemporal Policy Choices -- 1.3. The Long-Term Governance Problem -- 1.3.1. Long-Term -- 1.3.2. Governance -- 1.3.3. Problem - The Presentist Bias -- 1.3.3.1. The Nature of a Presentist Bias -- 1.4. Evidence of a Presentist Bias -- 1.4.1. Counter-Arguments -- 1.4.1.1. How Convincing Are These Objections? -- A Non-Existent Problem? -- A Misconceived Problem? -- An Inconsequential Problem? -- 1.5. Is Improving Long-Term Democratic Governance Possible? -- 1.5.1. Assessing the Concerns -- 1.5.2. Good Governance, the Good Society, and the Role of the State -- 1.6. Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 2 The Presentist Bias: Conceptualizing and Assessing the Problem -- 2.1. Introduction -- 2.2. Clarifying Aspects of the Problem -- 2.2.1. Diminishing Attention to Consequences as Their Temporal Distance Increases -- 2.2.2. Insufficient Foresight -- 2.2.3. Overload, Crowding-Out, and the Tyranny of the Urgent -- 2.2.4. Implications -- 2.3. Assessing the Strength and Variability of the Presentist Bias -- 2.3.1. Constructing a Composite Index.