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Political Outlook

Athena @ ST 23 May 2019


An increasing number of pitfalls, such as escalating political risk, the high volatility of commodity prices and supply constraints, began to slow world growth in late 2018 and cast a shadow over the outlook for 2019.
What is changing?

Read on to discover what our robot, Athena, has found on the political outlook and act accordingly, or click any link to read the evidence she found in 6,648 reports, articles and presentations from the web and social media in a few seconds.

If you are new to foresight, we recommend you view this slide presentation first to get the best out of this report.

Quick Summary

The new summary visuals below are completely machine produced, showing our robot's global analysis of:

Driving Forces (Beta)


What is changing?

Causations (Beta)

Who and what are causing these changes:


Potential solutions

What are others doing to seize opportunities or minimise risks?

You can learn more, click through to more detail on 'political outlooks' and run collaborative, digital  workshops on these findings at .

More analysis
This summary analysis draws from our robot's below visualizations of on the future political outlook and draws from different vantage points to tell the story of what's emerging just like a GPS system.

Cloud: Not surprisingly, politics is still driven by the old adage 'It's the economy stupid!', by the need to protect the public from security risks and to win elections.

Systems map: But, the prime discourse of the day is about global trade sanctions, protectionism, rising military threats, and many forthcoming important elections, particularly in Europe, which threaten the status quo.  That could lead to a breakup of the EU in the years ahead and maybe in the US too if circumstances were right. And, the political problems in Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine, North Korea, Syria, Turkey, Libya and Taipei continue with America, Russia and China in confrontational competition with each other.

Radar chart: In addition, politicians are concerned about the rise of fake news generated by rogue actors, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and protection of privacy, and security. The IT industry is therefore under scrutiny.

Spline chart: The two Spline Charts we have again provided this week show just how political issues have risen in the last three years. Since Donald Trump's polarizing election and his pugilistic approach to making America great again, the world has taken a different path. The rise of nationalism in Europe has also added to the public discourse. It remains to be seen if these are temporary or permanent changes in political paths. Ten years after the 1929 Crash populists were on the rise with disastrous consequences for the world. It's now a decade on from the Great Crash and populists are on the rise again. 'Those who don't read history are doomed to relive it.' Our politicians need to wake up and smell the new coffee!

Sentiment: Positive sentiments are finely balanced against negative public political feelings. Concerns are being increasingly voice about the increased risk of a global recession due to political uncertainties, mass migrations due to increasing climate change, non-reversible damage to the environment and species and potential wars. The natives are restless for change and want their politicians to act now; not kick the can down the road.

Pie Charts: Despite these concerns, political issues are not high on the priority list for most people and organizations. Most desires for political change are still in the early stages or gaining traction. This would suggest that populism will continue to rise unless traditional political parties get their house in order and listen and act quickly on their publics concerns. But, sudden and unexpected global or regional shock, could accelerate or reverse the trend very quickly. We recommend the creation of scenarios around sudden economic shock/ continued growth and global political accord/discord to guide your organizations strategic thinking and its ability to remain agile and resilient to these growing uncertainties.

Heat map: The Heat Map shows the current weak efforts of governments to drive positive change in their countries and regions. National and regional governments the world over could be doing a lot more to create positive change and in so doing retain their influence and power.

Emergent Drivers: The emergent drivers chart shows which G20 countries are in the van or the back of the bus on political issues.

USA, Japan, UK, and China are in the van with Trade, the Olympics and China's growth plans dominating the discussions. South Africa, Turkey, Argentina and South Korea are at the back of the bus.

Cities: Cities are playing an increasing role in setting and arguing for changes in political issues. European and Middle Eastern cities are at the heart of this trend.

SWOT: This is the first time since many previously published Trend Alerts that the SWOT chart shows considerably more Threats and Weaknesses than Opportunities or Strengths. Perhaps, therefore the public is increasingly populist because they see their politicians as incapable of seizing opportunities and significantly reducing threats.

Visuals
For more detailed explanation of the graphics below please click here. All outlooks based on 2025 unless otherwise stated.

Cloud
Not surprisingly, politics is still driven by the adage 'It's the economy stupid!' by the need to protect the public from security risks and to win elections.

System map
But, the prime discourse of the day is about global trade sanctions, protectionism, rising military threats, and many forthcoming important elections, particularly in Europe, which threaten the status quo.  That could lead to a breakup of the EU in the years ahead and maybe in the US too if circumstances were right And, the political problems in Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine, North Korea, Syria, Turkey, Libya and Taipei continue with America, Russia and China in confrontational competition with each other.

Radar chart
In addition, politicians are concerned about the rise of fake news generated by rogue actors, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and protection of privacy, and security. The IT industry is therefore under scrutiny.

Graph-It
By 2025, we can expect to see continuing political discourse around how to control data and the actors that gather and supply it. Adequate food provision, required infrastructure/construction, energy supply and changes jobs and employment on a mass scale are also likely to dominate discussions with resulting new regulations on all fronts.



Spline
The two Spline Charts we have again provided this week show just how political issues have risen in the last three years. Since Donald Trump's polarizing election and his pugilistic approach to making America great again, the world has taken a different path. The rise of nationalism in Europe has also added to the public discourse. It remains to be seen if these are temporary or permanent changes in political paths.

Trend Wave - Today

Trend Wave – 3 years ago

Ten years after the 1929 Crash populists were on the rise with disastrous consequences for the world. It's now a decade on from the Great Crash and populists are on the rise again. 'Those who don't read history are doomed to relive it.' Our politicians need to wake up and smell the new coffee!

Sentiment



Positive sentiments are finely balanced against negative public political feelings. Concerns are being increasingly voice about the increased risk of a global recession due to political uncertainties, mass migrations due to increasing climate change, non-reversible damage to the environment and species and potential wars. The natives are restless for change and want their politicians to act now, not kick the can down the road.

Pie Charts


Despite these concerns, political issues are not high on the priority list for most people and organizations. Most desires for political change are still in the early stages or gaining traction. This would suggest that populism will continue to rise unless traditional political parties get their house in order and listen and act quickly on their publics concerns. But, sudden and unexpected global or regional shock, could accelerate or reverse the trend very quickly. We recommend the creation of scenarios around sudden economic shock/ continued growth and political accord/discord to guide your organizations strategic thinking and its ability to remain agile and resilient to these growing uncertainties.

Heat map

The Heat Map shows the current weak efforts of governments to drive positive change in their countries and regions. National and regional governments the world over could be doing a lot more to create positive change and in so doing retain their influence and power.

Emergent drivers

The emergent drivers chart shows which G20 countries are in the van or the back of the bus on political issues.

USA, Japan, UK, and China are in the van with Trade, the Olympics and China's growth plans dominating the discussions. South Africa, Turkey, Argentina and South Korea are at the back of the bus.

Cities

Cities are playing an increasing role in setting and arguing for changes in political issues.

European and Middle Eastern cities are at the heart of this trend.

SWOT



This is the first time since many previously published Trend Alerts that the SWOT chart shows considerably more Threats and Weaknesses than Opportunities or Strengths. Perhaps, therefore the public is increasingly populist because they see their politicians as incapable of seizing opportunities and significantly reducing threats.


Questions

Evidence

Search term: 'wearable*'. Use this search term to explore our database for more knowledge and wisdom and latest data and information on the topic.

Implications

What's Changing?

risk

uncertainty

crisis

opportunity

environment

factor

stability

growth

pressure

situation

confrontation

instability

Potential Responses

Use the findings of this Trend Alert to determine and rank your options and choose how you can respond by examining your Options either on your own publicly, or collaboratively if our private client.

Contact us if you would like some free training with this Options method.

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Sources


Athena used the sources below as the top ones to create this report and determined which embedded forecasts are included in this Trend Alert. She found 6,648 forecasts in seconds on 23rd May 2019 to allow us to publish this report in less than two hours. She can turn these into PowerPoint slides and Audio files in minutes too as you wish, or we can prepare a full customized and professionally written brief for you to order covering all these forecasts.

Athena
Athena does show duplicates to aid your understanding of themes as well as contradictory forecasts. She may also show near-duplicates. You can speed read past the duplicates and near-duplicates if you wish, though the latter may show additional information. You can use the contradictory, and likely uncertain forecasts she finds to imagine different scenarios. The future is unpredictable, but we can examine the possibilities and choose our preferable future from the choices she presents. 

Athena is apolitical. She will report forecasts from different viewpoints however distasteful that might be to our own values. Wearing rose-colored glasses is not her purpose; reporting potential futures is. So, we recommend you check her veracity before responding to her extracted forecasts.

Just like humans, Athena can be fallible. Do recognize that you and your associates are biased too. But whereas you tire, make mistakes and only recognize what interests you, she does not. She might miss or misinterpret as you do, but with far less frequency and she'll take uncomfortable truths and alternative ideas in her stride. But, please let us know if you feel her bias can be reduced. We want to do our best for you. And, as with any research, you should check and triangulate her findings for yourself.

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