Introduction

The Finnish Committee for the Future (CF) is the world's first and only permanent parliamentary committee dedicated to the future. It has inspired others around the globe to establish parliamentary future committees (Koskimaa and Raunio 2022), and it has become a standard ‘benchmark’ for those innovations (e.g., Caney 2016). While some scholarly attention has been paid to the Committee for the Future (Arter 2000; Boston 2016a; Koskimaa and Raunio 2020, 2022; Smith, Chapter 8, this volume), this chapter will provide a more comprehensive account of the Finnish foresight system by providing an overview of the other parts of the system and an analysis of the CF in this broader context.

By doing this, the chapter also aims to make a more general contribution to the literature on the ‘democratic myopia thesis’ (e.g., MacKenzie 2021b). Without denying the basic logic of the thesis, this chapter starts from two observations that justify new directions for the study of future-regarding policymaking. First, the democratic myopia thesis overemphasises the voter–politician nexus as an explanation for why policy outcomes are often myopic. In practice, voters have less influence over specific policy agendas and elected politicians have less discretion in the day-to-day governance of their societies than is often assumed. In contemporary complex societies the activities of policymakers largely concern the managing of existing policy programmes (Pierson 2004), and the piecemeal development of capacities to address emerging challenges (Pollitt 2008). The essence of technocratic, expert-driven policymaking is to act independently – at least in some respects – from the demands of voters and the fray of electoral politics. The purpose is to make policies that are based on expert insight rather than political considerations (Caramani 2020).

Secondly, empirical studies show that the discretion of policymakers varies across political systems. Some institutional configurations give politicians and other policymakers more freedom to make decisions – and long-term policy investments – in ways that are not directly constrained or inhibited by short-term electoral considerations (Jacobs 2011). Power-sharing institutions, such as coalition governments and corporatist systems, which also facilitate deliberation among diverse groups of elite actors, can enhance a political system's capacity for making and maintaining long-term commitments (Boston 2016a, 2021; Jacobs 2016; Caluwaerts and Vermassen, Chapter 9, this volume).