Futures-in-train, strategic contexts, and political wisdom : a framework for case study analysis

The article sketches a framework for thinking more deeply about how to integrate the theorisation of the future into the detailed analysis of particular cases. Barbara Adam (2009) has argued powerfully that the ideology of modernity envisages an empty future, and that this can be not only misleading but destructive. The development of a theoretically informed case study approach to futures, drawing on Adam's work and combining it with strong structuration theory's treatment of the strategic context (Stones, 2005), is intended to increase the resources available for thinking systematically against this ideology. It offers examples of a disciplined series of combined conceptual and methodological steps for addressing conjunctural strategic questions about futures which are grounded or anchored in processes already-in-train, or likely to be in-train, once that future arrives. These are designed to guard against the kind of ungrounded, voluntaristic, wishful ideals as to "what can be" that all too often lead to moral recklessness and irresponsible advocacy.