Democracy’s Tomorrows: Democratic Futures, Grounded Conjecture, and Time Machines

Futurism in the study of democracy offers a cornucopia of possible democratic futures as demonstrated by its literature. Authors ground conjecture on evidence from the present, or from more historic times, to chart likelihoods for democracy in the “near”, “distant” and “unforeseeable” future. As Bertrand de Jouvenel argues, conjecture matters because it allows us to reflect on the present – on our social mores, technology, quality of life, and pathologies for example – so that we may question them, banish them, or enhance them in a reconstituted, but necessarily relatable, world (à la H. G. Wells for instance). This article reflects on the state of democracy’s futurism in contrast to the methods used by other futurists which reveals that the futurists of democracy infrequently use time machines (i.e. fictional narrative, role playing, and virtual reality). We, therefore, argue that the adoption of such methods should be pursued as they invite one’s audience to experience, to critically imagine as Isaiah Berlin encourages us to do, one or more of democracy’s tomorrows.