Abstract
Graham Galer reviews ‘scenarios’ of different futures for the governance and socio-economic development of South Africa, as seen pre-1994. As a former scenario planner in industry, Galer describes how scenario thinking, developed primarily for use in strategic management, might have helped to build consensus in circumstances of social and political conflict in South Africa. He considers whether this work made a useful contribution to the enormous changes that took place, and asks in what circumstances a similar methodology could profitably be employed in other situations of conflict.
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Notes
2 Apart from the published sources cited, this account is derived from conversations and other communication by the author with Koosum Kalyan (now with Shell International, London) and Adam Kahane (now with Generon Consulting, Beverley, MA).
3 The following brief descriptions of the scenarios are paraphrased from Le Roux and Maphai, 1996, 93–101, and accompanying quotations also come from those pages.
4 Taken from http://www.10years.gov.za/review/statements/10dec03.htm (28 January 2004).
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Additional information
1This article is a summary of a longer and more detailed article published as ‘Scenarios of Change in South Africa’ by Graham Galer (2004) Roundtable 93: 369–383. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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Galer, G. Preparing the Ground? Scenarios and political change in South Africa. Development 47, 26–34 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100092
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100092