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‘Backview mirror analysis’ in futures studies
OMEGA Int. J. of Mgmt Sci., Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 391-399, 1986
0305-0483/86 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Journals Ltd
Printed in Great Britain
'Backview Mirror Analysis' in Futures Studies ABDUL KHAKEE University of Ume~, Sweden (Received December 1985; in revised .form February 1986) Two central problems in carrying out futures studies in an organization are the lack of interest among the staff in futures problems and the extension of common ground between past and future beyond a few quantifiable variables. This article presents a method to deal with these problems, based on a major specific case study from municipal government in Vister~s, Sweden.
THE DEVELOPMENT and implementation of 'backview mirror' technique in the futures study of the municipality of V/isterhs (Sweden) is based on two premises which have been widely recognized by futurologists. The first premise is that in any organization (for example, a corporation or a government agency) the number of people interested in and capable of working with strategic problems is usually very small, say 2-3% of the staff. ~ A majority of the people are bound up in the present and are unwilling to abandon its constraints. If an organization intends to involve a large number of its staff in futures study, people need explicit training to think about the future. Backview mirror method is one such approach to increase wider involvement. It lets the staff members examine how their own involvement in
Mitroff and his colleagues' experience at the Bureau of the Census in Washington D C has been confirmed in similar types o f studies elsewhere. In the case o f V/ister~s' urban government, about 2% of the staff wrote out a scenario indicating what for them the urban government would be like in the year 2010. See Mitroff et al. [9, pp. 44-58]. 2 Lord Briggs has provided interesting insight about the extent of c o m m o n ground between past and future, see Briggs [2, pp. 445~,51]. 3 See, for example, K a h n and Weiner [5]. 4 Following Herbert Simon's innovation in organization theory, it has become quite c o m m o n to view an organization in this manner, see, for example, Hofstede and Kassim [4]. Similarly Wamsley and Zald distinguish between internal and external variables which need to be analyzed in order to understand how change in an organization can come about, see Wamsley and Zald [13, pp. 62-73].
the organization's past activities has affected the development of the organization. Secondly, people working with futures study of an organization need to keep in mind the fact that there is no 'absolute' future. They need to realize that their past and current preoccupations and biases have major impact in the prediction of the future? Backview mirror method provides an opportunity to examine past and current biases and enables one to recognize important links between past, present and future. METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS The most commonly used method to relate past development to futures studies is trend extrapolation. For example, a majority of Herman Kahn's futures studies are based on a combination of two techniques, namely trend extrapolation and scenario-writing? A major shortcoming of this technique as it has been used in futures studies is that it is limited to quantifiable variables. The link between the past and future is thereby confined to certain quantifiable aspects or parts of the development. The most important methodological innovation of the backview mirror method is that it extends the analysis of past development to a large number of both quantitative and qualitative variables. The municipal government is seen as an open system made up of six mutually interdependent variables, namely goals, resources, personnel, structure, technology and environment. 4 In the context of the V/isterAs' futures
391
392
Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis
studies, these variables were defined in the following way: (1) Goals: political objectives of the ruling party and the extent of political control of municipal activities. (2) Resources: primarily budgetary or financial resources but even premises and equipment are included in this variable.
about the organization's preparedness to meet and accommodate contingencies. In fact, in the backview mirror analysis, preparedness is defined with respect to the six system variables. Thus it answers six questions: (1) What was the organization's political preparedness--in the form of changes in goals and political control?
(2) What was the organization's budgetary (3) Personnel: size and allocation of the staff but also interpersonal relations. (4) Structure: formal division of work between departments, and set of rules for the interaction between members of the staff. (5) Technology: broadly defined to imply not only techniques applied to produce various urban services but also training of personnel and organization of information. (6) Environment: every municipal department's environment is defined to consist of the rest of the municipal government, interest groups and municipal citizens (as consumers of the service in question). In backview mirror analysis, trend analysis is extended to cover all these six variables. Another methodological aspect of the backview mirror method is its equal emphasis on trends and trend changes on the one hand and discontinuities, contingencies and 'branching points' on the other) The method sets out to identify the latter over a considerable length of time. In the V/ister~.s' study, this period is limited to the forty years after the Second World War. This is a very chronocentric approach to link the past with the future. But bearing in mind the fact that the futures study in the municipality of V/ister~s primarily aims to change the planning system in the urban government, this limitation seems quite justified.6 Case studies of discontinuities, contingencies and 'branching points' are then prepared for each sector of the municipal government. The case studies provide important information
preparedness--through the reallocation of financial resources, and changes in the use of premises and equipment?
(3) What was the organization's personnel preparedness--including reallocation of the staff and changes in relations between different members of the staff?.
(4) What was the structural preparedness in the face of discontinuities and contingencies-in the form of changes in the departmental structure, work routines, etc?
(5) What was the organization's technological preparedness--by way of changes in the modes of production of services, retraining of the staff and handling of information between different units of the organization? (6) What was the organization's preparedness vis-d-vis the environment--in the form of reactions of different municipal departments and of interest groups and municipal citizens in the face of the new events? Trend studies and case studies of discontinuities and contingencies provide a useful technique to identify prerequisites and weaknesses of the urban government and its various departments. This knowledge can then be useful when alternative scenarios are used to evaluate the future development of the organization (see Fig. 1). OPERATIONAL FEATURES
Since 1983, Viister~s has been one of some fifty municipalities in Sweden working with 5For similaremphasisin the constructingof scenarios, see some form of futures studies [7, pp. 84-91]. The Wilson [14, pp. 225-247]. 6On the unfortunateeffectsof chronocentrism,see Fowles focus of the V~isteffts study is to discover a pedagogic process that uses futures studies not [3, pp. 65~9].
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Goals Resources Personnel Structure
Trend ona lysis Case studies of discontinuities and contingencies
Technology
J Prerequisites J and weaknesses ot an organization
l
Environment Fig. 1
only to generate knowledge about the future but also to enhance the insight of planners and decision-makers through their direct participation in the study process. This in turn implies a successive choice of techniques as the issues under study are clarified and as planners and decision-makers involved in the study obtain better understanding of the possible approaches to solve various problems. The Vfister~ts study is divided into six interrelated operations: (1) Review of current planning and decision-making in the municipality. (2) Examination of methodological issues and their orientation among planners and decisionmakers. (3) Selection of study object and identification of environmental variables. (4) Backview mirror analysis. (5) Scenario-writing based on analysis of alternative developments of the municipal government's environment. (6) Evaluation of alternative futures of study objects. 7 The planners and decision-makers chose municipal services as the study object since the municipal government exercises considerable control over these activities. The selection of this study object was preceded by careful consideration of alternative study objects in a number of brainstorming sessions. In order to carry out the backview mirror analysis, the municipal executive council appointed a working group which consisted of 13 civil servants, each representing one of the 13 municipal departments. These cover the following municipal activities: child care, schooling, social services, environmental protection, housing, land-use, transportation, immigrant services, park and sports facilities, public
7 The V~ister~s model in its entirety is presented in Khakee [6, pp. 63 83].
libraries, culture and leisure, refuse collection, and electricity and water supply. The backview mirror analysis was implemented in three stages: (1) The working group prepared trend analyses for the 13 municipal activities on the basis of the departments' budgets, statements of activity account and other documents analysing development during the whole post-war period. (2) On the basis of these trend analyses, each department selected several discontinuities and contingencies which had occurred during the period. Each member of the working group carried out four case studies, two dealing with discontinuities which all members of the group chose to describe. The other two case studies dealt with discontinuities and/or contingencies which were more specific for each department. (3) The trend analyses and case studies were discussed by politicians and planners in a workshop during which they evaluated the municipal government's preparedness. This was followed by a broader discussion of the study among the rank and file of municipal employees and politicians belonging to various committees. THE APPLICATION OF THE TECHNIQUE The results of the backview mirror technique are available partly in the form of departmentspecific analysis and partly in the form of overall analysis of the whole municipal sector. Without going into the details, I shall present in this section some overall observations from this study [12].
Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis
394
Trend
analysis
the end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1970s when the population grew at the rate of about 2% per year and a stagnation phase following the decline and stagnation in population growth since 1972.1° During the expansion period, planning was demand-oriented, i.e. based on the assessment of citizens' demands for different services. There was very little discussion about effectiveness in the use of resources. Provision of extra resources become a panacea for all planning problems. Attempts to introduce a resource-oriented approach to planning during the stagnation phase have met with many difficulties. It has led to interdepartmental competition for resources. Departments are unwilling to abandon activities or projects whose abandonment would reduce their share of resources. Jl
The department-specific and overall analyses show the following: (a) Increasing restrictions on decision-making: The tremendous expansion of the public sector during the post-war period has mainly occurred at the municipal level. The rapid growth of urban amenities is partly due to the tranfer of public services from national to local government. 8 This development, however, has been accompanied by the introduction of special laws and an increase in conditional grants from the central government.9 The V~ister~s study shows two important consequences of this development. First, the central government's norms for different activities, rather than local objectives, guide planning and decision-making. Second, planners are conscious that central government regulations act as restrictions on planning but have not adequately used their knowledge of these restrictions and their impact on the entire planning environment. Municipal planners and politicians in V/ister~s tend to be either 'defensive' (by adhering to national government regulations) or 'offensive' (by trying to get around the restrictions), but either is counterproductive in the long run.
(c) Personnel increase and bureaucratization: Municipal services, especially social and educational ones, are labour intensive. The municipal sector's share of the total employment in V/istergts has increased from little less than 2% in 1950 to about 12% at the beginning of the 1980s.~2 This tremendous increase in employment has had an important by-product, namely the increase of administrative personnel in relation to operational staff. The ratio was about 2:5 in 1980. Given the non-market nature of its output, the municipal bureaucratic expansion has been remarkable in a majority of municipal departments.'3
(b) Interdepartmental rivalry and resourceoriented approach to planning: The postwar development in V~ister~tscan be divided into two phases: an expansion phase from 8Whereas the state's share of consumption and investment has remained at about 12% of the GNP throughout the post-war period, the municipal share has more than doubled--from 11% to 25% of GNP during the same period. 9 Different studies show that the municipal activities which are regulated by different legislations and state grant requirements constitute about 80% of the total volume of activities, see, for example, Murray [11]. ~0V/isterhs is the sixth largest municipality with a population of 118,000. u The political economy aspect of organizational behaviour is often omitted in public management literature, see, for example, Benson [1, pp. 229-249]. ~2The municipal share of the total employment for the whole of Sweden was about 1% in 1950 and over 15% at the beginning of the 1980s. 13The tremendous expansion of municipal employment provides an important case for positive public choice models about volume-maximizing bureaucrat, see Mueller [10, pp. 156-170].
(d) 'Cosmetic' nature of structural reforms: An interesting aspect of the expansion of urban government in V/ister~s has been structural changes within many of the departments. Increase in the management and planning function has often resulted in the creation of sub-departmental units. Sometimes such units have been created to contain conflicts among the leading managers of the department. Structural reforms have only helped to brush aside deep-seated problems. (e)
Lack of technological awareness: As opposed to private production of goods and services, there is widespread ignorance about different possibilities of combining
Omega, Vol. 14, No. 5
personnel, equipment and premises to produce municipal services. An obvious consequence of this is that every municipal department has built its own premises for activities. Every district of the municipality has separate premises for schooling, social activities, cultural gatherings, etc. Many of these premises are underutilized and imply considerable maintenance and other costs. Another consequence of the lack of awareness is the poorly-developed retraining facilities for personnel. The tendency in the municipality has been to employ new staff to work on newly-emerging problems rather than to retrain the old staff. This is especially so with the administrative tasks in each sector of activity. (f) Insensitivity to environmental changes: The municipal government enjoys a monopolistic position without qualitative performance yardsticks. It is not unusual to find departments either producing too much or too little of certain services or not paying adequate attention to consumer preferences. In all these cases, there is a considerable loss of consumer surplus and the implication of added costs for municipal citizens. (g) In search of a new planning ideal: During the expansion period, land-use plans together with the housing programme became the leading planning instruments. Much of the social and economic planning came to revolve around housing and complementary services. Since the expansion came to an end, the municipal housing programme has been drastically reduced. The planners have so far been unsuccessful in replacing the housing programme with a new planning instrument which would deal with the problem of supply, scarcity of resources and restructuring of the social structure, given constant population and the total stock of employment and housing.
Case studies of discontinuities On the basis of the results of the trend analyses, the members of the working group chose a number of discontinuities which had occurred in the past thirty years. Some of the discontinuities affected all the departments, others were more specific for each of the departments.
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Examples of more general discontinuities are: (1) Stagnation in the population growth since 1972 (2) Increase in the employment rate among women in the 1970s (3) Municipal merger reform 1952 (4) Municipal merger reform 1967 (5) Energy crisis 1973 (6) Growth of environmental movement in the 1970s (7) Introduction of computers in municipal administration 1968 Examples of department-specific discontinuities are: (1) Introduction of comprehensive primary and secondary schooling 1952 (2) Change in the major private industry's demand for land 1968 (3) Change in housing production--from multidwelling to single apartment dwelling in 1970 (4) Introduction of a new national cultural policy 1976 (5) Sharp increase in the number of social welfare cases in the middle of 1970s (6) Change in foreign immigration--from labour immigration to immigration of political refugees in the late 1970s The two general discontinuities chosen by the working group were: (1) the stagnation in the population growth since 1972, and (2) increase in the employment rate among women in the 1970s. There is some significant difference between the two events. Whereas the first discontinuity is of relatively abrupt character, the second occurred more gradually. The decline and subsequent stagnation of population occurred in 1972 when the munici-
396
Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis Table 1. Summary of important features of two discontinuities
Discontinuities System variables
Stagnation in population growth
Increase in women's employment rate
Goals
Politicians find it hard to accept the no-growth philosophy in decision-making. Time gap in redirection of resources from investment in housing and physical infrastructure to social services. Rivalry between politieians representing different departmental committees and consequent difficulties in changing priority areas. No automatic decrease in resource use by different sectors of activities. Decrease made possible 7 years after the occurence of discontinuity via an executive decree ordering 2% saving for all departments. Uniform cut by 2% did not lead to serious reconsideration of priority areas. Interdepartmental rivalry for resources sharpens. 'Employment complex' leads to retention of staff at all costs. Decrease in the interdepartmental exchange of staff. Increasing conflicts within departments between managers of different sub-units in face of declining resources. Formalizing some of the informal planning and decision-making routines developed during the 1960s. Shift in the priority area from physical to social planning creates new areas of conflicts between departments belonging to these two areas. Departments dealing with physical planning try to create "new" functions. Search for new ideas increases interest in decentralizing planning process to lower levels of bureaucracy. Difficulties in finding appropriate approaches for this development. The close tie between premises and other resources reduces possibilities of innovation in producing municipal services in face of resource scarcity. Decrease in interdepartmental cooperation and coordination. Gradual recognition of the relative lack of sensitivity vis-a-vis consumer demand. New realities facing municipality in face of constant population.
Stronger concern for building up social care facilities especially child care centres. Feminine values in politics: conflict between masculine and feminine values becomes apparent at all levels of municipal decision-making.
Resources
Personnel
Structure
Technology
Environment
pality of V~isterfis was in the midst of planning a city for a population of 200,000 by the year 2000. The master plan discussed three forms for the future: circular plan, sector plan and linear plan. t4 It proposed extensive programmes for housing, physical infrastructure and social amenities. Although there were some premonitions about decline in the rate of urbanization and immigration to industrial areas, no municipal planner or politician was interested in such prophecies. The decline of population came as a shock from which planners and politicians have not yet fully recovered. 15 The increase in the employment rate among women in the 1970s was a gradual process. In 1960 their employment rate was about 40% and by 1980 it had increased to over 60%. The rate of increase was quite rapid in the 70s. There were several reasons for this development. ~4F o r a d e s c r i p t i o n o f these forms o f city plans, see Y e a t e s a n d G a r n e r [15, pp. 470-474]. 15 It was in fact this event which g r a d u a l l y led politicians a n d p l a n n e r s to l o o k for alternative m e t h o d s for p l a n n i n g u n d e r uncertainty. The current e n g a g e m e n t in futures studies is a result o f this development.
Interdepartmental rivalry aggravates shift of resources from technical to social services. Decentralization of urban services to increase accessibility. Appointment of municipal district committees for coordinating the provision of amenities in housing areas. Operational staff in municipal social services is predominantly female. Women at management level are few. Increased recognition of recruiting woman managers for public services. Creation of 'equal opportunity unit' in the municipal government to guarantee women's rights to employment opportunities. New lines of communication between women politicans of all political parties creates new decision-making environment for municipal committees and departments. Increased recognition to reduce manual input in services predominantly staffed by women. Decentralization of decision-making power to operative personnel. Retraining of personnel to accept new values. Quantitative and qualitative changes in the output of municipal services e.g. the role of school extended from the provision of knowledge to fostering. New auxiliary services to ease household work.
Important among them were (1) the introduction of separate income taxation for husband and wife in 1967, (2) the growth of women's emancipation movements, (3) tremendous increase in the number of women attending postsecondary schools and colleges following the comprehensive school reform in 1952 and (4) increased use of different domestic capital equipment which greatly eased household work. Despite the fact that this change in development was a gradual one, its full impact was realized first in the early 1980s when municipal planners became aware of the fact that they had not taken into consideration its impact on the demand for various services. Table 1 presents some of the important features of the case studies relating to these two discontinuities.
Evaluation of municipal government's preparedness In connection with a workshop in December 1984, a group exercise was conducted to find out h o w a group of leading politicians and civil servants evaluated the municipal government's
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Table 2. Politicians' and civil servants' evaluation of municipal
Preparedness
Political
Budgetary
Personnel
preparedness
Structural
Technological
Environmental
Discontinuity
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
Stagnation in population growth Increase in women's employment rate Energy crisis
13
8
4
3
9
12
4
11
7
3
9
13
3
17
3
--
10
10
--
5
10
5
4
8
8
2
5
12
2
10
8
1
8
8
3
3
4
12
2
12
5
4
8
7
3
8
8
3
3
I1
14 ~ 8
8
preparedness in connection with various discontinuities. Some 30 people participated in the group exercise, of which about half were politicians. The participants were divided into five groups each consisting of six people. As far as possible, politicians and civil servants were placed in separate groups. The group exercise was divided into two phases: In the first phase every group was asked to agree upon eight different discontinuities which the members considered to have had important impact on municipal development in the past. The participants were provided with the three reports containing trend analyses and case studies of discontinuities [6, pp. 63-83]. The agreement of eight discontinuities in each group was preceded by a thorough discussion of the reports and the impact of various past events. In the second phase of the exercise, each participant was asked to evaluate municipal preparedness with respect to the six system variables. The participants were asked to evaluate preparedness according to three grades: high-, moderate or low-level (H, M and L in Table 2). With the exception of three discontinuities, there was no consensus with regard to the choice of events. The bias for departmentspecific discontinuities was quite evident for nearly all groups. Table 2, however, shows the score for each of the three discontinuities for which there was the greatest possible consensus. The table shows that whereas the level of political preparedness was high to moderate in connection with all the three discontinuities, the preparedness in the other five respects was moderate to low. The municipal government on the whole showed low levels of budgetary, structural and environmental preparedness. Furthermore, the level of preparedness was lower in the case of the energy crisis than in the case of the two other discontinuities. ~6For an analysis o f i n c r e m e n t a l d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g , see L i n d b l o m [8, pp. 151-169].
USEFULNESS OF THE BACKVIEW MIRROR TECHNIQUE
The backview mirror technique as has been implemented in the context of the futures study of the municipality of Vfisterhs has made a very significant impact on the planning environment of the urban government. This has not only been limited to those who actively participated in the preparation of various analyses, but also extends to a much broader group of politicians, planners and civil servants. Some of the more important implications are: (1) Awareness about discontinuities: A widespread reaction among politicians and civil servants was: 'Did we really have all these discontinuities in the post-war period?' The municipal decision-making process is incremental and development is seen as being made up of marginal changes. ~6 The backview mirror analysis provided an important reminder about structural changes in the development. (2) Development--not only a question of quantitative changes: It has been quite common among municipal planners and decisionmakers to look at the development in terms of quantifiable variables. Synoptic for this attitude was the overriding interest in trend extrapolation of demographic and other changes. Backview mirror analysis with its emphasis on six interrelated system variables clearly showed the interplay between quantifiable and qualitative factors of development. This has had an important pedagogic impact. For example, in the latest five year economic plan, the planners explicitly take into consideration the interplay between the six variables when they discuss budgetary preparedness in the coming years. (3) Use of backview mirror analyses in personnel training: The department-specific analyses
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Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis
of trend development and discontinuities has proved to be important material for the recurrent retraining programmes which each department arranges for its personnel. For example, the school department has prepared a special publication containing the backview mirror study of the school sector in V/isterAs for this purpose. (4) Shift in the emphasis in planning: The backview mirror analysis has resulted in a serious discussion about the shift in the emphasis in planning--from physical infrastructure and housing to restructuring of the social set-up of the local society under no-growth conditions. This fact has long been acknowledged but has not been explicitly taken into account. (5) Use of the backview mirror analysis in strategic planning: Several of the departments involved in backview mirror study found that this helped them to identify critical issues for strategic planning. For example, the department of refuse collection in co-operation with corresponding departments in several neighbouring municipalities has established a joint refusehandling company. The backview mirror analysis provided useful insight into issues like the change in households' refuse as a result of increase in the employment rate among women and environmental movement. This knowledge has been directly applied in the formulation of a strategic plan for this company.
division and staff recruitment act as a barrier to initiative for innovation. Thirdly, the monopolistic position of the local government makes it less sensitive to environmental changes. Politicians and planners consider that there is a need to introduce quantitative as well as qualitative performance yardsticks for municipal services for which it is very difficult or impossible to measure consumer demand. SOME CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
There exists a considerable common ground between historical and future development of an organization. The backview mirror method outlined in this article explores the extent of this common ground and how the knowledge can be used in the strategic planning of an urban government. In an organization like the municipal government, which is obsessed with day-to-day administrative issues, staff need explicit training to think about the future. The backview mirror analysis provides a pedagogic device to excite the interest of participants by showing how their own involvement affected the past development and in what major ways (corresponding to the six system variables) it might affect the future development. The backview mirror analysis provides a useful method to extend past into the future and increase staff involvement in futures-oriented planning. So far this technique has been applied in only one urban government. There is a considerable need to improve the conceptual framework and operative features of this technique by applying it in other types of organization. The knowledge generated should contribute towards the improvement of the technique as well as provide new insights in developing futures study for various types of organization.
(6) Four 'key words' as a result of backv&w mirror analysis: Four 'key words' emerged in the discussion that followed the publication of backview mirror studies namely 'adaptability', 'flexibility', 'consciousness' and 'service-standard'. Most planners and politicians were in agreement that the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT municipal government as a whole and every department in particular needs to adapt The author thanks the Municipality of V/ister~s for the itself to various discontinuities and con- support that enabled this study to be made. tingencies. It is necessary to find out how this could be achieved more satisfactorily in REFERENCES the future. Secondly, it is necessary to be 1. Benson KJ (1975) The interorganization as a political flexible with regard to the division of work economy. Admin. Sci. Q. 20. between administrative units and between 2. Briggs A (1978) The historian and the future. Futures staff members. The present department 10.
Omega, Vol. 14, No. 5 3. Fowles J (1974) On chronocentrism. Futures 6. 4. Hofstede G and Kassim SM (Eds.) (1976) European Contributions to Organisation Theory. Van Gorcum, Amsterdam. 5. Kahn H and Wiener AJ (1967) The Year 2000. Macmillan, New York. 6. Khakee A (1985) Futures-oriented municipal planning. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 28. 7. Khakee A and Wiberg U (Eds.) (1982) Kommunala framtidsstudier (Municipal Futures Studies). Ministry of Industry, Stockholm. 8. Lindblom CE (1973) The science of'muddling through'. A Reader in Planning Theory (Ed. Faludi A). Pergamon, Oxford. 9. Mitroff I, Barabba VP and Kilmann RH (1977) The application of behavioral and philosophical techniques to strategic planning: a case study of a large federal agency. Mgmt. Sci. 24. 10. Mueller DC (1979) Public Choice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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I1. Murray R (1981) Kommunernas roll i den offentliga sektorn (The Role of Municipalities m the Public Sector). Department of Economics, University of Stockholm, Stockholm. 12. V/ister~ts Municipality (1984 and 1985) Viister&s kommun i framtiden (Viister&s Municipality in the Future). Report Nos 2, 4 and 5. Planning Department, Municipality of V/isterhs, V~sterS.s. 13. Wamsley GL and Zald MN (1973) The political economy of public organization. Public Adm. Rev. 33. 14. Wilson IH (1978) Scenarios. Handbook o f Futures Research. (Ed. Fowles G). Greenwood, London. 15. Yeates M and Garner BC (1976) The North American City. Harper & Row, New York.
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE: A Khakee, Department of Geography, University of Ume3, S-901 87 Ume~, Sweden.
0305-0483/86 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Journals Ltd
Printed in Great Britain
'Backview Mirror Analysis' in Futures Studies ABDUL KHAKEE University of Ume~, Sweden (Received December 1985; in revised .form February 1986) Two central problems in carrying out futures studies in an organization are the lack of interest among the staff in futures problems and the extension of common ground between past and future beyond a few quantifiable variables. This article presents a method to deal with these problems, based on a major specific case study from municipal government in Vister~s, Sweden.
THE DEVELOPMENT and implementation of 'backview mirror' technique in the futures study of the municipality of V/isterhs (Sweden) is based on two premises which have been widely recognized by futurologists. The first premise is that in any organization (for example, a corporation or a government agency) the number of people interested in and capable of working with strategic problems is usually very small, say 2-3% of the staff. ~ A majority of the people are bound up in the present and are unwilling to abandon its constraints. If an organization intends to involve a large number of its staff in futures study, people need explicit training to think about the future. Backview mirror method is one such approach to increase wider involvement. It lets the staff members examine how their own involvement in
Mitroff and his colleagues' experience at the Bureau of the Census in Washington D C has been confirmed in similar types o f studies elsewhere. In the case o f V/ister~s' urban government, about 2% of the staff wrote out a scenario indicating what for them the urban government would be like in the year 2010. See Mitroff et al. [9, pp. 44-58]. 2 Lord Briggs has provided interesting insight about the extent of c o m m o n ground between past and future, see Briggs [2, pp. 445~,51]. 3 See, for example, K a h n and Weiner [5]. 4 Following Herbert Simon's innovation in organization theory, it has become quite c o m m o n to view an organization in this manner, see, for example, Hofstede and Kassim [4]. Similarly Wamsley and Zald distinguish between internal and external variables which need to be analyzed in order to understand how change in an organization can come about, see Wamsley and Zald [13, pp. 62-73].
the organization's past activities has affected the development of the organization. Secondly, people working with futures study of an organization need to keep in mind the fact that there is no 'absolute' future. They need to realize that their past and current preoccupations and biases have major impact in the prediction of the future? Backview mirror method provides an opportunity to examine past and current biases and enables one to recognize important links between past, present and future. METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS The most commonly used method to relate past development to futures studies is trend extrapolation. For example, a majority of Herman Kahn's futures studies are based on a combination of two techniques, namely trend extrapolation and scenario-writing? A major shortcoming of this technique as it has been used in futures studies is that it is limited to quantifiable variables. The link between the past and future is thereby confined to certain quantifiable aspects or parts of the development. The most important methodological innovation of the backview mirror method is that it extends the analysis of past development to a large number of both quantitative and qualitative variables. The municipal government is seen as an open system made up of six mutually interdependent variables, namely goals, resources, personnel, structure, technology and environment. 4 In the context of the V/isterAs' futures
391
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Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis
studies, these variables were defined in the following way: (1) Goals: political objectives of the ruling party and the extent of political control of municipal activities. (2) Resources: primarily budgetary or financial resources but even premises and equipment are included in this variable.
about the organization's preparedness to meet and accommodate contingencies. In fact, in the backview mirror analysis, preparedness is defined with respect to the six system variables. Thus it answers six questions: (1) What was the organization's political preparedness--in the form of changes in goals and political control?
(2) What was the organization's budgetary (3) Personnel: size and allocation of the staff but also interpersonal relations. (4) Structure: formal division of work between departments, and set of rules for the interaction between members of the staff. (5) Technology: broadly defined to imply not only techniques applied to produce various urban services but also training of personnel and organization of information. (6) Environment: every municipal department's environment is defined to consist of the rest of the municipal government, interest groups and municipal citizens (as consumers of the service in question). In backview mirror analysis, trend analysis is extended to cover all these six variables. Another methodological aspect of the backview mirror method is its equal emphasis on trends and trend changes on the one hand and discontinuities, contingencies and 'branching points' on the other) The method sets out to identify the latter over a considerable length of time. In the V/ister~.s' study, this period is limited to the forty years after the Second World War. This is a very chronocentric approach to link the past with the future. But bearing in mind the fact that the futures study in the municipality of V/ister~s primarily aims to change the planning system in the urban government, this limitation seems quite justified.6 Case studies of discontinuities, contingencies and 'branching points' are then prepared for each sector of the municipal government. The case studies provide important information
preparedness--through the reallocation of financial resources, and changes in the use of premises and equipment?
(3) What was the organization's personnel preparedness--including reallocation of the staff and changes in relations between different members of the staff?.
(4) What was the structural preparedness in the face of discontinuities and contingencies-in the form of changes in the departmental structure, work routines, etc?
(5) What was the organization's technological preparedness--by way of changes in the modes of production of services, retraining of the staff and handling of information between different units of the organization? (6) What was the organization's preparedness vis-d-vis the environment--in the form of reactions of different municipal departments and of interest groups and municipal citizens in the face of the new events? Trend studies and case studies of discontinuities and contingencies provide a useful technique to identify prerequisites and weaknesses of the urban government and its various departments. This knowledge can then be useful when alternative scenarios are used to evaluate the future development of the organization (see Fig. 1). OPERATIONAL FEATURES
Since 1983, Viister~s has been one of some fifty municipalities in Sweden working with 5For similaremphasisin the constructingof scenarios, see some form of futures studies [7, pp. 84-91]. The Wilson [14, pp. 225-247]. 6On the unfortunateeffectsof chronocentrism,see Fowles focus of the V~isteffts study is to discover a pedagogic process that uses futures studies not [3, pp. 65~9].
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Goals Resources Personnel Structure
Trend ona lysis Case studies of discontinuities and contingencies
Technology
J Prerequisites J and weaknesses ot an organization
l
Environment Fig. 1
only to generate knowledge about the future but also to enhance the insight of planners and decision-makers through their direct participation in the study process. This in turn implies a successive choice of techniques as the issues under study are clarified and as planners and decision-makers involved in the study obtain better understanding of the possible approaches to solve various problems. The Vfister~ts study is divided into six interrelated operations: (1) Review of current planning and decision-making in the municipality. (2) Examination of methodological issues and their orientation among planners and decisionmakers. (3) Selection of study object and identification of environmental variables. (4) Backview mirror analysis. (5) Scenario-writing based on analysis of alternative developments of the municipal government's environment. (6) Evaluation of alternative futures of study objects. 7 The planners and decision-makers chose municipal services as the study object since the municipal government exercises considerable control over these activities. The selection of this study object was preceded by careful consideration of alternative study objects in a number of brainstorming sessions. In order to carry out the backview mirror analysis, the municipal executive council appointed a working group which consisted of 13 civil servants, each representing one of the 13 municipal departments. These cover the following municipal activities: child care, schooling, social services, environmental protection, housing, land-use, transportation, immigrant services, park and sports facilities, public
7 The V~ister~s model in its entirety is presented in Khakee [6, pp. 63 83].
libraries, culture and leisure, refuse collection, and electricity and water supply. The backview mirror analysis was implemented in three stages: (1) The working group prepared trend analyses for the 13 municipal activities on the basis of the departments' budgets, statements of activity account and other documents analysing development during the whole post-war period. (2) On the basis of these trend analyses, each department selected several discontinuities and contingencies which had occurred during the period. Each member of the working group carried out four case studies, two dealing with discontinuities which all members of the group chose to describe. The other two case studies dealt with discontinuities and/or contingencies which were more specific for each department. (3) The trend analyses and case studies were discussed by politicians and planners in a workshop during which they evaluated the municipal government's preparedness. This was followed by a broader discussion of the study among the rank and file of municipal employees and politicians belonging to various committees. THE APPLICATION OF THE TECHNIQUE The results of the backview mirror technique are available partly in the form of departmentspecific analysis and partly in the form of overall analysis of the whole municipal sector. Without going into the details, I shall present in this section some overall observations from this study [12].
Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis
394
Trend
analysis
the end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1970s when the population grew at the rate of about 2% per year and a stagnation phase following the decline and stagnation in population growth since 1972.1° During the expansion period, planning was demand-oriented, i.e. based on the assessment of citizens' demands for different services. There was very little discussion about effectiveness in the use of resources. Provision of extra resources become a panacea for all planning problems. Attempts to introduce a resource-oriented approach to planning during the stagnation phase have met with many difficulties. It has led to interdepartmental competition for resources. Departments are unwilling to abandon activities or projects whose abandonment would reduce their share of resources. Jl
The department-specific and overall analyses show the following: (a) Increasing restrictions on decision-making: The tremendous expansion of the public sector during the post-war period has mainly occurred at the municipal level. The rapid growth of urban amenities is partly due to the tranfer of public services from national to local government. 8 This development, however, has been accompanied by the introduction of special laws and an increase in conditional grants from the central government.9 The V~ister~s study shows two important consequences of this development. First, the central government's norms for different activities, rather than local objectives, guide planning and decision-making. Second, planners are conscious that central government regulations act as restrictions on planning but have not adequately used their knowledge of these restrictions and their impact on the entire planning environment. Municipal planners and politicians in V/ister~s tend to be either 'defensive' (by adhering to national government regulations) or 'offensive' (by trying to get around the restrictions), but either is counterproductive in the long run.
(c) Personnel increase and bureaucratization: Municipal services, especially social and educational ones, are labour intensive. The municipal sector's share of the total employment in V/istergts has increased from little less than 2% in 1950 to about 12% at the beginning of the 1980s.~2 This tremendous increase in employment has had an important by-product, namely the increase of administrative personnel in relation to operational staff. The ratio was about 2:5 in 1980. Given the non-market nature of its output, the municipal bureaucratic expansion has been remarkable in a majority of municipal departments.'3
(b) Interdepartmental rivalry and resourceoriented approach to planning: The postwar development in V~ister~tscan be divided into two phases: an expansion phase from 8Whereas the state's share of consumption and investment has remained at about 12% of the GNP throughout the post-war period, the municipal share has more than doubled--from 11% to 25% of GNP during the same period. 9 Different studies show that the municipal activities which are regulated by different legislations and state grant requirements constitute about 80% of the total volume of activities, see, for example, Murray [11]. ~0V/isterhs is the sixth largest municipality with a population of 118,000. u The political economy aspect of organizational behaviour is often omitted in public management literature, see, for example, Benson [1, pp. 229-249]. ~2The municipal share of the total employment for the whole of Sweden was about 1% in 1950 and over 15% at the beginning of the 1980s. 13The tremendous expansion of municipal employment provides an important case for positive public choice models about volume-maximizing bureaucrat, see Mueller [10, pp. 156-170].
(d) 'Cosmetic' nature of structural reforms: An interesting aspect of the expansion of urban government in V/ister~s has been structural changes within many of the departments. Increase in the management and planning function has often resulted in the creation of sub-departmental units. Sometimes such units have been created to contain conflicts among the leading managers of the department. Structural reforms have only helped to brush aside deep-seated problems. (e)
Lack of technological awareness: As opposed to private production of goods and services, there is widespread ignorance about different possibilities of combining
Omega, Vol. 14, No. 5
personnel, equipment and premises to produce municipal services. An obvious consequence of this is that every municipal department has built its own premises for activities. Every district of the municipality has separate premises for schooling, social activities, cultural gatherings, etc. Many of these premises are underutilized and imply considerable maintenance and other costs. Another consequence of the lack of awareness is the poorly-developed retraining facilities for personnel. The tendency in the municipality has been to employ new staff to work on newly-emerging problems rather than to retrain the old staff. This is especially so with the administrative tasks in each sector of activity. (f) Insensitivity to environmental changes: The municipal government enjoys a monopolistic position without qualitative performance yardsticks. It is not unusual to find departments either producing too much or too little of certain services or not paying adequate attention to consumer preferences. In all these cases, there is a considerable loss of consumer surplus and the implication of added costs for municipal citizens. (g) In search of a new planning ideal: During the expansion period, land-use plans together with the housing programme became the leading planning instruments. Much of the social and economic planning came to revolve around housing and complementary services. Since the expansion came to an end, the municipal housing programme has been drastically reduced. The planners have so far been unsuccessful in replacing the housing programme with a new planning instrument which would deal with the problem of supply, scarcity of resources and restructuring of the social structure, given constant population and the total stock of employment and housing.
Case studies of discontinuities On the basis of the results of the trend analyses, the members of the working group chose a number of discontinuities which had occurred in the past thirty years. Some of the discontinuities affected all the departments, others were more specific for each of the departments.
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Examples of more general discontinuities are: (1) Stagnation in the population growth since 1972 (2) Increase in the employment rate among women in the 1970s (3) Municipal merger reform 1952 (4) Municipal merger reform 1967 (5) Energy crisis 1973 (6) Growth of environmental movement in the 1970s (7) Introduction of computers in municipal administration 1968 Examples of department-specific discontinuities are: (1) Introduction of comprehensive primary and secondary schooling 1952 (2) Change in the major private industry's demand for land 1968 (3) Change in housing production--from multidwelling to single apartment dwelling in 1970 (4) Introduction of a new national cultural policy 1976 (5) Sharp increase in the number of social welfare cases in the middle of 1970s (6) Change in foreign immigration--from labour immigration to immigration of political refugees in the late 1970s The two general discontinuities chosen by the working group were: (1) the stagnation in the population growth since 1972, and (2) increase in the employment rate among women in the 1970s. There is some significant difference between the two events. Whereas the first discontinuity is of relatively abrupt character, the second occurred more gradually. The decline and subsequent stagnation of population occurred in 1972 when the munici-
396
Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis Table 1. Summary of important features of two discontinuities
Discontinuities System variables
Stagnation in population growth
Increase in women's employment rate
Goals
Politicians find it hard to accept the no-growth philosophy in decision-making. Time gap in redirection of resources from investment in housing and physical infrastructure to social services. Rivalry between politieians representing different departmental committees and consequent difficulties in changing priority areas. No automatic decrease in resource use by different sectors of activities. Decrease made possible 7 years after the occurence of discontinuity via an executive decree ordering 2% saving for all departments. Uniform cut by 2% did not lead to serious reconsideration of priority areas. Interdepartmental rivalry for resources sharpens. 'Employment complex' leads to retention of staff at all costs. Decrease in the interdepartmental exchange of staff. Increasing conflicts within departments between managers of different sub-units in face of declining resources. Formalizing some of the informal planning and decision-making routines developed during the 1960s. Shift in the priority area from physical to social planning creates new areas of conflicts between departments belonging to these two areas. Departments dealing with physical planning try to create "new" functions. Search for new ideas increases interest in decentralizing planning process to lower levels of bureaucracy. Difficulties in finding appropriate approaches for this development. The close tie between premises and other resources reduces possibilities of innovation in producing municipal services in face of resource scarcity. Decrease in interdepartmental cooperation and coordination. Gradual recognition of the relative lack of sensitivity vis-a-vis consumer demand. New realities facing municipality in face of constant population.
Stronger concern for building up social care facilities especially child care centres. Feminine values in politics: conflict between masculine and feminine values becomes apparent at all levels of municipal decision-making.
Resources
Personnel
Structure
Technology
Environment
pality of V~isterfis was in the midst of planning a city for a population of 200,000 by the year 2000. The master plan discussed three forms for the future: circular plan, sector plan and linear plan. t4 It proposed extensive programmes for housing, physical infrastructure and social amenities. Although there were some premonitions about decline in the rate of urbanization and immigration to industrial areas, no municipal planner or politician was interested in such prophecies. The decline of population came as a shock from which planners and politicians have not yet fully recovered. 15 The increase in the employment rate among women in the 1970s was a gradual process. In 1960 their employment rate was about 40% and by 1980 it had increased to over 60%. The rate of increase was quite rapid in the 70s. There were several reasons for this development. ~4F o r a d e s c r i p t i o n o f these forms o f city plans, see Y e a t e s a n d G a r n e r [15, pp. 470-474]. 15 It was in fact this event which g r a d u a l l y led politicians a n d p l a n n e r s to l o o k for alternative m e t h o d s for p l a n n i n g u n d e r uncertainty. The current e n g a g e m e n t in futures studies is a result o f this development.
Interdepartmental rivalry aggravates shift of resources from technical to social services. Decentralization of urban services to increase accessibility. Appointment of municipal district committees for coordinating the provision of amenities in housing areas. Operational staff in municipal social services is predominantly female. Women at management level are few. Increased recognition of recruiting woman managers for public services. Creation of 'equal opportunity unit' in the municipal government to guarantee women's rights to employment opportunities. New lines of communication between women politicans of all political parties creates new decision-making environment for municipal committees and departments. Increased recognition to reduce manual input in services predominantly staffed by women. Decentralization of decision-making power to operative personnel. Retraining of personnel to accept new values. Quantitative and qualitative changes in the output of municipal services e.g. the role of school extended from the provision of knowledge to fostering. New auxiliary services to ease household work.
Important among them were (1) the introduction of separate income taxation for husband and wife in 1967, (2) the growth of women's emancipation movements, (3) tremendous increase in the number of women attending postsecondary schools and colleges following the comprehensive school reform in 1952 and (4) increased use of different domestic capital equipment which greatly eased household work. Despite the fact that this change in development was a gradual one, its full impact was realized first in the early 1980s when municipal planners became aware of the fact that they had not taken into consideration its impact on the demand for various services. Table 1 presents some of the important features of the case studies relating to these two discontinuities.
Evaluation of municipal government's preparedness In connection with a workshop in December 1984, a group exercise was conducted to find out h o w a group of leading politicians and civil servants evaluated the municipal government's
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Table 2. Politicians' and civil servants' evaluation of municipal
Preparedness
Political
Budgetary
Personnel
preparedness
Structural
Technological
Environmental
Discontinuity
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
H
M
L
Stagnation in population growth Increase in women's employment rate Energy crisis
13
8
4
3
9
12
4
11
7
3
9
13
3
17
3
--
10
10
--
5
10
5
4
8
8
2
5
12
2
10
8
1
8
8
3
3
4
12
2
12
5
4
8
7
3
8
8
3
3
I1
14 ~ 8
8
preparedness in connection with various discontinuities. Some 30 people participated in the group exercise, of which about half were politicians. The participants were divided into five groups each consisting of six people. As far as possible, politicians and civil servants were placed in separate groups. The group exercise was divided into two phases: In the first phase every group was asked to agree upon eight different discontinuities which the members considered to have had important impact on municipal development in the past. The participants were provided with the three reports containing trend analyses and case studies of discontinuities [6, pp. 63-83]. The agreement of eight discontinuities in each group was preceded by a thorough discussion of the reports and the impact of various past events. In the second phase of the exercise, each participant was asked to evaluate municipal preparedness with respect to the six system variables. The participants were asked to evaluate preparedness according to three grades: high-, moderate or low-level (H, M and L in Table 2). With the exception of three discontinuities, there was no consensus with regard to the choice of events. The bias for departmentspecific discontinuities was quite evident for nearly all groups. Table 2, however, shows the score for each of the three discontinuities for which there was the greatest possible consensus. The table shows that whereas the level of political preparedness was high to moderate in connection with all the three discontinuities, the preparedness in the other five respects was moderate to low. The municipal government on the whole showed low levels of budgetary, structural and environmental preparedness. Furthermore, the level of preparedness was lower in the case of the energy crisis than in the case of the two other discontinuities. ~6For an analysis o f i n c r e m e n t a l d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g , see L i n d b l o m [8, pp. 151-169].
USEFULNESS OF THE BACKVIEW MIRROR TECHNIQUE
The backview mirror technique as has been implemented in the context of the futures study of the municipality of Vfisterhs has made a very significant impact on the planning environment of the urban government. This has not only been limited to those who actively participated in the preparation of various analyses, but also extends to a much broader group of politicians, planners and civil servants. Some of the more important implications are: (1) Awareness about discontinuities: A widespread reaction among politicians and civil servants was: 'Did we really have all these discontinuities in the post-war period?' The municipal decision-making process is incremental and development is seen as being made up of marginal changes. ~6 The backview mirror analysis provided an important reminder about structural changes in the development. (2) Development--not only a question of quantitative changes: It has been quite common among municipal planners and decisionmakers to look at the development in terms of quantifiable variables. Synoptic for this attitude was the overriding interest in trend extrapolation of demographic and other changes. Backview mirror analysis with its emphasis on six interrelated system variables clearly showed the interplay between quantifiable and qualitative factors of development. This has had an important pedagogic impact. For example, in the latest five year economic plan, the planners explicitly take into consideration the interplay between the six variables when they discuss budgetary preparedness in the coming years. (3) Use of backview mirror analyses in personnel training: The department-specific analyses
398
Khakee--Backview Mirror Analysis
of trend development and discontinuities has proved to be important material for the recurrent retraining programmes which each department arranges for its personnel. For example, the school department has prepared a special publication containing the backview mirror study of the school sector in V/isterAs for this purpose. (4) Shift in the emphasis in planning: The backview mirror analysis has resulted in a serious discussion about the shift in the emphasis in planning--from physical infrastructure and housing to restructuring of the social set-up of the local society under no-growth conditions. This fact has long been acknowledged but has not been explicitly taken into account. (5) Use of the backview mirror analysis in strategic planning: Several of the departments involved in backview mirror study found that this helped them to identify critical issues for strategic planning. For example, the department of refuse collection in co-operation with corresponding departments in several neighbouring municipalities has established a joint refusehandling company. The backview mirror analysis provided useful insight into issues like the change in households' refuse as a result of increase in the employment rate among women and environmental movement. This knowledge has been directly applied in the formulation of a strategic plan for this company.
division and staff recruitment act as a barrier to initiative for innovation. Thirdly, the monopolistic position of the local government makes it less sensitive to environmental changes. Politicians and planners consider that there is a need to introduce quantitative as well as qualitative performance yardsticks for municipal services for which it is very difficult or impossible to measure consumer demand. SOME CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
There exists a considerable common ground between historical and future development of an organization. The backview mirror method outlined in this article explores the extent of this common ground and how the knowledge can be used in the strategic planning of an urban government. In an organization like the municipal government, which is obsessed with day-to-day administrative issues, staff need explicit training to think about the future. The backview mirror analysis provides a pedagogic device to excite the interest of participants by showing how their own involvement affected the past development and in what major ways (corresponding to the six system variables) it might affect the future development. The backview mirror analysis provides a useful method to extend past into the future and increase staff involvement in futures-oriented planning. So far this technique has been applied in only one urban government. There is a considerable need to improve the conceptual framework and operative features of this technique by applying it in other types of organization. The knowledge generated should contribute towards the improvement of the technique as well as provide new insights in developing futures study for various types of organization.
(6) Four 'key words' as a result of backv&w mirror analysis: Four 'key words' emerged in the discussion that followed the publication of backview mirror studies namely 'adaptability', 'flexibility', 'consciousness' and 'service-standard'. Most planners and politicians were in agreement that the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT municipal government as a whole and every department in particular needs to adapt The author thanks the Municipality of V/ister~s for the itself to various discontinuities and con- support that enabled this study to be made. tingencies. It is necessary to find out how this could be achieved more satisfactorily in REFERENCES the future. Secondly, it is necessary to be 1. Benson KJ (1975) The interorganization as a political flexible with regard to the division of work economy. Admin. Sci. Q. 20. between administrative units and between 2. Briggs A (1978) The historian and the future. Futures staff members. The present department 10.
Omega, Vol. 14, No. 5 3. Fowles J (1974) On chronocentrism. Futures 6. 4. Hofstede G and Kassim SM (Eds.) (1976) European Contributions to Organisation Theory. Van Gorcum, Amsterdam. 5. Kahn H and Wiener AJ (1967) The Year 2000. Macmillan, New York. 6. Khakee A (1985) Futures-oriented municipal planning. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 28. 7. Khakee A and Wiberg U (Eds.) (1982) Kommunala framtidsstudier (Municipal Futures Studies). Ministry of Industry, Stockholm. 8. Lindblom CE (1973) The science of'muddling through'. A Reader in Planning Theory (Ed. Faludi A). Pergamon, Oxford. 9. Mitroff I, Barabba VP and Kilmann RH (1977) The application of behavioral and philosophical techniques to strategic planning: a case study of a large federal agency. Mgmt. Sci. 24. 10. Mueller DC (1979) Public Choice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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I1. Murray R (1981) Kommunernas roll i den offentliga sektorn (The Role of Municipalities m the Public Sector). Department of Economics, University of Stockholm, Stockholm. 12. V/ister~ts Municipality (1984 and 1985) Viister&s kommun i framtiden (Viister&s Municipality in the Future). Report Nos 2, 4 and 5. Planning Department, Municipality of V/isterhs, V~sterS.s. 13. Wamsley GL and Zald MN (1973) The political economy of public organization. Public Adm. Rev. 33. 14. Wilson IH (1978) Scenarios. Handbook o f Futures Research. (Ed. Fowles G). Greenwood, London. 15. Yeates M and Garner BC (1976) The North American City. Harper & Row, New York.
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE: A Khakee, Department of Geography, University of Ume3, S-901 87 Ume~, Sweden.