WORK IN PROGRESS
STEERING IN THE WHITEWATER
Essays on the strategies of civility in a disorderly world
Remember the euphoria at the end of the Cold War? The world seemed to be entering an era of deep peace. If not at the end of history's struggles between the civil and the violent, we thought ourselves at least the start of a strategic pause and eligible for a "peace dividend." Success seemed to breed success. Along came the Gulf War. American military prowess seemed likely to guarantee an American Century of international stability. Along came computers and the Internet. The information revolution seemed certain to guarantee everyone knowledge and an individual democratic identity. Along came globalization. International webs of trade seemed certain to guarantee world-wide prosperity.
And then came the realization that we were wrong. Barely far enough into the new century to be able to say the dates right, a more stark set of realities pressed in: new forms of armed violence raged in many places-most cases of arson ignited by wannabe leader-demagogues who were using the information revolution, globalization, and American might as fuel for wars.
The essays in this book explore the key questions: What happened? How do we get back on track? Indeed, what does "on track" mean? Rather than pat formulas, the essays offer a navigation guide as people and societies around the world shoot down the rapids of this turbulent period in history - the whitewater.
FUTURE WORK (among other planned projects)
ACCOUNTABILITY
Essays on accountable authority in a disorderly world
What is accountability? What is its use and how do we exact it? Much in demand, especially by politicians during campaign seasons, accountability remains a vague quality, something we recognize most clearly when we don't see it.
The opposable thumb of society, accountable authority is at the heart of the civil world. With this book, I set out to understand accountability's central role in determining whether our highly inter-dependent, 21st Century societies are to settle into an era of comity or one of violence. As the book shows in an examination of several layers of modern life, the outcome is in doubt. Beginning with the military and with politics, the book dissects the attacks being mounted on accountability in the field of government, the professions, business, and the media.
WORKS IN PRINT - MONOGRAPHS
THE VENICE PAPERS
No. 1 - THE VENICE DELIBERATIONS
No. 2 - SECURITY FOR PEACE
No. 3 - PROFESSIONAL PEACEBUILDING
UNESCO
Paris, France
No. 1 - 1996
No. 2 - 1996
No. 3 - 1998
These three monographs were written in the mid-1990s during the years I directed the Venice Project while serving as Senior Advisor to the Director-General of UNESCO, Dr. Federico Mayor. Click here to read each of the three papers on the UNESCO website.
Venice Paper Number 1, called the "most important book of the past five years" by a member of the Club of Rome, summarizes the discussions of a small group of leading thinkers assembled in Venice, Italy by Dr. Mayor and his associate, Dr. Tom Forstenzer. In The Venice Deliberations one can trace a still-relevant discussion among former Soviet President Gorbachev, Nobelist Ilya Prigogine, then Member of the British Parliament Emma Nicholson and others including me, of the meaning of security and the work of peacebuilding in the post-Cold War world.
Growing out of those discussions was a charter from Mayor and Forstenzer for my effort to put the Venice principles into practice. Venice Paper Number 2, Security for Peace, published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, reported the insights of a group of Latin American military officers into the changed and changing roles of the military in society. The colonels, by the way, were notably forward thinking - a reflection of the capacity of the professional military in a democratic society to be in the creative vanguard of thinking about the construction of durable peace, contrary to the stereotype of retrograde and bullet-headed officers looming over their governments.
Capping the series and published in English, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, Venice Paper Number 3, Professional Peacebuilding outlined a methodology for the use of advanced simulations in the design of peacebuilding and conflict prevention strategies. Professional Peacebuilding continues as the leading guide in the world today to the powerful, democracy-engendering processes of PeaceLabs (see www.strategygroup.org ) and CoLabs (see http://www.ohiolearningwork.org/colabs.asp )
OUT OF PRINT - MONOGRAPH
A QUESTION OF BALANCE
Papers on Navy Programming
The Brookings Institution
Washington DC
July 1976
This monograph was written during the period Summer 1976-Summer 1977 when I was a Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
Capping several years work on the Navy headquarters staff in the Pentagon where I had been part of a small team of "programmers" who shaped the Navy's decision process, this monograph explored the theory and practice by which large organizations could shape their future by allocating resources. At the time this was one of the first analyses of the principles behind the "programming" phase of the Defense Department's Planning, Programming, and Budgeting Process, PPBS. The monograph was distributed internally in the Navy staff and most likely remained widely unread. I gained some useful insights in writing it.
Contact Larry Seaquist
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