Images of World Futures

A body of 800 experts, worldwide, on international relations was surveyed in 1977 concerning their short-term (next 5 years) and long-term (next 25 years) predictions for international conflict, political change, and economic development. We present their predictions for both time-frames, and for the 5-year predictions compare them with events that actually occurred. We compare the predictions, and their relative success for the short- term predictions, by methodological orientation (behavioral or traditional) and nationality (United States, Japanese, and Other) of the predictor. Traditionalists succeeded somewhat better than behavioralists (at least outside their subjects of expertise), and both the Americans and the Others had greater success than the Japanese, though none of the differences between groups was great. The experts typically predicted little or no change in events or trends, rather than predicting major change. This is true for short- and long-range predictions. Within a generally optimistic set of predictions for the next 25 years, the Japanese group stands out as especially so, particularly on international cooperation, war-avoidance, and prosperity.