GOVERNING BY LOOKING BACK:

Governing proceeds by 'looking back' as much as by 'looking forward'. The importance of the former is often underappreciated. In the early postwar decades the policy sciences focused on planning, scenarios and strategies. As the limits of this approach to governance have become clearer, the past has made a comeback. Scholarly attention has now shifted to governing by looking back. There has been an explosion of studies on collective memory, public accountability, policy evaluation and social learning.

This conference organized by the Research School of Social Sciences of the Australian National University taps into that trend. It draws on the new Thematic structure around which the School itself is organized. It brings together scholars from across the social sciences who study how societies and organizations remember, forget, frame and cope with the past in their efforts to govern themselves. Its aim is to foster academic and policy dialogue about how to assess and improve institutional capacities for remembering and learning from the past, in and beyond Australia.

Conference convenors

Conference administrator