{"id":30726,"title":"Introducing RANGE: How to Forecast the key Issues Determining Transatlantic Relations","link":"https:\/\/bst-europe.eu\/de\/miscellaneous\/introducing-range-how-to-forecast-the-key-issues-determining-transatlantic-relations\/","date":"11. Juli 2022","date_unix":1657557283,"date_modified_unix":1754483987,"date_iso":"2022-07-11T16:34:43+00:00","content":"

Policymaking is, to a large extent, about predictions. As policy decisions are based on how decision-makers expect the future will unfold, these implicit or explicit expectations are forecasts. In this respect, every policymaker is a forecaster.<\/p>\n

However, good forecasting is difficult, especially in multidimensional environments like international relations and geopolitics, where little is certain, information is always incomplete, and surprises are commonplace. Will the United States pass a comprehensive digital privacy law this year?<\/p>\n

Will the EU and\/or the US impose sanctions on China for circumventing economic sanctions against Russia? Will the Republican party control the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate following the elections on November 8, 2022?<\/p>\n

To forecast these and more such questions, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, in collaboration with the Bertelsmann Foundation in Washington DC, has launched a new platform called RANGE<\/strong><\/a> (Rethinking Assumptions in a New Geostrategic Environment), which follows an innovative approach to thinking about the future.<\/p>\n

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Crowdsourced Forecasting: A New Way to Think About the Future<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Crowdsourced forecasting is the ongoing collection of forecasts (typically in the form of a probability) from a large, diverse group of people, which are aggregated into a \u201ccrowd\u201d or \u201cconsensus\u201d forecast about a future event. These crowd forecasts are often more accurate than that of any one individual, as this technique reduces error and bias through aggregation and machine learning.<\/p>\n

As J. Peter Scoblic and Philip E. Tetlock have pointed out in their Foreign Affairs<\/em> article entitled \u201cA Better Crystal Ball. The Right Way to Think About the Future<\/a>\u201d, crowdsourced forecasting is based on a combination of two different approaches to thinking about the future: scenario planning and probabilistic forecasting. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses and are often seen as incompatible, given their different assumptions and goals.<\/p>\n

Yet Scoblic and Tetlock have shown that they can be successfully combined by \u201cdeveloping clusters of questions that give early, forecastable indications of which envisioned future is likely to emerge.\u201d Our new RANGE platform follows this methodological approach.<\/p>\n

RANGE (Rethinking Assumptions in a New Geostrategic Environment)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

RANGE<\/a> is a newly launched crowdsourced forecasting platform focused on critical topics like systemic rivalry with China, climate change, technology, democracy, geopolitics, trade, and economics. It looks at these topics from the perspective of the transatlantic relationship.<\/p>\n

Its goal is to build a diverse community of forecasters to infuse new, ongoing, accurate, and insightful perspectives into analysis and recommendations for policymakers.<\/p>\n

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\nThe forecasts are crowdsourced from a community of<\/p>\n