Official and Unofficial Futures of the Communism System. Romanian futures studies between control and dissidence.

Ana-Maria Cătănuş, Official and Unofficial Futures of the Communism System.  Romanian futures studies between control and dissidence in "The Struggle for the Long-Term in Transnational Science and Politics Forging the Future", edited by Jenny Andersson, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Routledge – 2015 – 256 pages.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138858534/

Photograph from the 
Third International Conference on 

Futures Research  in Bucharest, 1972

Source: http://www.comunismulinromania.ro

The chapter focuses on the analysis of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ futures research in Communist Romania during the seventies and the eighties. It begins with an analysis of the historical and political context in which futurology emerged and developed in Romania, and it emphasizes the importance of the relative liberalization of regime control in the early years of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s regime. 
The second part of the chapter deals with ‘official’ future research in Romania, that was created under direct supervision of the Romanian Communist Party. As Ceauşescu’s rule developed into a dictatorship, he also identified the future as a mere instrument to justify the policies of his regime. 
The third part of the chapter focuses on the personal story of Mihai Botez, one of the leading Romanian futurologists. At the end of the 1970s Botez crossed over the border of official forecasting into the production of ‘unofficial’ futures of the communist system. He would use these unofficial futures as the basis of his dissidence.

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