Anticipatory governance in practice: assessing how Italian ministries conceive and use strategic foresight to design sustainable futures

This article examines how strategic foresight is understood and used within the Italian central government, and to what extent it is conceived as a foundational component of policy design oriented toward sustainable futures. The study is motivated by recent transformations in public governance, where complexity, uncertainty, conflict and the interdependence of policy problems increasingly challenge the viability of traditional approaches to policy formulation, while also increasing the importance of experts, expert knowledge and policy capacities in addressing long-term governance challenges. Against this backdrop, governments are called upon to adopt anticipatory, participatory and adaptive modes of governance, in which strategic foresight can play a central role. Relying on qualitative data collected through participant observation of a workshop addressed to senior public servants of the Italian executive in 2024, the article explores how these dynamics are reflected in policy design practices across ministries. The findings show that strategic foresight is increasingly recognized as a useful approach for supporting informed decision-making. However, its use remains fragmented, often limited to sectoral or experimental initiatives, and unevenly integrated into policy-making. The article argues that the main challenge for the Italian case is not simply the adoption of foresight methods, but their integration as a stable component of policy design and anticipatory governance practices within public administrations.