There is no such thing as a short-term issue

Abstract

This paper challenges the commonplace assumption that it is possible to clearly distinguish between short- and long-term issues or problems in public affairs. I conduct a limited but illustrative analysis of how these terms have been used by scholars in political science and future studies, and I consider four plausible definitions but find that each is inadequate. I conclude that we cannot easily or consistently make a priori judgments about which issues should be considered “short-term” ones and which should be considered “long-term” ones. Furthermore, these distinctions, even if they could be made, are not useful — and many be counterproductive — in public affairs and institutional design. Instead of adopting special institutions to deal with long-term issues, we need general-purpose institutions that are capable of dealing with the temporal-complexities inherent in all public issues.