History

The concept of of the Preventive Paradigm emerged in the 1980s from the Greens movement. Related to (then) very young theories on Global Warming, Green groups suggested that it was important that government act on it at the time, rather than waiting 20 years for the theories to gain more credence. They suggested that if governments waited, the effects of global warming would be irreversible. Thus, the idea of the preventive paradigm, acting without complete knowledge of something to prevent said effect, came into the mindset of the political actor.

Today

Set against the context of a global war against terror, the concept takes on a new meaning. Western nations have launched pre-emptive attacks on middle-eastern countries to stop a potential future threat; the United States, amongst others, claimed that Weapons of Mass Destruction would be found in Iraq; the suggestion was also made that were Saddam Hussein to stay in power, he would present a credible threat in years to come.

It's important to understand that there was little credible evidence prior to (indeed, after) the war as to the threat that was to come; as time has gone on, it has become more clear that the reasons of engagement were more to do with preventing a future threat that finding WMD - thus highlighting the Preventive Paradigm mind set.

Problems

One of the clearest issues with the ideal is that there are no hard factual basis to actions undertaken in this mind set. The more radical, extreme and perhaps "far fetched" scenarios become the most realistic situations under the Preventive Paradigm. Politicians working in this style of thinking have the potential to work not on facts, but ideas.