42 Chapter 2 ultimate aims to be realized. This allows us to delineate four distinct approaches to anticipatory governance in the reviewed literature. In distilling diverse conceptions of the future, we scrutinized assumptions about the knowability and manageability of the future. Our review yielded four (ideal-typical) ways in which the future is being conceptualized and engaged with in the literature: (1) assessing probable (and improbable) futures; (2) contending with multiple plausible futures; (3) imagining diverse pluralistic futures; and (4) scrutinizing the performative potential of future imaginaries. In distilling associated actions in the present, we inductively identified four ideal-typical categories of present-day actions flowing from diverse conceptions of the future. These included: (1) formal planning and strategy development; (2) building broad-based societal preparedness and capacities; (3) mobilizing diverse actors; and (4) interrogating discursive and material effects in the present. Finally, with regard to ultimate aims, we inductively identified the following four idealtypical ends to be realized through engaging with anticipatory governance: (1) to mitigate or reduce future risk; (2) to reflexively navigate diverse uncertain futures; (3) to imagine and co-create new futures; and (4) to shed light on the political implications in the present of speculative future imaginaries. Through combining these diverse ways of engaging with the future, associated present actions, and ultimate aims, we distill four broad approaches to anticipatory governance discernible in social and sustainability science scholarship. We describe these below and summarize them also in Figure 2.1. 2.4.1. Approach 1: Probable futures, strategic planning and risk reduction The first approach to anticipatory governance that we identify here assesses probable and improbable futures and prioritizes strategic planning in the present, with the ultimate aim of future risk reduction. This approach is most clearly discernible in perspectives in the public policy and planning literature that explicitly deploy the notion of anticipatory governance as well as in some probabilistic futures studies. There are some similarities between this and the second approach, namely that both see futures as complex and uncertain; however, proponents of approach 1 predominantly argue that future risks can be prevented, and future opportunities can be shaped. Conception of the future: This first approach to anticipatory governance is concerned with identifying and assessing the probability of different futures. It assumes that future
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