Superstates
eBook - ePub

Superstates

Empires of the Twenty-First Century

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Superstates

Empires of the Twenty-First Century

About this book

In this century, the world will conduct an extraordinary experiment in government. In 2050, forty percent of the planet's population will live in just four places: India, China, the European Union, and the United States. These are superstates – polities that are distinguished from normal countries by expansiveness, population, diversity, and complexity.

How should superstates be governed? What must their leaders do to hold these immense polities together in the face of extraordinary strains and shocks? Alasdair Roberts looks to history for answers. Superstates, he contends, wrestle with the same problems of leadership, control, and purpose that plagued empires for centuries. But they also bear heavier burdens than empires – including the obligation to improve life for ordinary people and respect human rights.

One axiom of history was that empires always died. Size and complexity led to fragility, and imperial rulers improvised constantly to put off the day of reckoning. Leaders of superstates are doing the same today, pursuing radically different strategies for governing at scale that have profound implications for democracy and human rights. History shows that there are ways to govern these sprawling and diverse polities well. But this requires a different way of thinking about the art and methods of statecraft.

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Yes, you can access Superstates by Alasdair Roberts in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & International Relations. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. About the Author
  6. Epigraph
  7. 1 The Experiment
  8. 2 Empires Always Die
  9. 3 Are Superstates More Durable?
  10. 4 The United States: An Old Hazard Returns
  11. 5 India: The Centralizing Reflex
  12. 6 China: Authoritarian Dilemmas
  13. 7 The European Union: Cohesion without Coercion
  14. 8 The COVID Test
  15. 9 How to Rule a Superstate
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. Index
  18. End User License Agreement