Superstates
Empires of the Twenty-First Century
1. Auflage Dezember 2022
224 Seiten, Hardcover
Sachbuch
Kurzbeschreibung
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.
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.
1. The Experiment
2. Empires Always Die
3. Are Superstates More Durable?
4. The United States: An Old Hazard Returns
5. India: The Centralizing Reflex
6. China: Authoritarian Dilemmas
7. The European Union: Cohesion without Coercion
8. The COVID Test
9. How to Rule a Superstate
Acknowledgments
Notes
--Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group
"A fascinating and provocative account of the governance challenges facing the rulers of today's four 'superstates,' who must grapple not only with the issues that have beset imperial rulers over the centuries, but also those arising from modern technology and culture."
--Christopher Hood, University of Oxford
"Superstates looks ahead at the future of governance, where more and more people will be crammed into a few massive polities. Roberts shrewdly considers the lessons from past empires and the challenges of running a modern nation state. The result is an extraordinarily accessible, insightful and challenging field guide to governance around the world in the coming decades."
--Donald Moynihan, Georgetown University
"Alasdair Roberts has done it again! Superstates is a provocative read built on fascinating historical and contemporary evidence that any history or political science student will enjoy."
--Trent Engbers, University of Southern Indiana
"In Superstates, Al Roberts makes a bold and intriguing argument that four large governmental systems are poised to dominate the twenty-first century. With a careful eye to history and a forward-leaning look to the mid-century and beyond, he explores the big themes that are destined to shape the often wild and raucous debates about the future of governance."
--Donald F. Kettl, Professor Emeritus and Former Dean, University of Maryland School of Public Policy
"Are Superstates governance utopias or dystopias? And are they self-denying or self-fullfilling? We, the people, want to know. This book makes us understand what to do, and even more, what not to do."
--Geert Bouckaert, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute
"This book is expertly informed, extensively well documented, crafted for interesting study, and importantly useful for professional and popular understanding."
--International Journal of Public Administration
"Empires are supposed to be a thing of the past, yet in some ways the empires we knew are still with us. The largest states in the world have the scale of empires but, Roberts suggests, they are a new breed . . . Roberts is sceptical that his four superstates will all exist in their present form in a hundred years' time."
--London Review of Books
"With a groundbreaking twist in thinking about the art and methods of statecraft, Roberts considers the decisions leaders must make to devise and redevise strategies for governance at such a grand scale."
--Politics Today
"Superstates finds a nice balance between academic curiosity and practical utility and overcomes the limitations of comparative political definitions to identify real challenges shared across four distinct political structures. It is a useful framework for looking at what will be a very dynamic period of both domestic and international politics."
--The Diplomatic Courier
"Superstates is engaging, lucid, judicious, well documented, and highly accessible. For those interested in, or troubled by, the abiding dilemmas of contemporary government and governing, whether as researchers, students, and practitioners, Superstates will serve as an invaluable resource."
--International Review of Public Administration
"The book serves as an invaluable resource for researchers, students and practitioners grappling with the enduring dilemmas of contemporary government. Readers will find his discussion to be eloquent, perceptive and enlightening."
--Global Public Policy and Governance
"Superstates offers clever insights about the conduct of public administration. . . . It also makes important connections between tactical issues of public administration and the longer-term implications for its nature and structure."
--Policy Options
