Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century

by Alasdair Roberts

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 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.

Genres: Politics

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 29, 2022

About the author

Alasdair Roberts is a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Reviews

[Jake M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alasdair Roberts does commendable work in defining a superstate and the hazards they face. The book distinguishes between empires and superstates, identifies current superstates of the 21st century and their common hazards such as centralized power, bureaucracy, population management, sectionalism, financial management, emergency response and the application of law. Each of these hazards are discussed in Indian, American, Chinese and EU contexts.
The writing is economical and fluid, clarifying a complex and daunting topic. Each chapter could fill volumes of text, making Superstates a primer on the challenges facing these massive polities. Roberts betrays some bias by couching the legitimacy of superstates and their survival on the issue of universal human rights. While there is merit to this worldview, it's as if he remains skeptical on the sustainability of authoritarianism in China and the flashes of autocracy in India. Otherwise, this is a great entry into high-level policy studies.

[Berk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Veel te simplistisch.