Sharper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World - Hardcover

William I. Hitchcock; Melvyn P. Leffler; Jeffrey W. Legro

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674660218 ISBN 13: 9780674660212

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Shaper Nations provides illuminating perspectives on the national strategies of eight emerging and established countries that are shaping global politics in the twenty-first century. The volume's authors offer a unique viewpoint: they live and work primarily in the country about which they write, bringing an insider's feel for national debates and politics. Conventional wisdom suggests that shaper states have clear central authority, coherently connect means to ends, and focus on their geopolitical environment. These essays suggest a different conclusion. In Brazil, China, Germany, India, Israel, Russia, and Turkey, strategy is dominated by non-state threats, domestic politics, the distorting effect of national identity, economic development concerns, and the sheer difficulty, in the face of powerful internal and external constraints, of pursuing an effective national strategy. The shapers represent a new trend in the international arena with important consequences. Among them is a more uncertain world in which countries concentrate on their own development rather than on shared problems that might divert precious resources, and attend more to regional than to global order. In responding to these shaper states, the United States must understand the sources of their national strategies in determining its own role on the global stage.

About this title

About the Author

William I. Hitchcock is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Melvyn P. Leffler is Edward Stettinius Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Jeffrey W. Legro is Vice Provost for Global Affairs and Randolph P. Compton Professor in the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674660218
• ISBN 13: 9780674660212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224