The article was written by György Schöpflin, president of the Institute’s Advisory Board and was released in American Diplomacy, on August 1, 2021.

Abstract

American Diplomacy Journal asked several foreign policy commentators to address the significance of growing chaos in many parts of the world, as failed and failing states are increasingly unable to perform the fundamental functions of the sovereign nation-state. Global connectivity, the autonomy of capital movement, the uneven spread of technology, the rise of resentful elites – resentful of the Wests hegemony – all combine to resist human rights, the democracy agenda, gender mainstreaming and much else dear to liberals. The standard view tells us that causation is reliably linear – infinitely repeatable – but complexity theory has a very different message, that linear causation is sometimes cut across by non-linear processes, like the butterfly effect, meaning that small factors can have disproportionate, unintended consequences.

The article is available HERE with full text.