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In recent years, the United States has retreated from many global leadership roles. It has imposed tariffs, questioned long-standing mutual defense pacts like NATO, challenged democratic norms and cut funding to human rights watchdogs, withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, and shuttered USAID. The post What Should Be the Capital of the New World Order? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Imagine the following scenario: A magnificent empire has prospered for 250 years. Over the past century, it has established an imposing world order stretching across oceans and continents. In recent decades, it has pacified this vast realm, protecting smaller states against aggressors while extending its own hegemony in the process. The post On the Chinese Internet, We’re Living in 1644 appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Is a “new world order” emerging as the U.S. abdicates its global leadership, as a recent New York Times essay put it? Many analysts and scholars of global culture and world systems have argued, with increasing intensity, that U.S. superpowers are diminishing. The post How Writers Redefined the War on Terror appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

A letter arrived saying I was needed. It said to come to the far side of the river at once. I wasted no time. I collected the few things I would require and opened the door, where another letter was waiting for me. The post A Brittle Flower Sliding Into Cold Water appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

The bustle of contemporary politics does not leave much room for grand visions of alternative futures. People are too busy focusing on the current scandal, the next protest, or the immediate crisis to distract themselves with bold but distant utopian visions of better societies. The post A Utopian World Order Is Possible appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.