Joseph S. Nye, Jr.: New World Order
[Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School.]
Beyond the euphoria and uncertainties of the moment, the revolt in Egypt has sparked a debate about how much technology and information matter in a revolutionary context. Some commentators, particularly in TV coverage, have claimed that Twitter, Facebook, and blogs largely drove events in Egypt. This has provoked a strong intellectual backlash—an argument that more traditional forces are what truly deserve credit, from Bouazizi’s suicide in Tunisia to the economic woes of the middle class in Egypt.
It is time to approach the debate in a more level-headed way, because it is not one in which one side is clearly right and the other wrong. Indeed, it is important to place Egypt in the context of the broad, complex, evolving information revolution that is currently transforming world politics. It is a revolution the implications of which we can’t yet fully grasp, but one that is fundamentally transforming the nature of power in the twenty-first century.
Two important power shifts are occurring in this century, as I argue in my book The Future of Power: power transition and power diffusion. Power transition—from dominant states to others—is a familiar historical process, but power diffusion is more novel and, today, more difficult to manage. The problem for all states in today’s global information age is that more things are happening outside the control of even the most powerful governments. Conventional wisdom has always held that the government with the largest military prevails, but, in an information age, it may be the state (or non-states) with the best story that wins. As Egypt shows, soft power becomes a more important part of the mix....
Read entire article at The New Republic
Beyond the euphoria and uncertainties of the moment, the revolt in Egypt has sparked a debate about how much technology and information matter in a revolutionary context. Some commentators, particularly in TV coverage, have claimed that Twitter, Facebook, and blogs largely drove events in Egypt. This has provoked a strong intellectual backlash—an argument that more traditional forces are what truly deserve credit, from Bouazizi’s suicide in Tunisia to the economic woes of the middle class in Egypt.
It is time to approach the debate in a more level-headed way, because it is not one in which one side is clearly right and the other wrong. Indeed, it is important to place Egypt in the context of the broad, complex, evolving information revolution that is currently transforming world politics. It is a revolution the implications of which we can’t yet fully grasp, but one that is fundamentally transforming the nature of power in the twenty-first century.
Two important power shifts are occurring in this century, as I argue in my book The Future of Power: power transition and power diffusion. Power transition—from dominant states to others—is a familiar historical process, but power diffusion is more novel and, today, more difficult to manage. The problem for all states in today’s global information age is that more things are happening outside the control of even the most powerful governments. Conventional wisdom has always held that the government with the largest military prevails, but, in an information age, it may be the state (or non-states) with the best story that wins. As Egypt shows, soft power becomes a more important part of the mix....