As the West’s ideological and material hegemony continues to wane, a new multipolar world is taking shape. This change is structural—a product of the unstoppable diffusion of power. The transition from the industrial era to the digital age has meanwhile destabilized the liberal democracies that long oversaw global governance. A combination of automation and free trade has undermined the industrial-era social contract, hollowing out Western middle classes and the political centrism that sustained liberal internationalism. These dual tectonic shifts are stoking geopolitical rivalries and eroding international rules and institutions, putting out of reach the collective initiative needed to govern a globalized world.
U.S. President Donald Trump is a symptom more than a cause of this disarray and the anti-establishment anger it has provoked. He and other populists promise to tear down the old liberal order. But they lack the skills and inclination to build what comes next. The policy community needs to urgently prepare for the post-Trump era by generating a plan for governing an interdependent world that is in the process of falling apart.
Building order in the world to come should begin with recognizing the renewed importance of regions; the diffusion of power logically necessitates the decentering and devolution of authority. Order will need to come from the bottom up, drawing on regional groupings that tap into the natural order-producing effects of geographic proximity, commercial ties, and common cultures. The regionalization of governance sets the stage for a polycentric international system: a multiorder world of considerable ideological and political diversity.
