Oct 18
In the International Journal of Public Administration, Chester A. Newland reviews Superstates. Newland says: “This book is expertly informed, extensively well documented, crafted for interesting study, and importantly useful for professional and popular understanding.” Read the review.
I’m looking forward to talking about Superstates on October 24 in a virtual book talk sponsored by the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration. Registration details here.
I’ll deliver the Monroe-Paine Distinguished Lecture at the Truman School of Public Affairs on September 22. Details here. PPT here.
On September 4-7 I’ll give three talks at the School of Economics, Administration and Public Policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies:
On September 4, I’ll give a public lecture about my forthcoming book, Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century. Title for the talk: “Superstates: What Empires Teach Us About Running Large Countries.” PPT slides for that talk here.
On September 7, I’ll talk to PhD students about my 2020 book Strategies for Governing. PPT slides for that talk are here.
On the same day, I’ll talk to SEAPP students about my 2018 book, Can Government Do Anything Right? PPT slides for that talk here.
While in Doha I also participated in a book launch at the HBKU College of Public Policy. Story here.
Ian Bremmer, President of Eurasia Group, recommends Superstates: “Analysts focus on what the world’s largest and most powerful countries can do to confront climate change, pandemics, and other dangerous threats. Roberts’s Superstates flips the script and asks how these threats will affect the structure, borders, and even existence of the world’s most populous countries. Drawing from the history of empire, the book is a sobering warning of the difficulties our unprecedentedly complex ‘superstates’ will face to survive the next century unscathed.”
Christopher Hood, University of Oxford: “A fascinating and provocative account of the governance challenges facing the rulers of today’s four ‘superstates,’ who must grapple not only with the issues that have beset imperial rulers over the centuries, but also those arising from modern technology and culture.”
Donald Moynihan, Georgetown University: “Superstates looks ahead at the future of governance, where more and more people will be crammed into a few massive polities. Roberts shrewdly considers the lessons from past empires and the challenges of running a modern nation state. The result is an extraordinarily accessible, insightful and challenging field guide to governance around the world in the coming decades.”
Geert Bouckaert, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute: “Are ‘Superstates’ governance utopias or dystopias? And are they self-denying or self-fullfilling? We, the people, want to know. This book makes us understand what to do, and even more, what not to do.”
“This book is expertly informed, extensively well documented, crafted for interesting study, and importantly useful for professional and popular understanding.” – International Journal of Public Administration.
Here’s an interview in which I talk about my new book, Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century, forthcoming from Polity later this year. Read the interview. The blurb for the book is available here.
Nov 3
Here’s the description for Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century, forthcoming from Polity in late 2022. Details and pre-order on the Polity website. Pre-order on Amazon US. Pre-order on Amazon UK.
In this century, the world will conduct an extraordinary experiment in government. In 2050, forty percent of the planet’s population will live in just four places: India, China, the European Union, and the United States. These are superstates — polities that are distinguished from normal countries by expansiveness, population, diversity, and complexity.
How should superstates be governed? What must their leaders do to hold these immense polities together in the face of extraordinary strains and shocks? Alasdair Roberts looks to history for answers. Superstates, he contends, wrestle with the same problems of leadership, control and purpose that plagued empires for centuries. But they also bear heavier burdens than empires — including the obligation to improve life for ordinary people and respect human rights.
One axiom of history was that empires always died. Size and complexity led to fragility, and imperial rulers improvised constantly to put off the day of reckoning. Leaders of superstates are doing the same today, pursuing radically different strategies for governing at scale that have profound implications for democracy and human rights. History shows that there are ways to govern these sprawling and diverse polities well. But this requires a different way of thinking about the art and methods of statecraft.
I’ll be the plenary speaker for the closing day of the NASPAA-South Asia conference on November 13, 2021. Title of my talk: “Can democracy work in supersized polities?” Conference details here. Watch the talk here.
I’ll give the keynote address at the Graduate Student Conference on Policy and Global Studies at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, UMass Boston, on April 16, 2021. The subject of my talk: “Governance and Democracy in Peril.” My Powerpoint slides for the talk are here. Details about the conference here.
I will participate in a panel for the International Seminar on Democracy and Public Policy in India on February 27. The seminar is hosted by the Department of Political Science at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. My topic is “Governing supersized countries.” My Powerpoint is here. Seminar program here.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
