Survival Mechanisms

As recently as 1945, much of the world was divided into great empires, while the Soviets were still carving out one of their own. All are gone now, and so too are most absolute monarchies. There is nothing permanent about political regimes. Today, Westerners increasingly worry about democracies sliding into autocracy, while Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin worry about colour revolutions (as in Ukraine) that threaten autocracy. The horror show of the second Trump administration is a daily reminder of how long-established norms and institutions can prove fragile.

With The Adaptable Country, Alasdair Roberts, a Canadian political scientist now at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, calls for realism about the prevalence of danger, the fragility of nation-states, and the need for political institutions to adjust strategy as circumstances continue to change. This is a timely book, especially given Canada’s need to deal with the brutal reality of Donald Trump...