In its first few weeks, the Trump administration moved at a rapid fire pace to disrupt the global order. The reaction was predictable. Trump supporters were delighted by the America First agenda that appealed to economic nationalism and reinforced identity politics. Critics were horrified by what they considered outright discrimination against a class of people and the violation of the U.S. constitution.  Amidst the cacophony, concern grew that American democracy could be at risk....

Who would have imagined that we'd be disputing the fact of “facts”? Yet, the Trump administration routinely accuses the media and its opponents of “lying” and a counsellor to the president, Kellyanne Conway, has added the phrase “alternative facts” to our political vocabulary.  President Donald Trump is giving expression to a process that has been building for some time. Opinions mask as evidence on social media that do not always engage in fact checking.  A public that is not very good at...

Growing inequality has driven, both indirectly and indirectly, the wave of populist protest that has swept through the developed world in the last few years. For a brief period of some fifty years – from the 1930s to the 1980s – inequality diminished and the middle class grew across the developed world. But the last thirty years tell a different story, as the top 1% takes an increasing share of global wealth and the working poor get less and less.  Can political leaders keep this promise?...

For the last fifteen years, the western world has been transfixed by Islamic terrorism that has struck at its geography, its morality, and its sense of self. Western leaders have struggled to understand what has gone wrong within Islam, one of the world’s great religions, and also within the West, the birthplace of liberal democracy. Presidents and prime ministers have tried to fashion a response that would keep citizens safe without destroying the democratic fabric, but with limited...

One of the most disruptive forces, a force that has shaken the global order in the last few decades, is Islamism. In his new book Islamic Exceptionalism, How the Struggle over Islam is Reshaping the World, author Shadi Hamid offers a unique and provocative argument on how Islam is extraordinary in how it relates to politics. Divisions among citizens in the Muslim world aren't simply about power or material factors. They are the product of fundamental disagreements over the nature and purpose...

All presidents begin their terms of office with determination to bend the world to the arc of their narrative. But quite quickly, the world shapes the policies of a president as much as the president shapes the world. That said, predispositions do matter. Donald Trump has promised to disrupt the existing global order, to end what he describes as the “free riding” of long-time allies. He has promised to build walls rather than to tear down trade-barriers. And he has promised to slow...

Donald Trump promises to be the most disruptive president of the United States since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932. Like Roosevelt, Trump was elected after a major economic slump that destroyed millions of jobs. Unlike Roosevelt who came to power at the height of the Great Depression, Donald Trump has an economy that is growing again and that is near full employment. But like Roosevelt, who was elected by those who were frightened by their sharp decline in economic fortunes,...

For more than 300 years, nation-states dominated international conflict and shaped world order. They used all the instruments they had to make the rules that best served their interests. The big powers were the rule-makers and the rest of us were rule-takers. Two decades ago, digital technologies started to shake up that long-standing system. In 2012, the US government acknowledged that it had used these technologies to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, and Russia and China conducted...

The Internet has revolutionized the way we access, communicate, store and share knowledge, but it has been much less successful in providing security and privacy.  The capacity that governments, private companies, and skilled individuals have to hack our world is almost unlimited. We all know that when we fire off information into cyberspace, it is, for all intents and purposes, public. But change is on the horizon. New technology known as Blockchain facilitates transactions without...

Great powers have a unique capacity to disrupt the global order. No major leader promises to do so as systematically as Donald Trump.  In a victory that stunned most experts, Trump defeated the experienced Hillary Clinton. He has vowed to tear up free trade agreements, force NATO members to pay their share of expenses, and put American national interests first. If he does what he has promised to do, Trump will disrupt the long-standing liberal international order that western leaders began...

Nothing has been more disruptive to global order in this last decade than the global economy. The financial crisis that began in the United States in 2007 with the sale of securitized mortgages exploded into a global banking and financial crisis whose effects are still being felt today.  It spilled over into Europe, and exacerbated a financial downturn that continues to ravage the poorer members of the European Union.  Only the United States and Canada seemed to escape these dire...

No country has greater capacity to disrupt the global order than China. Despite the slowdown in its economy, China is the world’s largest economic power with a healthy growth rate of about 5%. China is investing heavily in its military and is developing a blue water navy that will expand its global reach. Conscious of its growing influence, China’s leaders are flexing their muscles, alarming their neighbours. This could well be the most dangerous neighbourhood in the world in the decades to...

In this first episode of Disrupting the Global Order, host Janice Stein begins with the biggest power of all - the United States.  China is rising and Russia is raging, but it is still the United States that pushes decisions on the big global issues. There is a great deal that the United States cannot do – especially in far flung regions of the world and particularly with stubbornly independent allies – but nobody can make much progress without the United States.  The twenty-first century,...

In this new podcast, host Janice Stein looks at the forces that are disrupting the global order. From religion and technology to economics and politics... these disrupters are everywhere. What are these disruptive forces and how much importance should we give them? Should we let the tension rip or breathe deeply, take a step back, and chill? Come along for the ride as Stein explores the future of the global order, uncovers what’s most likely to tear it apart, and discovers where the shock...