Populist revolt within countries has its complement in a populist revolt against the liberal, rules-based international order, which is driven by three revisionist powers – China, Russia, Iran – that have rich histories as civilizations, empires that once extended well beyond their current size, a powerful sense of historic entitlement and of historic grievance. Today their quest for enlarged spheres of influence in East Asia, Eurasia, and West Asia (or the Middle East), respectively, has reinforced, and in turn been reinforced by, a politics of resentment inside many countries of Europe and the U.S. The chip on the shoulder politics of the moment are perhaps best exemplified by Russia, because of the steepness of its decline. Is this a passing phase or a new normal, in Russia and beyond?
Stephen Kotkin is the Birkelund Professor of History and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. He directs the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, and the Program in the History and Practice of Diplomacy. He is also a Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Lecture I: The Gift of Geopolitics: How Worlds are Made, and Unmade
April 5, 2017, 6:00pm
Lecture II: What, if anything, is the Difference between Fascism and Communism?
April 19, 2017, 6:00pm
