Najam Interviewed on “New World Disorder” Thesis
Dean Adil Najam of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies was invited by Ejaz Haider, one of Pakistan’s leading foreign affairs analysts and TV news anchors, to appear for a feature interview on his Capital TV news show Baylaag to discuss global events that had shaped 2017 and on his thesis of a “new world disorder.” The interview, which covered the entirety of the 40-minute broadcast, were aired on December 16, 2017.
The interview elaborated the “new world disorder” thesis that Prof. Adil Najam has been presenting elsewhere, including at the 2017 Annual Kleh Distinguished Lecture in London this last November.
The full interview (in Urdu) can be seen below:
The idea of the “new world disorder” is based on Najam’s essay of the same title, published earlier this year. Using evidence from current political trends and developments, Najam presented the argument that the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, Brexit in the United Kingdom, ultra-nationalism in India, and strongman politics in Russia and China are best understood in the context of a much larger global trend – or a New World Disorder – which was exemplified by what he called the ‘politics of anti-politics.’ He argued that the so-called ‘post-truth’ politics is also a global phenomenon and has been aided by technologies, especially social media, that foster “communitarian echo chambers.”
Najam suggested that there is a global public “demand” for strongman leaders and not just politicians but the very idea of politics has come under universal attack. Much of this, according to Najam, reflects the failures of governance by politicians themselves. The result, however, is that “today about half the world’s population, two-thirds the world economy, and three-fourths the world military is being ruled by strongmen.”
The interview was a followup to two similar interviews on the same show that had been conducted at the end of 2016, where the wide-ranging discussion had also focused on the long-term impacts of global developments, including on geopolitics in Asia, relations between major power centers in the United States, China, Russia and Europe, and much else.
Adil Najam is the inaugural dean of the Pardee School and was a former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore Pakistan. Learn more about him here.