Copyright 2016
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
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The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to research, education, and publication on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. Its principal purpose is to bring the highest quality independent research and analysis to bear on current and emerging policy problems. Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
ISBN 978-0-8157-2922-8 (ebook)
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset in ITC Legacy.
Composition by Elliott Beard.
I want to thank Tom Mann, Jonathan Ladd, and John Felton for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this book. They made a number of suggestions that improved the writing. I am grateful for their thoughtful reviews.
In addition, Hillary Schaub provided terrific research assistance on this project. She worked tirelessly compiling information for the book, while also maintaining a cheerful disposition. I appreciate all that she did on this project.
A number of individuals at the Brookings Institution Press deserve a special thank you. Valentina Kalk, the director of the press, was a great source of advice about the book. William Finan expedited the review process and made a number of useful suggestions. Janet Walker was very helpful in supervising the book production process. Elliott Beard designed and typeset the book. None of these individuals is responsible for the interpretations presented in this volume.
One trap is presentism, the idea that whatever is happening now will keep happening.
E. J. DIONNE
For many decades, foreign policy experts assumed that communism was entrenched in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Those countries leaders had built powerful authoritarian states that monitored citizens, punished dissidents, and kept their parties in power. A few academics thought these regimes had internal contradictions that would lead to their inexorable demise. But those forecasters were seen as contrarians and not taken very seriously by mainstream opinion leaders. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later, the internal politics and economies of nearly twenty European and Central Asian countries were transformed, disrupting political alignments around the world.
Top financial investors were shocked in 2008 when leading Wall Street firms collapsed and a Great Recession unfolded. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers closed their doors, stock markets around the world lost as much as half their value, and many banks stopped lending money. Following decades during which no one could conceive the possibility of another Great Depression, the world suddenly came perilously close to a global financial meltdown. The devastating economic impact unleashed public anger against large financial institutions and governments, and aggravated the plight of the working class in many countries.
Most people in the Western world were caught off-guard in 2014 when a group of Muslim fighters calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), declared a caliphate after taking control of large parts of Iraq and Syria. Observers around the world wondered how this kind of barbarism could exist during an era of globalization, secular cosmopolitanism, and extraordinary scientific progress.
In 2016 people in the United Kingdom confounded the experts by voting 52 to 48 percent to leave the European Union (EU). In the weeks leading up to the referendum, financial and diplomatic authorities had warned of dire consequences to fiscal stability, economic growth, and international trade if the exit were approved. But riding a wave of nationalist and anti-Brussels sentiment, voters supported withdrawal from the EU and an independent future for Great Britain. The move startled the EU bloc, led to a dramatic sell-off of the British pound, and rattled financial and political decisionmakers around the world.
It is no accident that large-scale change is taking place in the contemporary period. Many of the beliefs and institutions that once anchored international and domestic affairs have grown weak. Political tidal waves have occurred in many parts of the world. We live in an era where major events occur on a seemingly regular basis.Megachange refers to dramatic shifts in social, economic, or political phenomena. These alterations can include economic disruptions, political upheaval, or social strife, among other things. Any one of these can generate ramifications that go beyond the small-scale, incremental shifts that historically typified many societal developments.
While the extent and pace of change today seems exceptionally dramatic, the current period is not the first to show evidence of large-scale change. Throughout history, empires and civilizations came and went with regularity. Nations rose in prominence and then collapsed due to economic challenges, foreign invasion, internal conflicts, or natural disasters. Dramatic scientific discoveries disrupted business practices, or new societal orders such as the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution fundamentally altered peoples lives.
In more recent times, there also have been major shifts. For example, the United States faced substantial transformations in the 1860s during and after the Civil War, again in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, and in the 1960s with the rise of the civil rights, womens liberation, and environmental movements. In a relatively short time, large-scale disruptions altered society and politics and left a lasting imprint on those eras.
In various epochs, there have been significant fluctuations in public policies or citizen attitudes associated with social, political, or economic change. For example, following a period of social and religious turmoil, an American prohibition on the production and sale of alcohol was adopted nationally in 1920 and remained in effect until 1933. After women began organizing politically in the late 1800s, Western countries gradually adopted female suffrage, including the United States in 1920 through a constitutional amendment. Reflecting the shifting cultural mores of a later period, a dramatic 1973 U. S. Supreme Court decision legalized abortion across the country.
It never is easy to disentangle causes and consequences of large-scale transformations. As I describe in this volume, change is chaotic and multifaceted and therefore hard to pin down precisely. One has to look over a period of time to see what is shifting and what forces are generating the most substantial alterations.
Yet through case studies, it is possible to elucidate the megachanges that have affected global affairs and American politics in recent decades. Domestically, we see megachange in shifting attitudes toward same-sex marriage, tobacco smoking, marijuana legalization, income inequality, terrorism, and border security. Globally, we have witnessed the rise and collapse of the Arab Spring, the reemergence of religious zealotry, the violence of nonstate actors, and challenges to the open flow of people, goods, and services long associated with globalization.
