Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century (ePub)

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system
of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of
history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from
self-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must prove
itself.

In the West today, the authors argue, we no longer live in
"industrial democracies," but "consumer democracies" in which the
governing ethos has ended up drowning households and governments in
debt and resulted in paralyzing partisanship. In contrast, the
long-term focus of the decisive and unified leadership of China is
boldly moving its nation into the future. But China also faces
challenges arising from its meteoric rise. Its burgeoning middle
class will increasingly demand more participation, accountability
of government, curbing corruption and the rule of law.

As the 21st Century unfolds, both of these core systems of the
global order must contend with the same reality: a genuinely
multi-polar world where no single power dominates and in which
societies themselves are becoming increasingly diverse. The authors
argue that a new system of "intelligent governance" is required to
meet these new challenges. To cope, the authors argue that both
East and West can benefit by adapting each other's best
practices. Examining this in relation to widely varying political
and cultural contexts, the authors quip that while China must
lighten up, the US must tighten up.

This highly timely volume is both a conceptual and practical
guide of impressive scope to the challenges of good governance as
the world continues to undergo profound transformation in the
coming decades.