Intelligent governance for the 21st century - Nicolas Berggruen

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best systemof governance to have emerged out of the long experience ofhistory. Today, such a confident assertion is far fromself-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must proveitself.

In the West today, the authors argue, we no longer live in"industrial democracies," but "consumer democracies" in which thegoverning ethos has ended up drowning households and governments indebt and resulted in paralyzing partisanship. In contrast, thelong-term focus of the decisive and unified leadership of China isboldly moving its nation into the future. But China also faceschallenges arising from its meteoric rise. Its burgeoning middleclass will increasingly demand more participation, accountabilityof government, curbing corruption and the rule of law.

As the 21st Century unfolds, both of these core systems of theglobal order must contend with the same reality: a genuinelymulti-polar world where no single power dominates and in whichsocieties themselves are becoming increasingly diverse. The authorsargue that a new system of "intelligent governance" is required tomeet these new challenges. To cope, the authors argue that bothEast and West can benefit by adapting each other's bestpractices. Examining this in relation to widely varying politicaland cultural contexts, the authors quip that while China mustlighten up, the US must tighten up.

This highly timely volume is both a conceptual and practicalguide of impressive scope to the challenges of good governance asthe world continues to undergo profound transformation in thecoming decades.