Singapore author/global strategist Parag Khanna earned his PhD from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is also the Managing Partner of Hybrid Reality, a boutique geostrategic advisory firm, and Co-Founder & CEO of Factotum, a leading content branding agency. His focus as a global strategist is one the future of world order that he relates in his books The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance, and Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization. He is also co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization. He also has been an adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 program, and a senior geopolitical advisor to US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. His awards are many.
In a controversial Prologue Khanna readies us for change; ‘America’s 2016 presidential election exposed that its style of democracy is as much a tool of division as unity. Two years of toxic campaigning revealed deep rifts in the nation’s fabric while providing no common agenda for how to overcome them. Nearly two centuries after Alexis de Tocqueville’s ode Democracy in America, it’s time to admit that America needs less of its own version of democracy— much less. Over the past decade, Americans have become accustomed to hearing that their position in the global rankings of wealth, life expectancy, education, public safety and other metrics has slid below that of their first world peers. If this wake-up call were not enough, a 2014 Gallup survey found that Americans are not only fed up with the performance of the federal government, but also that they have lost faith in their system of government, with dissatisfaction doubling to 65 percent. The flaw is both in delivery and design. Democracy alone just isn’t good enough anymore. America today far better represents degenerative politics than good governance. Many American intellectuals celebrate the theater of politics as if it is the embodiment of Tocqueville’s praise for civic democracy. But democracy is not an end in itself. The greater goal is effective governance and improved national well-being. Because Americans no longer sense collective progress, they don’t trust their institutions anymore, whether the White House, Congress, political parties, the Supreme Court, big business, or church. These organs of American leadership are passing down to the next generation a less well functioning government and society rather than the one they need to manage a complex future… Americans are craving a better government— one that balances democracy and technocracy. Unfortunately, America today suffers from an abundance of representation and a deficit of administration. There is a great excess in the power of representatives— congressmen and senators— and deep shortfall in the power of administrators— governors and mayors. There are too many officials trained in law and not enough in policy: In other words, too much time spent arguing rather than doing something. If the same political chaos that brought the Founding Fathers together in 1787 is present today, then it is again time for a new constitutional convention.’
Khanna has studied global governments and has come to the conclusion that the ideal form of government for the complex 21st century is a "direct technocracy," one led by experts but perpetually consulting the people through a combination of democracy and data - a seven-member presidency and a restructured cabinet to replacing the Senate with an Assembly of Governors. His ideas are well developed and organized, rich in research and practical thinking. This is a book whose time has come. Grady Harp, March 17
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Bernhard
Technocracy - better than democracy
Reviewed in Germany on October 18, 2022cris
Good content, but full of spelling mistakes (ebook)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2018Domenico Carroccia
My view on P.Khanna latest book by D.Carroccia
Reviewed in Italy on April 7, 2017
