Ian Bremmer

Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism

Those who championed globalization once promised a world of winners, one in which free trade would lift all the world’s boats, and extremes of left and right would give way to universally embraced liberal values. The past few years have shattered this fantasy, as those who’ve paid the price for globalism’s gains have turned to populist and nationalist politicians to express fury at the political, media, and corporate elites they blame for their losses.

The United States elected an anti-immigration, protectionist president who promised to “put America first” and turned a cold eye on alliances and treaties. Across Europe, anti-establishment political parties made gains not seen in decades. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.

And as Ian Bremmer shows in this eye-opening book, populism is still spreading. Globalism creates plenty of both winners and losers, and those who’ve missed out want to set things right. They’ve seen their futures made obsolete. They hear new voices and see new faces all about them. They feel their cultures shift. They don’t trust what they read. They’ve begun to understand the world as a battle for the future that pits “us” vs. “them.”

Bremmer points to the next wave of global populism, one that hits emerging nations before they have fully emerged. As in Europe and America, citizens want security and prosperity, and they’re becoming increasingly frustrated with governments that aren’t capable of providing them. To protect themselves, many government will build walls, both digital and physical.

The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World

Renowned political scientist Ian Bremmer draws lessons from global challenges of the past 100 years—including the pandemic—to show how we can respond to three great crises unfolding over the next decade.

In this revelatory, unnerving, and ultimately hopeful book, Bremmer details how domestic and international conflicts leave us unprepared for a trio of looming crises—global health emergencies, transformative climate change, and the AI revolution. Today, Americans cannot reach consensus on any significant political issue, and US and Chinese leaders behave as if they’re locked in a new Cold War. We are squandering opportunities to meet the challenges that will soon confront us all.

In coming years, humanity will face viruses deadlier and more infectious than Covid. Intensifying climate change will put tens of millions of refugees in flight and require us to reimagine how we live our daily lives. Most dangerous of all, new technologies will reshape the geopolitical order, disrupting our livelihoods and destabilizing our societies faster than we can grasp and address their implications.

The good news? Some farsighted political leaders, business decision-makers, and individual citizens are already collaborating to tackle all these crises. The question that should keep us awake is whether they will work well and quickly enough to limit the fallout—and, most importantly, whether we can use these crises to innovate our way toward a better world.

Drawing on strategies both time-honored and cutting-edge, from the Marshall Plan to the Green New Deal, The Power of Crisisprovides a roadmap for surviving—even thriving in—the 21st century. Bremmer shows governments, corporations, and every concerned citizen how we can use these coming crises to create the worldwide prosperity and opportunity that 20th-century globalism promised but failed to deliver.

Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Loser in a G-Zero World
A national bestseller, it was named “Book of the Year” by the Foreign Policy Association, and selected for the Financial Times’ “Pick of the crop” list.

Forget the G-7 and the G-20; we are entering a leaderless “G- Zero” era—with profound implications for every country and corporation.

The world power structure is facing a vacuum at the top. With the unifying urgency of the financial crisis behind us, the diverse political and economic values of the G-20 are curtailing the world’s most powerful governments’ ability to mediate growing global challenges. There is no viable alternative group to take its place.

The United States lacks the resources and the political will to continue as the primary provider of global public goods. China has no interest in accepting the burdens of international leadership. Europe is occupied with saving the eurozone, and Japan is tied down with its own problems. Emerging powers such as Brazil, India, and Russia are too focused on domestic development to welcome new responsibilities abroad.

The result is a G-Zero world in which no single country or bloc has the political or economic leverage—or the desire—to drive a truly international agenda. Ian Bremmer explains how this will lead to extended and intensified conflict over vitally important issues, such as international economic coordination, financial regulatory reform, trade policy, and climate change.

We are facing a time of profound uncertainty. Bremmer shows who will benefit, who will suffer, and why this increased state of conflict is both inevitable and unsustainable.

The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?
A number of authoritarian governments, drawn to the economic power of capitalism but wary of uncontrolled free markets, have invented something new: state capitalism. In this system, governments use markets to create wealth that can be directed as political officials see fit.

As an expert on the intersection between economics and politics, Ian Bremmer is uniquely qualified to illustrate the rise of state capitalism and its long-term threat to the global economy. The main characters in this story are the men who rule China, Russia, and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf, but their successes are attracting imitators across much of the developing world.

This guide to the next big trend includes useful insights for investors, business leaders, policymakers, and anyone else who wants to understand major emerging changes in international politics and the global economy.

“An essential guide to the future of the world economy.”
    David Smick, author of The World is Curved

The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge in an Uncertain World (with a New Preface)
Featuring a new preface that addresses the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, The Fat Tail is the first book to both identify the wide range of political risks that global firms face and show how to manage them effectively. Written by two of the world’s leading figures in political risk management, it reveals that while the world remains exceedingly risky for businesses, it is by no means incomprehensible.

Applying the lessons of world history, Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat survey a vast range of contemporary risk scenarios, from stable markets like the United States, where politically driven regulation can dramatically affect business, to more precarious places like Iran, Russia, Mexico, and Nigeria, where private property is less secure and energy politics sparks constant volatility. The book covers a wide array of political risks—great power rivalries, terrorist groups, government takeovers, internal strife, and even the “black swans” that defy prediction.

Featuring a wealth of unique tools and concepts to help corporations and policy makers understand political risk, The Fat Tail shows when and how political risk analysis works—and when it does not.