US Ambassador David Balton, Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials, with Aleut representatives of the Russian Commander Islands before the Arctic Council Ministerial at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks, Alaska on Thursday, May 11, 2017. Bob Hallinen/Press Association. All rights reserved.2017 was the year of principled power. The Social Democratic Party in Germany grappled with another coalition giving them immediate power, but potentially harming their long-term prospects. Brexit advocates promised to boost Britain’s post-imperial power. Meanwhile populists fought elections, deselections and referendums promising to take power from elites and give it to the people. Politicians across the world gave up fighting for actual, practical power.
Without new tactics, 2018 will be no better. Italian elections and a renewed mandate for Orban in Hungary will be a speedbump, if not a roadblock for EU policymaking. A referendum in Switzerland on their EU relationship will also suck up capacity in the name of national power. Grand statements on formal power will only make it harder to get things done.
Modern power is complex. Dani Rodrik, the Turkish economist and Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard, has written extensively on the ‘trilemma’ facing modern governments; the impossibility of balancing national sovereignty, democracy and the liberal order.
