We will need to be lucky: the problem of leadership in a deep pluralist world order facing a climate crisis

Abstract

This paper assesses the problem of leadership in the contemporary world order. It starts by looking at how leaders are chosen. The argument is that this process is diverse to the point of randomness, and unlikely to change much. The selection processes are mostly not geared to produce leaders who are both capable and virtuous. The argument then moves to consider the difficult context in which leaders will have to operate: a global conjuncture of two major transitions and the interplay between them. The first transition is in the global political economy, from a Western world order to one of deep pluralism, in which wealth, power, knowledge, and political and cultural authority are much more widely distributed than during the past two-hundred years. The second one centres on the fast-mounting contradiction between humankind’s unrestrained developmentalism and the carrying capacity of the planet: summed up as the Anthropocene crisis. The argument is that this conjuncture is likely to generate leaders who exacerbate rivalry and conflict. There is a pathway that could open opportunities for virtuous leaders, but we will have to be lucky as well as skilled to find it.