1st Edition
Logic of the Powers Towards an Impact-driven Practice of Futurist Statecraft
What global future would ensure hope, justice and peace to the human mankind?
In view of a fast evolving post-Covid world order, this volume explores a novel Christian post-colonial approach to global affairs. It examines the existing ‘sociology of the powers’ theoretical scheme, the debate between Christian realism and Christian pacifism, the method and practice of prophetic witnessing, to elaborate a new Christian approach to statecraft and futurology in terms of theory, methodology and ontology.
This book:
• Uses the COVID-19 pandemic as the background to examine why and how the pandemic has accelerated the US’s decline, and to identify the tacit game rules that contributed to the UK government’s mishandling of the pandemic;
• Compares the political systems between China and the West, and engages with selected theoretical narratives from the Global South to envision an alternative ‘shared globalisation’ project;
• Argues why it is important for post-colonial Christian individuals and communities to get involved in this global discussion for a new world order of complex realist interdependencies grounded on hope, social justice and peace.
A fresh take on global politics and international relations, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, religious studies, peace studies, theology and future studies.
1. Introduction: The West’s Decline and Future of Christian Statecraft Part I Theory and Method 2. Outline of a Novel Christian Post-Colonial Approach to Global Affairs 3. Discerning the Realist Spirit: Rules of Christian Post-Colonial Method 4. Being in But not of the Powers: Contours of Prophetic Witnessing Practice Part II Practice and Intervention 5. Risky Great Power Politics: Emerging U.S.-China Nuclear Strategic Instability and Interstellar Prospect 6. Hopeful Small Power Politics: Nuclearisation and Peace-building in the Korean Peninsula 7. Defending Papuan Religious Security under Indonesian National Security: Critique of Two Christian Interventions in Multi-polar Indo-Pacific 8. Conclusion
Biography
Pak Nung Wong teaches politics and international relations at the University of Bath, UK. His recent publications include Destined Statecraft: Eurasian Small Power Politics and Strategic Cultures in Geopolitical Shifts (2018), Discerning the Powers in Post-Colonial Africa and Asia: A Treatise of Christian Statecraft (2016) and Post-Colonial Statecraft in South East Asia: Sovereignty, State-Building and the Chinese in the Philippines (2013). He is Editor-in-Chief of Bandung: Journal of the Global South, which he founded with an international network of scholars, practitioners and policy-makers in 2013. Apart from publishing in the English language, Pak Nung Wong’s Chinese-language columns in Hong Kong-based media have been followed, translated and used by such governmental ministries in foreign affairs, defence, security and intelligence services, culture and religion, technology and higher education across the world.
