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Past Event
Seminar

Make Us Great Again: The Causes and Consequences of Declinism in Great Powers

Open to the Public

Speaker: Robert Ralston, Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow, International Security Program

This seminar explores the causes and consequences of declinism in great powers. Why does the topic of the nation's international decline emerge in the political discourse of great powers? Why do leaders choose to focus on the nation's decline during some periods and not others? What are the foreign policy consequences of such declinist discourse? After outlining a theory of declinism's emergence and its consequences, this seminar focuses on 1970s Britain, the emergence of the New Right, and the declinist narratives of politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph.

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register in advance for this meeting: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUof-qurTIpE9HK9PwJ2yb2yGXWT0DwrHF3

Date: Time: - Location: Online
Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher, October 12, 1977

About

Speaker: Robert Ralston, Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow, International Security Program

This seminar explores the causes and consequences of declinism in great powers. Why does the topic of the nation's international decline emerge in the political discourse of great powers? Why do leaders choose to focus on the nation's decline during some periods and not others? What are the foreign policy consequences of such declinist discourse? After outlining a theory of declinism's emergence and its consequences, this seminar focuses on 1970s Britain, the emergence of the New Right, and the declinist narratives of politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph.

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register in advance for this meeting: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUof-qurTIpE9HK9PwJ2yb2yGXWT0DwrHF3

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