To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
The reshaping of global order in which the "rise of the East" and a "return of history" has focused attention on the fundamental character of nation-states and the historical underpinnings of these actors. Scholars of the international system have commented that the world of the 21st century most closely resembles the world of empires in the 19th century with various regional powers carving out spheres of influence that often roughly correspond to their former imperial spaces.While the European norms enshrined in Westphalian principles have held, imperial baggage in a number of states shape the terrain and terms of nationalism still today. This phenomenon explored in Dr. Walker's research and defined as "imperial memories" draws from the systematic evaluation of changing narratives about former empires and offers a prism through which to view the resurgence of historical memories being seen in key progenies of empire today. Dr. Walker will present his recently defended dissertation that he is revising for a book manuscript along with several articles in which he lays out an argument and framework for understanding the evolution of successor states such as Japan and Turkey and two sets of ideas about their place in the world that can paradoxically co-exist within the historical memories of the empire.
Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come-first served basis.