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May 21, 2022Liked by Seva Gunitsky

Conjecture: the "rise of non-democratic great powers" are part of the core, whilst "democratic overstretch" are part of the peripheral. The emerging market belong in neither of these categories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory

Extension: China and Russia today are in the semi-periphery, the middle class (middle management) of the world order, and therefore they are not going to be crassly pushy about their ideas, even if they are a bit egotistical. Conversely it is the western order who are going to be the most pushy, especially the "exporting wokeness" phenomenon. https://alexdanco.com/2021/01/22/the-michael-scott-theory-of-social-class/

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It's a very interesting text. China does not promote its model and there is a democratic overstretch, or rollback from past democratic waves. The most important thing: the appeal and power of democracy have simply been overestimated. It's not true that the world or mankind sigh for democracy. The West has deceived itself, furthermore, the West is not morally superior as it has believed.

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