Post-American Speculations

This article thinks about the relationship between democracy and the novel through the analysis of two recent science fiction series, Malka Older's The Centenal Cycle (2016-2018) and Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota (2016-2021). Both series imagine future planetary democracies in which the US is figured as a conspicuous absence. The Centenal Cycle is set in a future world of planetary "micro-democracy," in which sovereignty devolves from nation-states to "centenals" consisting of 100,000 people. Terra Ignota, meanwhile, is set in a world dominated by "Hives," voluntary associations united by hobbies, interests, and values. Both series try to imagine futures in which the US no longer enjoys planetary hegemony, but no other nation-state or regional hegemon has replaced it. They therefore engage in speculations not only about the future of the US but also about possible futures in which the concept of "Westphalian sovereignty" has lost its force and in which capital's systemic cycles of accumulation, as described by Giovanni Arrighi, no longer operate. In engaging in these speculations, Older and Palmer join recent political conversations that struggle to understand what a "post-American" geopolitical order might look like. Science fiction, this essay argues, offers special formal resources for thinking through such vexed possibilities.