An Uncertain World: Rising Powers, Systemic Risk and the Role of Institutions and Entrepreneurship A Response to Brantly Womack's "China's Future in a Multinodal World Order"

This article provides a response to Brandy Womack's article in this issue on a multinodal view of the global world and China's rise within it. Has globalization ushered in a new and stable structural system based on connectivity and multinodal networks? I argue here that globalization may be more fragile and beset with system-level risk than in Womack's view. Its future depends on investment in global institutions and global governance by states and networks of private and sub-state actors. Likewise, states may increasingly be caught in networks of interconnections and dependency, while at the same time they must deal with great social forces and struggles that could yet break key links in the system. In-sum, agency, political leadership and institutions matter. The system is dynamic and interactive. It is vulnerable and dependent on active coordination. Even China's trajectory within this system can take very different paths, based on the political choices of its leaders and other players.