Competing Visions Waiting for a Grand Strategic Shift

This book presents an in-depth and provoking analysis of the current global landscape and the challenges it presents for development. Offering a unique approach examining the implications of strategic uncertainty on strategies for development, it discusses contemporary challenges to the field, particularly those relating to crisis management. Positing that we live in an age of strategic uncertainty, the authors progress the notion that crisis responses require extensive and holistic strategic deliberation vis-à-vis economic and social considerations, short-term and long-term projections, as well as evaluations of domestic and international spheres of development. Tracing the infrastructure of globalization, the book acknowledges the need for medium-term strategies for each crisis but emphasizes that they must be intricately woven into a larger unitary vision, ultimately highlighting the critical role of strategic thinking in addressing complex challenges we face today.

Chapter 1: The Future Must Be Met with Humility!.- Chapter 2: Welcome to the Age of Global Disorder!.- Chapter 3: The Continental Shift.- Chapter 4: The Reconfiguration of the Public Sphere.- Chapter 5: Century-defining contest.- Chapter 6: “I Hear the Message, but I Lack Faith in It!”.

Paul Dobrescu, PhD, is professor at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest. He published numerous books and articles dedicated to globalization and development issues, and coordinated the research activities of the institution. His work has been translated in English (The Century of the Emerging World. Development with a Vengeance, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017) and French (La ruse de la mondialisation. L’assaut contre la puissance americaine, 2015 and Les crises post-crise. Un monde sans boussole ni hégémonie, 2017 - L'Harmattan). Recent publications include „The New Age of Development - The Geopolitical Assertion of Eurasia”(co-author F. Durach, Springer, 2022) and the edited volume Development in Turbulent Times. The many faces of inequality within Europe (Springer, 2019).

Flavia Durach, PhD, is Associate Professor at the National University for Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest. She acts as a rapporteur for the International Observatory for Information and Democracy, which offers a periodic global assessment of the information and communication space. She is the author of numerous research articles dedicated to media effects, strategic communication and online disinformation, as well as the books Public Opinion towards the EU: Triumphalism, Euroscepticism or Banal Representations? (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016) and The New Age of Development - The Geopolitical Assertion of Eurasia (Springer, 2022), co-author Paul Dobrescu.