REVIEW
Pay close enough attention to world affairs and it is clear that we face an age of upheaval. The post-war world order is collapsing. How can nations manage the transition to what comes next? Exit from Our Age of Disorder asks why the current international order appears to be breaking down and considers how we might navigate the transition to what comes next.
Central to Maçães’s analysis is a lesson drawn from the 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldun: no empire or world system lasts forever. Change is the norm. Maçães emphasizes that the "exit" he envisions is not about escaping history altogether, but about finding a way out of the present age of chaos into the next phase of order. Following in a conservative-liberal tradition from Oakeshott to Hobbes, we should seek and sustain stability and avoid the utopian distractions of rationalists.
The Western-led international order professed universal ideals yet never truly included the entire world. Nevertheless, it delivered the most profound and enduring period of economic, political and social growth the world has ever known. As it collapses, argues Maçães, the existing world order is "regressing... into a much more marked and inexorable division" that could bring "new and more violent conflict". He notes that Western liberalism was "blind to how freedom was and is still sought outside the West," and thus "fell short of 'world liberalism'" that would have helped sustain it.
Not everyone sees the decline of Western dominance as a catastrophe. Maçães points to scholar Amitav Acharya, who argues that the end of the current order could ease some global ills. "Western supremacy has itself contributed to plenty of instability, injustice, and disorder that might be eased by its decline," Acharya notes. Western rule, he observes, bred "a kind of arrogance and ignorance" toward other societies, even if, as even its harshest critics would admit, the Western order has been the most accessible, global, and inclusive order yet devised, and certainly less ignorant and arrogant than the authoritarian order poised to replace it. The transition must therefore be handled wisely, so that the collapse of the old order could pave the way for a more equitable one, rather than one which projects Russian and Chinese illiberalism around the world.
To achieve such a transition, Maçães argues that trying to halt the tide of change is futile and counterproductive. Great powers that cling to their fading dominance or try to suppress rising rivals often end up making the inevitable transition "much more chaotic, often riddled by conflict and war". Instead of fighting a losing battle against historical forces, he urges leaders to manage the shift constructively. The key, he suggests, is to establish some ground rules that let history "proceed according to its inner logic" while curbing its most dangerous excesses.
As part of this strategy, he proposes an "order of a second order": essentially a framework above any single power’s vision of the good society. Rather than one ideology entrenching itself forever, he wants "principles guiding how new principles and new orders come to be". This means the great powers would agree on basic norms for their competition. For example, no nation should interfere in another’s technological progress, and each should be free to pursue its own model of development without fear of sabotage. If such an understanding can be reached, then the rise and fall of powers need not be a violent free-for-all. Future transitions could become more rational and peaceful, with new orders born through negotiation rather than war.
Underlying this vision are two forces that any future order must harness: globalization and technology. The first means recognizing that "order can never be local or regional but must encompass the world as a whole". The second is embracing humanity’s capacity for innovation. Technological progress, in this vision, should be shared as a positive-sum force, not stifled by rivalry. These twin engines of interconnection and innovation, Maçães believes, are key to building an order that can adapt and endure.
Is this vision realistic? Persuading rival powers to restrain themselves and abide by higher-order rules may sound idealistic in today’s climate of mistrust, where each nation fears losing its edge. Sceptics might argue that no dominant power ever gives up its primacy gracefully, or that any "rules" will last only until one side finds it convenient to break them. Yet Maçães’s does not see his proposal is not a naïve wish. He asks whether today’s leaders can recognize that clinging to yesterday’s pre-eminence might cost us all in life and prosperity. That a rational handing over of the torch benefits the would-be torchbearers of a multipolar world as well as the old order.
One key strength of Maçães’s proposals comes from the humble historical and civilisational insight of Ibn Khaldun; namely that civilisations will inevitably rise and fall. The past will resemble the future. Ibn Khaldun’s writings serve any reader with that tonic of historical perspective, one that treats world order as an evolving story shared by all rather than a prize hoarded by one side. His vision of an "exit" is an appeal to this wisdom: accept that every order is temporary and work together on principles to guide whatever comes next. Pragmatically, we, as the West, must trade in our influence, while we still hold it, to help shape the new order and minimise the chaos of transition.
