Ideas & Influences

Few books have challenged my long cultivated thinking about the political economy of disasters as profoundly as The Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein argues that periods of crisis, whether caused by natural disasters, economic collapse, war or political upheaval, often create opportunities for sweeping economic reforms and private interests that would face far greater resistance under normal circumstances. Her central thesis rests on the observations and evidences that disasters are not only humanitarian emergencies; they can also become moments in which power, markets and governance are fundamentally reshaped. And not necessarily towards common good or larger benefits. She presented many examples from around the world where the disasters of different nature had been exploited for purely market oriented goals and reforms, such as, deregulation and privatization.

As someone who has spent more than two decades working on climate change, disaster risk management from international climate negotiations to leading national resilience institutions, I found the book both compelling and provocative. While some of Klein’s arguments are intentionally polemical and occasionally overstate the role of ideology relative to other political and institutional dynamics, her broader message remains highly relevant: crises expose underlying inequalities, but they can also reinforce them if recovery is driven by short-term economic interests rather than long-term public value. I have encountered such realities in so many incidents.

The book significantly influenced how I think about disasters. It encouraged me to look beyond the immediate impacts of floods, cyclones, or droughts and ask deeper questions about why vulnerability exists in the first place, who benefits from reconstruction, and how governance decisions before and after disasters shape resilience. This perspective has informed my own belief that disasters are rarely purely natural events; they are often the outcome of accumulated policy choices, institutional weaknesses, and development pathways that create risk over time.

Although I do not share all of Klein’s conclusions, The Shock Doctrine remains one of the most thought-provoking books I have read on the intersection of economics, politics and disasters. It reinforced an important lesson that continues to shape my work. Rebuilding after a crisis should not simply restore what existed before. It should become an opportunity to strengthen institutions, reduce structural vulnerabilities and ensure that recovery advances resilience, equity, and sustainable development rather than reproducing the conditions that made societies vulnerable in the first place.

Few books have influenced my understanding of governments and development as profoundly as Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Having spent more than two decades working with governments, international organisations, and development institutions, I have repeatedly encountered the similar questions that lies at the heart of the book: why do countries facing remarkably similar challenges produce vastly different outcomes?

The authors argument is that prosperity is determined less by geography, culture or natural resources than by the quality of political and economic institutions. The authors create characteristic distinction between inclusive and extractive institutions. Inclusive institutions create incentives for innovation, investment, accountability, and long-term growth, while extractive institutions concentrate power, weaken incentives and perpetuate underdevelopment. Deceptively simple yet profoundly compelling.

It was also astonishing to see how closely it resonates with the institutional economics of Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North, whose work has equally shaped my thinking. North described institutions as the “rules of the game” — the formal laws, informal norms, and enforcement mechanisms that shape human behaviour and economic performance. His central insight rests on idea that societies do not fail because they lack good policies; they fail because their institutions create incentives that make good policies difficult to implement.

Throughout my career, I have seen governments produce well-crafted strategies, national plans and reform agendas that closely reflect international best practice. The challenge has rarely been a shortage of ideas or technical expertise. More often, implementation falters because institutions, bureaucratic incentives, political interests, administrative capacity and coordination mechanisms are not aligned to sustain reform. In practice, institutions frequently matter more than policies themselves.

If I have one reservation about Why Nations Fail, it is that its focus on domestic institutions somewhat understates the influence of the broader international political economy. Many developing countries operate within global financial, trade, and geopolitical systems that significantly shape their development trajectories. Strong domestic institutions remain essential, but they do not operate in isolation and global agenda sets their mandates and in many ways restricts their domestic priorities. The book has not entertained this element in sufficient analytical details.

Nevertheless, the enduring value of Why Nations Fail lies in its ability to shift our attention from projects to systems and from policies to institutions. Lasting development is not achieved simply by designing better policies or mobilising greater resources. It depends on building institutions that create the right incentives, adapt over time, and translate political ambition into sustained implementation. That remains one of the most important lessons I have carried throughout my professional journey.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Anatol Lieven’s earlier book, Pakistan: A Hard Country, I approached Climate Change and the Nation State with considerable interest, but also some scepticism about his move into an entirely different and highly complex field.

In many ways, my scepticism proved justified, particularly regarding the depth of the book’s analysis of the global dimensions of climate change. Nevertheless, Lieven offers a different and somewhat refreshing perspective. While conventional thinking frames climate change as an inherently global challenge requiring global solutions, he places the nation-state at the centre of the debate. His central argument is that national identity, national interest and patriotism can become powerful forces for confronting the climate crisis.

It is an interesting and provocative proposition, although the book did not always offer the analytical rigour I had expected.

My primary motivation for reading the book came from a slowly brewing frustration with the limitations of international cooperation and climate diplomacy, and a search for what other options might exist. There is no doubt to the fact climate change is a global problem, but almost every meaningful climate decision is ultimately implemented through national institutions. International agreements establish ambitions and create frameworks for action. But it is governments that formulate energy policies, build infrastructure, regulate cities, manage water resources and determine how public finance is spent. But its also true that when global climate ambition confronts national political, economic and strategic interests, national interests usually prevail. I have generally regarded this as one of the greatest stumbling blocks to effective international climate action.

This is where Lieven’s argument becomes particularly compelling, at least on the surface. Lieven, however, does not necessarily see national interest as an obstacle. Instead, he asks whether national interest itself can be mobilised in support of climate action. But how nation-state-led action will address and counterbalance the interests of competing/cooperating nations at the regional and international levels remains an open and largely unanswered question.

While reading the book, I kept on reminding myself that climate change, in its nature, exposes one of the fundamental contradictions of the modern international system. Its causes and consequences transcend national borders, while political authority and accountability remain overwhelmingly national. Climate change is not the only challenge confronting this contradiction. Cybersecurity, terrorism, pandemics and other emerging risks increasingly transcend national boundaries, while the institutions responsible for addressing them remain predominantly national.

A government may rationally prioritise economic growth, energy security or domestic political stability even when those decisions contribute to greater global climate risks. Developing countries may resist stronger mitigation obligations because of legitimate concerns about historical responsibility, equity and development. Developed countries may make ambitious international commitments but retreat when climate policies encounter domestic political resistance. The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is perhaps the most vivid example of how quickly international climate commitments can become subordinate to domestic political priorities.

My years in international climate policy have made me increasingly conscious of this contradiction. The COP process seeks to solve a global collective-action problem through negotiations among nearly 200 sovereign states, each defending its own political and economic interests. International cooperation remains indispensable, but it operates within a system that has few mechanisms for compelling governments to place global interests above national priorities.

This is where I believe Lieven’s argument needs to be taken one step further. The question is not whether climate action should be global or national. It must be both. The real failure of climate policy has often occurred in the space between these two levels.

For me, the book ultimately raises a fundamental question that extends well beyond climate policy: can the nation-state evolve quickly enough to govern challenges that do not respect national borders? Despite the evident failings and limitations of international climate cooperation, I remain convinced that global cooperation is indispensable. But international agreements can achieve little unless national institutions, political incentives and development priorities move in the same direction.

The international system must redefine itself to generate meaningful collective action. While nation-states must integrate climate change into the fundamental choices they make about development, security and economic prosperity.

Lieven’s book does not, in my view, fully resolve this contradiction. But it succeeds in drawing attention to a question that the international climate community has perhaps avoided for too long.

If the nation-state remains the most powerful institution in the international system, can climate action succeed without first making climate security, resilience and sustainability integral to the national interest?

After more than two decades of observing the strengths and limitations of international climate diplomacy, I believe this may be one of the most important questions confronting climate policy today.

Why We Understand the Future Less Than We Think We Do

Few books have challenged my thinking about uncertainty as profoundly as Nassim Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable’. It is one of those illustratively rare and analytically engaging works that extends well beyond its seemingly simple subject. Although largely focused on finance, probability and risk, it is ultimately a philosophical examination of the limits of human knowledge and our persistent tendency to mistake confidence for understanding.

Taleb’s central argument is simple. History is not primarily shaped by the predictable trends that dominate our analyses, but by rare, high-impact events that lie outside our expectations. The so called “Black Swans”. Characterized by three features: they are highly improbable according to prevailing assumptions, they have extraordinary consequences, and after they occur we always construct explanations that make them appear predictable in retrospect.

The brilliance of the book lies not merely in identifying the existence of such events, but exposing why individuals, institutions and entire societies consistently fail to anticipate them.

The Tyranny of Predictability

Nasim Taleb, having spent his life in trading, the ultimate world of forecasting and prediction — presents a devastating critique of modern forecasting. He powerfully argues that statistical models, economic projections and expert predictions often assume that future events will resemble the past and that uncertainty can be adequately represented through probability distributions derived from historical observations. He argues that in many systems this assumption is deeply flawed.

Nasim Taleb distinguishes between two worlds.

Mediocristan describes systems where variation is naturally bounded. Human height, for example, varies within relatively narrow limits, allowing averages and normal distributions to provide meaningful descriptions.

Extremistan, by contrast, describes systems where extreme outcomes dominate. Financial markets, technological innovation (AI in the current technological phenomenon), political revolutions and global crises belong here. In these environments, a single event can outweigh thousands of ordinary observations. Traditional statistical tools become dangerously misleading because they underestimate the frequency and significance of extreme outcomes.

This distinction has profound implications. Much of economics, finance and public policy continues to operate as the world behaves more like Mediocristan when, increasingly and evidently, it resembles Extremistan.

Epistemic Humility

The most enduring lesson I took from the book is philosophical rather than mathematical.

Taleb argues that ignorance is far larger than knowledge. Human beings systematically overestimate both what they know and what can be known. Aligning and reinforcing the Dunning Kruger Effect. We are exceptionally skilled at constructing coherent narratives after events occur, convincing ourselves that outcomes were obvious all along. This “narrative fallacy” provides psychological comfort but poor decision-making.

Similarly, Taleb’s discussion of the “ludic fallacy” warns against treating the real world as though it behaves like a casino. Games have known and structured rules resulting into measurable probabilities. Reality does not. Public policy frequently mistakes deeply uncertain environments for calculable risks, applying sophisticated models to problems where the underlying probabilities themselves are unknowable. The book therefore advocates intellectual humility. Not as a moral virtue, but as a practical necessity.

Implications for Institutions

Perhaps the most important value of The Black Swan is its critique of institutional decision-making. Governments, corporations and international organisations often reward precision over honesty about uncertainty. Forecasts are expected to produce single numbers rather than ranges, plans assume stability rather than disruption, and performance is judged against expected scenarios instead of resilience under unexpected ones. The book suggests that the result is a dangerous illusion of control.

Relevance to Climate Policy & Disaster Risk Governance

While reading the book, I was mentally applying its argument to the fallacies of international climate policy development and disaster risk governance and that’s where I found Taleb’s insights particularly compelling.

Well, climate change itself is not a Black Swan. Definitely not. Scientific evidence is credible and its broad trajectory has been extensively documented. Yet many of its consequences exhibit precisely the characteristics Taleb describes. Compounding disasters, cascading infrastructure failures, abrupt ecological tipping points, simultaneous food and energy shocks and systemic financial disruptions often emerge through complex interactions that remain extremely difficult to forecast with precision.

One of the central challenges in climate governance is that institutions continue to search for deterministic answers in systems characterised by deep uncertainty. We devote considerable effort to forecasting the next disaster while often neglecting the resilience of the systems that must function regardless of which disaster ultimately occurs.

The objective should not be perfect prediction. It should be creating institutions capable of absorbing shocks that inevitably exceed our expectations.

A Critical Reflection

While I found The Black Swan intellectually transformative, Taleb occasionally overstates his case.

His dismissal of forecasting can appear more absolute than warranted. In many areas of public policy, probabilistic forecasting remains indispensable. Weather prediction, epidemiological modelling, climate scenarios and macroeconomic projections all provide valuable information, despite their imperfections. The challenge is not that models are inherently flawed. Rather, problems arise when policymakers mistake models for reality.

Similarly, the book sometimes underplays the role of institutions in gradually reducing uncertainty. Scientific progress does not eliminate Black Swans, but narrows the range of ignorance and allow for improved preparedness.

Overarchingly, the book reminds us that uncertainty is not a temporary obstacle to be overcome through better data or more sophisticated models. It is a permanent feature of complex systems.

The title unsettles deliberately. Manu Joseph is not literally asking why poor people do not murder the rich. His real question is profoundly more disturbing: how do societies marked by extreme and visible inequality continue to function without rebellion? Why do people who endure indignity, insecurity and exclusion accept a social order that gives so much to a few and so little to so many?

In Why the Poor Don't Kill Us, Joseph turns this question into a sharp and darkly humorous examination of contemporary India. While writing mainly about the poor, he brings the behaviour of the affluent into sharp criticism—their moral language, selective generosity, private comforts and remarkable ability to live alongside deprivation without feeling personally responsible for it.

This is not a conventional academic study of poverty or a theory of social order couched in economic models, development indicators or policy prescriptions. Instead, Joseph relies on observation, anecdote, irony and provocation. He notices the small arrangements through which inequality is made ordinary and acceptable—the domestic workers who enter expensive homes through a separate door, the driver who waits outside, the poor patient who expects less from a hospital, the rich family that considers itself compassionate while paying wages that help preserve its own comfortable life. These seemingly normal practices powerfully reinforce a system of inequality and social deprivation.

One of the book's strongest insights is that inequality survives not simply through force but through distance. The rich and the poor may occupy the same city, street or household but they remain inhabitants of entirely different social worlds. Segregation exists in schools, hospitals, transport systems and public spaces. Proximity does not necessarily produce solidarity. It coexists with carefully maintained hierarchy in which everyone is expected to know their place.

Joseph also questions the comfortable belief that the better-off continually subsidize the poor. In many ways, he suggests, it is the poor who subsidize the lives of the middle and upper classes. Their inexpensive labour keeps households, businesses and cities functioning. Their limited bargaining power makes services affordable for those above them. The conveniences enjoyed by the privileged are often built on someone else's insecurity.

The book is particularly perceptive when examining envy and aspiration. Joseph argues that people do not necessarily resent those who are unimaginably wealthier than themselves. The billionaire is too distant to be a meaningful rival. Resentment is more likely directed towards a neighbour, colleague or relative who has moved one step ahead. Inequality is therefore experienced horizontally as much as vertically. Instead of producing unity among those at the bottom, it often encourages competition within the same social group—perhaps one reason why poverty does not automatically create collective political consciousness. The poor are not a single, organized class sharing identical interests but deeply divided by occupation, caste, religion, language, region, gender and countless local hierarchies. These divisions weaken the possibility of sustained mobilization against the structures that disadvantage them all.

Although written about India, the main argument applies wherever economic inequality overlaps with social hierarchy, weak public services and political patronage. It is particularly relevant to South Asia, where the wealthy and desperately poor often live within sight of one another while remaining separated by enormous distance in power and possibility. But many other parts of the world share similar traits.

Having grown up in Pakistan and observed similar patterns in many societies around the world, I repeatedly found myself recognizing the society Joseph describes. Replace Indian city names with Karachi, Lahore, Nairobi or São Paolo, and the discomforting familiarity becomes clear. Gated communities beside kachi abadis (slums); private schools and hospitals flourishing while public systems deteriorate; domestic workers travelling long distances to sustain lifestyles they could never afford; political leaders speaking in the name of the poor while remaining socially distant from them.

Pakistan has its own history and institutional peculiarities. But the mechanisms preserving inequalities are strikingly similar.

The poor in Pakistan, as in India, are not unaware of inequality. They are fully exposed to it. Their apparent acceptance should not be mistaken for ignorance or contentment. It is often a rational response to vulnerability. When employment is predominantly informal, justice is costly and social protection is weak, open confrontation can threaten an entire family's survival. This is a hard choice to make and expect.

This is where Joseph's psychological explanations prove bluntly compelling. People do not remain silent only because they accept hierarchy and injustice but because resistance carries a price. They risk losing jobs or livelihoods, harassment by officials and withdrawal from whatever political patronage they might possess. What appears as passivity may be a carefully calculated survival strategy.

Nevertheless, the poor are not passive. Their resistance may be local rather than revolutionary—demanding higher wages, withholding labour, joining a political network, occupying land, insisting a child remain in school. Such acts may not overturn the social order but neither are they evidence of complete acceptance.

Joseph's style is one of the book's great strengths. He is witty, unsentimental and willing to offend almost every ideological camp. He distrusts the self-righteousness of affluent liberals, the romantic portrayal of poverty and the assumption that those who speak most loudly about justice necessarily understand the lives of the poor. His provocations force readers to examine ideas usually protected by polite language.

The book offers no comprehensive program for reform and perhaps that is not its purpose. Its value lies in making inequality more personal. It asks readers to move beyond abstract concern for the poor and examine the social arrangements from which many of us benefit. It exposes the gap between private decency and public justice. A person may treat an employee kindly while participating in a system that denies that employee security, dignity and opportunity.

The book's title seems deliberately sensational. But the more important question is not why the poor do not kill the rich. It is why societies wait for anger to become violence before treating inequality as an urgent moral and political concern.

A stable society cannot be built indefinitely on the patience of those who have been denied its benefits.

An interesting and insightful book offering a refreshing and challenging perspective that states generally behave rationally in the conduct of foreign policy. Drawing on the realist tradition of international relations, the book challenges the view that major foreign policy failures primarily result from irrational leaders, cognitive biases, or poor decision-making. Instead, they argued that rationality should not be judged by whether a policy ultimately succeeds or proves to be the “right” decision. Rather, a state acts rationally when its leaders identify clear objectives, assess the available information, evaluate alternative courses of action and select the policy they reasonably believe offers the best chance of achieving their goals. States may make mistakes or miscalculate, face unforeseen events or fail to achieve their objectives, but these outcomes do not necessarily imply irrational decision-making.

The book reinforces the realist proposition that states operate in an anarchic international system where survival, security, and national interests remain the primary drivers of their policy actions. International politics is therefore best understood through strategic calculation rather than assumptions about altruism or purely normative commitments. Foreign policy reflects the constraints and incentives created by the distribution of power and the pursuit of national interests, even when the resulting decisions prove unsuccessful.

I attempted to analyse the book from my particular perspective to understand the persistent challenges of international climate policy. My own experience at climate diplomacy supporting the development of global climate policy and representing both international institutions and national governments has demonstrated that climate negotiations are shaped less by a shared commitment to solve climate change than by the strategic calculations of sovereign states. Governments generally do not reject climate action because they fail to understand the science, rather, they weigh climate objectives against competing priorities such as economic growth, energy security, fiscal constraints, domestic politics and geopolitical interests. Many of the implementation gaps that characterise the global climate regime therefore reflect rational choices made within the political realities of modern states rather than simple failures of political will.

This allowed me to understand — which may not be new but still relevant — that effective climate governance consequently requires not only stronger environmental ambition but also institutional, financial, and political arrangements that better align national interests with long-term global climate stability.