The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise a… (2024)

To me, the J Curve is an extrapolation of the tenet that as long as the masses are fed, they will remain complicit. A pervasive insinuation throughout the book is that the richer the majority of people in a nation are, the more stable the government. It's hard to argue with this stance, since a quick look at revolutions in the last 200 years bears this out. Regime change brought about by insurrection was often preceded by abject poverty, and severe social and infrastructure decline. This idea has been visited by historians often.

However, Bremmer couples that idea with political openness. He draws a causal relationship between prosperity and governmental stability, while simultaneously drawing a connection between political isolation and authoritarianism. The concept is intriguing, and his modern examples support the claim.

I have two major qualms with the book, resulting in 4/5 stars. One, it's boring. It took me a couple weeks to slog through the historical narrative. Second, the main concept is unquantifiable. It's hard to lend credence to "steepness" of the curve, if one cannot quantize the openness of a regime, or the stability of the nation. What units do you use to measure openness or stability? There are many indicators to these adjectives, but they're not exactly measurable. However, I concede the point that my mathematical irks aside, Bremmer makes a strong argument.

One last thing that I appreciate about this book is that it provides useful advice for future Western foreign policy. It doesn't just throw out an idea and give some history, it actually provides perspective and a path forward. What's better is that the events of today's news can easily be seen in the context of the J Curve, which is immensely useful in understanding the actions of our political leaders.

I wrote Ian Bremmer a fairly detailed email about what he thought about several West African democracies, more specifically Mali/Senegal, that is to say, if they match a bulk of the criteria which predicate a free openly democratic society why is it that they are in such dismal economic disarray? He wrote me back an even more in-depth email, which I thought was fantastic! He likes to use the J-curve analogy as often as possible, thus he made use of the open forum for a very predictable response, paraphrased - "every nation's J-curve is different". So not exactly what I wanted, but it was cool for him to speak to me so intimately like that. One point that I like was his idea about the right for every individual to have access to free and independent media outlets. I thought of Mali instantly, Mali has a plethora of local radio outlets all over, and that is one of the pre-conditions to a functioning democracy. Bremmer agreed. I guess I just wanted a sounding board for my thoughts and it was cool to get an expert's input sent to my inbox. I enjoyed the book, but would have appreciated a more in-depth look at the economics at work, a introduction to how economics work in closed societies or recently emerging market economies.

The main thesis of this book goes like this: For every degree of openess in a country, there is less stability, and on the contrary for every degree of stability, the measure of openess is limited. It is interesting thought, worth pondering. But I must say this seems a bit simplistic, the author even admits his theory fails to explain the case of Singapore & Dubai, 2 highly closed countries yet stable in every way.

The most important idea from this book is the foreign policy implication in the conclusion. Bremmer suggests that policy experts consider how policy affects both supply AND demand. So, for example, one would seek to address both the demand for drugs and the supply for drugs. Or one would address both the supply of terrorism (by bombing them/knocking out their communications) and the demand for terrorism(economic growth/help stability of countries in the area, etc.)

I tried to understand it. I found the author from an interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart. I blame the school system and the mainstream media for the fact that I cannot comprehend complex subjects unless they are broken up into two minute segments.

The J Curve describes how stable a government is. On the left indicates instability and an authoritarian type rule. On the right indicates a more stable rule as in a democracy. The more stable a society is, the more likely they are to overcome a shock, such as a natural disaster.

Sound and straight-forward idea explained over and over in a hundred pages to many.

Straightforward and inspiring.

By bringing up with the J Curve, Ian shows us a correlation between stability and openness. The left side is steep, and the right side is relatively smooth, a dip in the middle.

When a country is bracing openness, unavoidably it will go through a period of instability-the price of democracy. At this time, some countries may quickly shift back to autocracy, after all erecting a wall is much more easy than a long transition to stability. But the problem is that this system cannot be sustained in the long term, as it highly relies on a specific person or a group of people, not the institutions. Whenever the flaws are exposed and exacerbated, the society will undergo a huge unrest. In contrast, for democratic countries, even though there’s instability, as people have a common belief in the institutions, it can be absorbed and digested.

An impetuous change to the right side also cannot persist, as the process of openness is a long way, after all building consensus is not an easy job. Really shocked at India’s democracy, a country with such a high degree of diversity( language, religion, caste, factions…) can manage to do that. India and China’s mirror images are also intriguing. One with open politics and closed economics, the other opens economically, but remains politically closed. Btw: which country’s economy is more open today?

China’s path is an outlier from a global view, and let’s see whether it will work in the end. Ps. What about Singapore? What’s the difference between these two countries?

How to pull the left side to the right? Isolation will only push them away. “Openness enables change. Change is an essential ingredient in growth and prosperity.”

But for the US facing China, the problem today is: why if the left side can erode and undermine the right side? In this way, the US also takes a “short-sighted” approach.

The author's premise is that a nation's behavior can be charted on a graph with the vertical axis representing "stability" and the horizontal axis "openness". The curve looks like a distorted, elongated "U", or a "J" on its side. Authoritarian regimes such as North Korea are on the left side of the curve, and democracies such as the US are on the right. Countries that slide down the curve from either side will fall into a state of instability.

The book was published in 2006, but it is surprising how little has changed in 12 years. Of the twelve nations discussed in the book, nine are still in the news today. The author provides brief histories of each country, plus an explanation of their current political situation. A good book for those that are intrigued but sometimes baffled by current world events.

The book is building a great analysis tool called J curve to study the political risk of many countries and predict how these countries will respond to political and economic shocks. It provides selective examples of countries that lay in different areas of the J curve between stability and openness.

Although the book is interesting and informative, I was not convinced by the author hypothesis that there is one face of globalization and that countries have to be laid between stability and openness axis, even though countries have different tools for stability such as democratic institutions, money, oil, police etc. he emphasized mostly on political and economic tools, and that is why China for example was not a clear case, for the author, as it is mixing its policies between different tools to preserve its internal stability besides opening up its economy with the world.

A bit dated since it was published back in 2006, nevertheless Bremmer's take on why and how authoritarian regimes eventually either slip into anarchy or move towards a more democratic form of rule is still relevant.

Bread and Circuses. If a country can pull through a crisis, then it will emerge stronger. Quite a simple idea, but well thought up and explained persuasively in the J-curve

This book gave me a new way of looking at an old problem - which is my definition of a great book.
The book discusses the J curve, obviously, which is a curve on a graph where the axis are stability and openness within any country.

Stability within a country is fairly obvious. Openness is defined as both the willingness or ability of a country to communicate and be involved with other countries and the ability of the people within the country to communicate with each other.

The chapters of the book discuss the ideas of the J curve by discussing specific countries that lie on different points of the curve. North Korea, Cuba and Iraq are discussed as countries on the far left of the curve, i.e. countries that are highly stable but closed. (This book was published in 2006 and Iraq is discussed under Saddam Hussein's rule.) Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia are discussed as examples of countries that are sliding toward instability. South Africa and Yugoslavia are discussed as examples of states that slide to the depth of the instability curve, with South Africa surviving as a state and Yugoslavia breaking apart. Turkey, Israel and India are discussed as countries on the stable and open side of the curve. And finally, China is discussed as a country in contradiction. Economically it is an open country but politically it is closed. So where on the curve does it fit? The author answers that question.

The major point I got from this author is that nations that are on the right side of the curve, that is on the stable and open side of the curve, have a vested interest in helping states on the left side of the curve move towards the right. But those nations must be smart about how they try to accomplish this task. Using the example of how the US worked during the Cold War, the author writes:

"As General Wesley Clark has written, 'Western labor unions, encouraged by their governments, aided the emergence of a democratic trade-union movement, especially in Poland. Western organizations provided training for a generation of human-rights workers. Western broadcast media pumped in culture and political thought, raising popular expectations and undercutting Communist state propaganda. And Western businesses and financial institutions entered the scene, too, ensnaring command economies in Western market pricing and credit practices.' In essence, the United States used every means at its disposal to open these closed societies, to replace demand for Soviet Communism with demand for political reform. The former Warsaw Pact countries did not become democracies because America imposed democracy from the outside. In fact, the United States never invaded a country under Moscow's control. The former Warsaw Pact states embraced democracy because they wanted democracy."

Using this same line of reasoning, the author makes the case for how right-side of the curve nations should think about their policies in regards to left-side nations. Instead of helping those states stay isolated (eg. imposing sanctions), making it easier for their authoritarian governments to control the populace and their propaganda, instead right-sided nations should use measures to aid the citizens of those countries to gain information, to move up the economic ladder through trade, and to learn more about the outside world. Then those citizen will create the change from within.

As I said, this book helped me look at countries around the world and at the US policies towards those countries in a different way. And that is what makes a great book.

ETA: I reread this book during Trump and Covid of 2020. The book casts a whole different light now. I was not surprised at how many of Bremmer's "possibilities," aka predictions, came true. But what really caught my eye was on the third page of chapter one. It says: "Other states - the United States, Japan, Sweden - are stable because they are invigorated by the forces of globalization. [Income inequality does not come into play in this book.] These states are able to withstand political conflict, because their citizens - and international investors - know that political and social problems within them will be peacefully resolved by institutions that are independent of one another and that the electorate will broadly accept the resolution as legitimate. The institutions, not the personalities, matter in such a state."
No state is guaranteed their place on the curve.

Bremmer posits the framework of the J Curve upon which to examine why (and to an extent how) nations rise and fall. This framework is built on the a graph with vertical axis measuring stability and the horizontal axis measuring openness, with a J-shaped curve (not dissimilar in look to the Nike swoosh). Bremmer examines the place that North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, south Africa, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Israel, India and China fall within the J Curve, grouping those nations by their place in the J Curve, how they got there through their socio-political history and the result of each nation’s particular circ*mstances in considering both the present and the possible future.

It is interesting to note that with this book being published in 2006, world events have developed nine years later in order to allow for some examination of some thoughts and ideas postulated. The two that immediately sprang to mind were the subsequent actions of Russia’s Putin, and the ongoing instability of Iraq and the rhetoric, efforts and stake that most notably USA but also others have and continue to say, do and hold.

I do not pretend to have sufficient foreign policy experience, a detailed knowledge of relevant history or or a nuanced understanding of geopolitical affairs to properly offer a view about the merits of the concepts presented and future actions proposed. However, this book has given me a new perspective on these issues and I am particularly grateful for that.

Bremmer’s graph plots stability against openness, resulting in a J-shaped curve. A closed state may be moderately stable. As it begins to open up (through revolution, coup, etc.), it destabilizes. As the state becomes truly open, it becomes more stable than before. It may as well do so, since: “As the authoritarian countries of the Communist bloc discovered, all closed states eventually wither or explode.” (p. 277)

“‘Stability’ has two crucial components: the state’s capacity to withstand shocks and its ability to avoid producing them. A nation is only unstable if both are absent.” A “shock” can be a natural disaster or an internally produced or externally imposed political crisis. “Anyone can feel the difference between a ride in a car with good shock absorbers and in one that has no shock absorbers. Stability fortifies a nation to withstand political, economic, and social turbulence. Stability enables a nation to remain a nation.” (p. 8)

“A state with no stability is a failed state; it can neither implement nor enforce government policy. Such a country can fragment, it can be taken over by outside forces, or it can descend into chaos.” (p. 9)

An open society can be internally stable while still wielding colonial power that destabilizes other states. “However destabilizing for other states, a nation’s foreign policy,” Bremmer comments, “only alters its position on the J curve to the extent those policies reflect or alter internal policy.” (p. 210)

Generally like the idea of "demand-side geopolitics", and probably agree with it, but I'm also fairly skeptical of seemingly overly-simplistic general claims about the world.

That being said, most predictions ended up being true, except for the one on China which sticks out like a soar thumb. Hu Jintao's regime led to Xi Xinping's, an unarguably more strongarm authoritarian and brutal regime, while also pushing for more economically, right of the curve reforms (heightened privitization of industries, reduction in corporate taxes, increase in SEZ). Suggests that there might be some general truth to the claim, but there's likely quite a bit more.

What I mean here is that, although there may be a general truth that you could break down politics into a supply and demand problem, what you're really refering to is the distribition of outcomes. there's an important intermediary that needs to be factored in! Institutions and the strength they exhibit influence velocity of outcomes, and the strength of the CCP is what most creates that transition. There's plenty of exidence to indicate that one can have essentially uncompetitive and unopen governance while still maintaining strong stability (S Korea and Japan are excellent examples). Ignoring this aspect is detrimental to a general theory of geo-politics.

My opinion? Take Bremmer's position into consideration but not as prophecy!

Although the book has got a bit dated, however that should not stop one from still reading this. Ian has brought out some great trends to watch out for while analysing a country. This book is highly recommended for those who are investing in various countries.

I like the recommendation given by Ian on handling North Korea, although it is going to be difficult to carry out the same, which has also been outlined by Ian. Although Kim Jong Il is no more and his son has taken over (as was correctly identified by Ian in the Cuba case) , however, it still remains on the shorter end of the J curve , with all the insulations from external wold. However, it looks seemingly poised to slip down the curve.

Ian's analysis of Russia and China is quite spot on and gives a good insights. Most of these have been encountered by us during various interactions. China's dilemma is growing by the day. The recent events of Hong Kong is quite expected, but what is more concerning is the declining growth rates.

The write up on Saudi Arabia is also interesting, especially in light of the falling oil prices. Lets wait and watch.

I will keenly look forward to the next edition of this book from Ian

This book was selected by The Economist as one of the best books of 2006. Bremmer's J curve outlines the link between a country's openness and its stability. While many countries are stable because they are open (the United States, France, Japan), others are stable because they are closed (North Korea, Cuba, Iraq under Saddam Hussein). It was a very good read, fresh and clear, not burdened down with dogma and theory. It is a nice trip through history of nations such as Cuba, Russia, Israel, South Africa, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. He explains things very succinctly and gets to the point. As I read this book, I thought that he would make a good professor- in the way that he so easily makes his points. In fact Bremmer currently teaches at New York University.

This book is a great resource, one which I expect to refer back to or read again in the future. It is logically and concisely written to make very complicated information accessible and interesting.

This book sat around my house while I was reading it, and everyone who picked it up to pass the time or flip through a few pages found it to be very interesting. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who has an interest in foreign affairs, government, or sociopolitical issues.

This book is radically brilliant. The perfect mix of science and socio-political philosophy. It is a must read for anyone interested in an explaination of why the world is the way it is or anyone who wants to dealve into the politics and philosophy for state development. Can't say enough about how great this book is.

Still in the beginning half, but despite seeing criticism of the author's arguments in this book, I really am enjoying it. Even if it may be true that his arguments could use more factual evidence, I think what really gets me about this book are the ideas and the new perspective on an old topic.

Its really interesting to me. I recommend it, thus far!

This book altered my reasons for thinking economic sanctions are generally a waste of time, and indeed may prolong a bad situation. Having said that, I'm left wanting some sort of stick specifically targeting enemy leadership, given that this book advocates - in all but exceptional circustances - an uninterrupted supply of carrots as a means of effectuating change in unfriendly nations.

If you are open to new thought and willing to reconsider conventional wisdom This is a book for you Honestly I think my views concerning American foreign policy have matured since reading this book. You have any interest in politics you must OWN this book. You might not agree with every point but it will have you lock down your own thoughts

Great explanation of government control and the difference between free societies and those under despotic rule even though they both achieve stability. Also the peril of chaos at the bottom of the curve necessary for the transition to a free open society. Sometimes the chaos is just to great. Great history and background of the countries discussed. Very interesting and well written.

I was a big dork who loved econ. in college, and this book does more to explain why closed systems in government fail better than any poly/sci text ever could. After all, economics is the universal language.

The Rockefeller Foundation puts out this book.

The J-Curve presents some common sense ideas on nation stability in both closed and open societies. Once one understands the nature of dictatorships, then we can find an appropriate way to deal with them.

This pretty much sums up why all the closed societies (North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, etc.) are the way they are, and how our current system for dealing with them is intuitive yet counter-productive.

Good analysis from Ian Bremmer, very much in the same mold of (and worth reading if you liked) Thomas Friedman, Francis f*ckuyama, and Fareed Zakaria. Really nothing new that none of these other guys have already talked about, but an interesting way to look at it.

The right side of the J-curve is not as interesting as the rest of it. Because of this the book gets a little long towards the end. The majority of the book does deal with the left side and the the pit of the curve so as a whole the book is quite interesting.

This book has a great premise and wonderfully explains a theory that can be applied to most if not every nation; however, it becomes quite redundant after the first few chapters with the country-by-country overview.