Adam K. Webb

Adam K. Webb
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Adam K. Webb grew up in England, Spain, and the United States. He is now Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre, an overseas campus of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He has authored three books, including Beyond the Global Culture War (2006), A Path of Our Own: An Andean Village and Tomorrow's Economy of Values (2009), and Deep Cosmopolis: Rethinking World Politics and Globalisation (2015). His interests range broadly across political thought, and efforts to recreate room for traditions and liberty on the emerging global landscape. He divides his time among urban China, rural England, and other corners of the world.

Recent Essays

The Ties that Stretch and Bind

Adam K. Webb -
Many a time, I have seen my friend doting on his little seven-year-old half brother, picking him up from school, cooking for him, and keeping his classmates’ junk food at bay. Staying abroad and settling into some sort of upwardly mobile immigrant comfort would go against the grain of years of habit.

Have We Forgotten the Women?

Adam K. Webb -
Tradition supposedly bears the thumbprints of Roman patricians with browbeaten wives or frustrated monks who shivered in mediæval abbeys.

Knowing One’s Place at the Ballot Box

Adam K. Webb -
The prevailing model of local voting has deep defects, which often work against strong communities. The modern standard is one person, one vote, one place. While this standard is simple, it leads to outcomes that run against common sense.

Castles Built on Sand

Adam K. Webb -
Even for the average homeowner, ownership all too often is imagined as a way of gaming income flow and consumption over a lifetime, accumulating enough to spend down before one has to become a ward of the welfare state. It is part of consumer society, not a buffer against it.

An Arch Needs Many Stones: A Response to “God’s Economy”

Adam K. Webb -
But how can such plural sovereignty be realised under the circumstances of this century? Who will guard the guardians, so to speak? How will the stones of the arch fit together?

Perils of the Stationary State

Adam K. Webb -
When economic growth finally levels off, what kind of world comes after? Shall we be unchained from the mad rush for money of the last century? Or will other but equally chafing chains weigh us down instead?

From Olive Trees to Overcapacity

Adam K. Webb -
A homogeneous global consumer culture flattens its victims. And, perhaps in the same vein, our meanderings around the dying furniture capital of Yecla turned up nothing: virtually everything on display fitted what has become the decorative style of contemporary Spain: the sort of stuff one might find in a Copenhagen dentist’s office.

What Colour Is the Village Green?

Adam K. Webb -
Often the politics of the local turns on the “who” as much as the “where.” Switzerland showed as much very recently.  The country enjoys some...

Empire’s Heir?

Adam K. Webb -
As the old saying suggests, be careful what you ask for, because you may get it.  The hubristic here in China are well on...

The Other Side of China, and What It Might Say When It Speaks

Adam K. Webb -
As the heat of late summer subsides here in Nanjing and our university settles into the new semester, many look forward to the annual...

Closing the Circle: An Economy of Values, and Where to Look for It

Adam K. Webb -
It is no surprise that many of us connected with FPR welcomed the release in mid July of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas...

Tocqueville on the Shores of Titicaca

Adam K. Webb -
Amid Alexis de Tocqueville’s writings on revolution in France, there is a passage that rings true for those of us who have spent time...
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