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Yui Mok\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since the capture<\/span> of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the ensuing claim by US leaders that \u201cwe\u2019re in charge\u201d of a sovereign nation, President Trump and his allies have gloated. \u201cCuba looks like it\u2019s ready to fall,\u201d Trump told reporters, implying that the island country was next on his takeover list as he flew back to Mar-a-Lago this weekend. \u201cNobody is going to fight the US militarily over its future,\u201d Stephen Miller, a top aide, snarled during a Monday appearance on CNN, as commenters on the right, basked in hubris, declared American might is the only international law of importance.<\/p>\n \u201cFuck around,\u201d Secretary of War Pete Hegseth keeps warning<\/a> other nations, and \u201cfind out.\u201d<\/p>\n The parade of threats, which had seemed absurd until Friday, has prompted many to wonder: Why<\/em>? What is the point of invading other countries? Could it really be as simple as oil? A play for a sphere of influence? Age-old imperialism? Is it because, as Chuck Schumer meekly suggested, that Republicans just aren\u2019t \u201cstepping up to the plate<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re in a system that is about rules, then this looks irrational because it\u2019s not following the rules. But if it\u2019s a system that\u2019s about status and hierarchy dominance\u2026then it makes perfect sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n If you can\u2019t help but shake the feeling that such theories don\u2019t quite fit this moment, you\u2019re not alone. On Bluesky, I noticed a new theory that popped up: neo-royalism<\/a>, which argues that we\u2019re talking about this moment all wrong. That the world order as we\u2019ve known for the last century\u2014let\u2019s loosely call it Cold War liberalism\u2014is disappearing. And in its place, a new order shaped by the private interests of individual men and their fiercest allies, not the interests, private or public, fair or foul, good or bad, of a nation.<\/p>\n \u201cNeo-royalism says that the state, the country, is not the key actor,\u201d Abe Newman, a political scientist at Georgetown who co-wrote a paper coining the term<\/a>, told me. \u201cIt\u2019s groups of elites that are organized around political leaders. That system doesn\u2019t play by the same rules.\u201d<\/p>\n If that sounds like a return to the era of kings, you\u2019re on the right track. But neo-royalism expands this to a global structure, with American power dominating the world and King Trump attempting to reap profit across the globe. It\u2019s through this lens that, suddenly, the tech CEOs and other countries groveling with golden gifts<\/a> make more sense.<\/p>\n I caught up with Newman on the emerging theory and what it really means. Our conversation has been lightly edited.<\/p>\n For those who haven\u2019t come across your paper<\/a>, let\u2019s loosely define neo-royalism and how this framework might explain Trump\u2019s chaotic foreign policy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Let me start by asking: What do we usually think of how international politics works? For the last 100 years or so, it was based on what people call the rules-based international order. The United Nations and the World Trade Organization interacted based on the idea that each state was sovereign. They could control their territory, and there were certain basic principles of interaction. These were kind of the rules of engagement.<\/p>\n What my co-author, Stacie Goddard, and I are saying is that the lens everybody uses to think about how international politics works is no longer functioning.<\/p>\n What we propose, neo-royalism, is basically just saying to begin with, the state is not the key actor like the country. It\u2019s groups of elites that are organized around political leaders. That system doesn\u2019t play by the same rules, but it is very inherent to how humans think about international politics. <\/p>\n So, I usually like to use Game of Thrones<\/em>. Everybody relates to Game of Thrones<\/em>. You watch it, you read it, and you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, I understand how politics is working.\u201d That is what we\u2019re seeing in the international system. It\u2019s groups of actors that are jockeying for their interests, and they\u2019re trying to grab hold of the state to use its power to get what they want. It\u2019s not national interests that are driving international affairs, but the interests of these different competing elite groups.<\/p>\n I struggle to believe that this decline in the international world order is happening in some kind of Trumpian vacuum. But I could be wrong! Is America\u2019s embrace of neo-royalism singular to Trump? If not, what milestones led us to this moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jeff Kopstein, a professor at UC Irvine, has this great book<\/a> about the rise of what you would call patrimonial systems of government versus what we\u2019ve seen over the last several decades. He documents the rapid disassembly of the internal, bureaucratic state. In the case of the US and the disassembly of that system here, it\u2019s not only because of Trump. It\u2019s because of many different polarizations and Supreme Court decisions, such as Citizens United<\/em>. There\u2019s been a whole bunch of things that have degraded the bureaucratic state, and it\u2019s moved us into what the Supreme Court might call the unitary executive doctrine<\/a>. It\u2019s a version where there\u2019s very little bureaucracy around the decisions of the leader, and instead, the leader can make decisions based on their personal interests. That\u2019s not just a change in the United States; you see that in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, wherein many states have seen the same evolution away from what people will call the Weberian state, to this more patrimonial system. And what our argument is that has international consequences. It\u2019s not just changes domestically; it\u2019s also having this transformative effect globally.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, actors are debasing themselves to this order, like the Swiss bringing gold bars and Rolexes to the White House to avoid being targets of tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n How should this framework influence the way we view Trump\u2019s actions right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think a lot of people start with the idea that Trump is about spheres of influence balancing against China. Sometimes people call it America First. But that\u2019s a red herring. But really, what you\u2019re seeing is a set of foreign policy decisions that are about accumulating status and material wealth and then concentrating that in that group of insider elites. This is about status hierarchy, the relations of individuals.<\/p>\n Why does Trump have a big fight with India and put huge tariffs on India? It\u2019s because Modi won\u2019t recognize Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. It\u2019s not about competing against China. Why did we sell lots of semiconductors to the UAE? It doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense from an America First perspective. So what\u2019s going on there? It\u2019s about the amount of money that the UAE is going to put into World Liberty Financial, the crypto company that\u2019s associated with Steve Witkoff and their children<\/a>. It\u2019s about seeing the global chessboard as a site of status and material wealth. The same thing with Venezuela. People think it\u2019s the oil companies that are pushing Trump to take over Venezuela. They\u2019re not. That\u2019s not the story. It\u2019s about how Trump sees Venezuela as a resource that he can then distribute across his allies.<\/p>\n Right. I think there\u2019s also an instinct to neatly explain this with, well, he\u2019s just fucking crazy. <\/strong><\/p>\n World leaders like the Danish prime minister have [expressed confusion], like, \u201cThis doesn\u2019t make any sense, these threats over Greenland.\u201d But that\u2019s because people are using this old logic and viewing this as irrational based on the liberal international order, or that it\u2019s not rational if we\u2019re thinking about spheres of influence. But what my co-author and I argue is that what is rational depends on the ordering system. If you\u2019re in a system that is about rules, then this looks irrational because it\u2019s not following the rules. But if it\u2019s a system that\u2019s about status and hierarchy dominance, it\u2019s if it\u2019s Game of Thrones,<\/em> then it makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n You\u2019re reorganizing the chessboard in order to funnel resources, material, and status to your supporters. I think that once we can name it and describe it, then we can try to understand it and also offer an alternative. Because right now, too often, actors are debasing themselves to this order, like the Swiss bringing gold bars and Rolexes to the White House<\/a> to avoid being targets of tariffs.<\/p>\n In your view, which characters, either in the administration or in his family, make up this theoretical clique? What do they stand to gain?<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s the family, right? They\u2019re clearly involved in these types of activities. Jared Kushner, not Marco Rubio, is at the table in Ukraine. So there\u2019s the kind of familial characters and also what we would call loyalists and ideologues like Stephen Miller. Then you have economic actors, the kind of Elon Musks, the people who have a way to reorganize economic structures to their benefit.<\/p>\n In political science, we\u2019re always thinking about power. There are different ways to accumulate it; sometimes it\u2019s economic, and sometimes it\u2019s status, and it\u2019s often to maintain that power. <\/p>\n And they\u2019re thinking beyond Trump, right? He is, after all, an elderly man.<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, definitely. Many of these actors are quite explicit about their long-term views. Just look at the advisers around all this. There\u2019s Chris Buskirk<\/a>, an adviser to JD Vance who runs the organization, 1789, and he talks about how we need to bring back an aristocratic system of governance<\/a>. There\u2019s an intellectual framework that is opposed to democracy and argues that elites should be in charge of this system. And I think it\u2019s naive to think that when Trump retires, that will be the end of the system. There are multiple actors\u2014whether it\u2019s the family, loyalists, or economic leaders\u2014and they\u2019re all kind of vying for succession.<\/p>\n The US government doesn\u2019t actually want to keep invading countries; it just wants people to give it stuff for free.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Supposing your theory is correct, what now? How should countries that oppose Trump\u2019s neo-royalism respond? Because the current admonishments seem incredibly naive.<\/strong><\/p>\n There has to be both a domestic and an international response. If you look at Sen. Chuck Schumer\u2019s response<\/a> recently, he was basically saying, \u201cWell, Republicans should vote against this.\u201d But there has to be a recognition that this is an attempt to transform how the international system works. I think a lot of times people are like, \u201cI\u2019m scratching my head. What\u2019s Trump doing?\u201d There\u2019s a much larger agenda afoot, and it is basically degrading the norms and processes that we\u2019ve based the international system on. Somebody needs to stay that rules are this way because they prevent violence, coercion, and corruption. If we get rid of rules, we\u2019re likely to have violence and corruption\u2014and we\u2019re already seeing that play out. The stakes are very high.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever seen movies like Heather<\/em>s or Mean Girls<\/em>, we all know most of what we do in life is because of norms. It\u2019s because of these tacit rules of how we\u2019re supposed to behave. This isn\u2019t just Trump. It\u2019s transforming what the basic principles of international affairs are, and we at the domestic level have to push back, even if we think Maduro is a terrible guy and his whole regime is terrible.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the United States has the preponderance of military power. It can do things if it wants to. But the key is, what is the reaction to that? Do people say, \u201cOkay, I guess you can do that.\u201d Well, then the US will keep doing that. I think what\u2019s important to remember is that using coercion is actually very difficult and costly. The US government doesn\u2019t actually want to keep invading countries; it just wants people to give it stuff for free.<\/p>\n In April, Trump proposed very large tariffs, and the bond market freaked out. So he pulled it back and restructured the tariffs. So I think other actors have to say, \u201cLook, you can\u2019t keep doing this. We\u2019re not just going to go along or get along. There will be a cost.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been particularly fascinated by the aesthetics of the Trump administration over the past year, specifically as to how they signal loyalty to the president. What are the traditional ways of doing this in the realm of neo-royalism?<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a part of the piece<\/a> where we ask: How do you create legitimacy when you\u2019re not based on rules? In a neo-royalist system, it\u2019s about exceptionalism. It\u2019s about this notion that we\u2019re so special, and so we get to do these things. That\u2019s why traditional monarchs justified their behavior either by God or bloodline. The United States doesn\u2019t have that as much. But we have Trump and these leaders who look for visuals and narratives that underscore exceptionalism. And so you saw, like the White House, they did a Time<\/em> magazine cover. Look at his speeches. He doesn\u2019t say that his power comes from us, the people. It is about \u201cI alone can save you.\u201d It\u2019s never about whether we can do this. And so that the images and narratives are usually about something divine. As Trump has said, \u201cGod saved me from the assassination.\u201d Or there\u2019s the patriarchal, like the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calling Trump \u201cDaddy.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Since you mentioned it, I\u2019ll end by asking which Game of Thrones<\/em> house you\u2019d liken Trump to.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure if there\u2019s a perfect house, but the Lancasters are the ones trying to dominate. I like that question. I\u2019ll think about that.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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