Two concepts are of fundamental importance for understanding this paper: the nebulous idea of leadership and efficiency, which purportedly gives social analysis an edge over more traditional approaches made famous by political sociology and widespread discussion. By leadership, we usually mean political leadership. Political leadership, finally, entails the exercise of power. They are generally exercised within a publicly available status-role structure. Sociologically, the notion of power is hard to pin down, and no reference to it would be necessary if it weren’t usually used to distinguish instances of social change from others, which we take to be terms or ‘indifferent outcomes.’ Non-political leaders also abound in society: entrepreneurs, group leaders of all sorts, actualizers of changes of order.
This course explores the transition from national to international leadership, a topic with significant practical implications. We assume that national leaders efficiently lead complex collectivities and then delve into ways to assess and measure such collection efficiency. From there, we explore the concept of leading the world efficiently, leading to practical results and tentative conclusions.