Can corona cure our superiority complex? Egmont Commentary 9 November 2020.

Biscop, Sven (2020) Can corona cure our superiority complex? Egmont Commentary 9 November 2020. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

A superiority complex is hard to cure. Nobody in Europe is longing for a return to empire (well, nobody in continental Europe, at least). Most Americans still pretend they never even had an empire. But Europeans and Americans still feel that we are entitled to dominate international politics, and that it is perfectly natural that the EU and the US are the most wealthy places on earth. Deep down, we feel that we have merited this, through our hard work – the implication being that if other people are less well off, they have merited that also. The reality is, of course, that we created the international order to our economic benefit.

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