The Twilight of Sovereignty : How the Information Revolution Is Transforming Our World

Walter B. Wriston, the former chairman of Citicorp, is among the most innovative financiers of our time. In The Twilight of Sovereignty he lucidly reveals the vast geopolitical implications of the massive information revolution in progress around the globe. Human intelligence and intellectual resources are now the world’s prime capital, Wriston shows. Instant global communication – the marriage of satellites, television, fax, cellular telephones, and worldwide computer networks – has had and will continue to have world-shaking consequences. The fundamental result is that national boundaries are increasingly irrelevant, and the traditional power and perquisites of sovereignty are disappearing. The effect of this revolution, says Wriston, is the formation of a new global democratic order: “No matter what political leaders do or say, the screens will continue to light up, traders will trade, and currency values will continue to be set, not only by sovereign governments but by global plebiscite,” he writes. Today, there can be no more unreported Chernobyl disasters. There can be no more Pearl Harbor-like surprises. The vast migrations on every continent; the drive of informed peoples for self-determination; the collapse of the Soviet empire; the democratization of Latin America; the outburst of ethnic rivalries – all become understandable in the challenging light of Wriston’s persuasive analysis. Wriston stresses that in the information revolution, technology itself is of secondary importance. His larger vision is of the transformation of our public and private institutions. Within the corporation, too, the twilight of sovereignty is near. The immediate and simultaneous availability of data to those at every level of authority within the corporation means that in today’s business world, traditional executive power is ended. Looking to the future, Wriston outlines the new management philosophies and radically changed managerial structures that will follow the end of