Diffusion, innovation and the tech-politics underlying power transitions

In Technology and the Rise of Great Powers, Ding examines the historical industrial revolutions (from 1780s onwards) to argue that it was diffusion of general purpose technologies as opposed to advantage in leading sectors that decided the outcome of great power transitions. In this review article, Ding’s framework is applied to India for discerning the lessons it holds for rising powers amid the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution.