A comparative, interdisciplinary volume on the robustness and fragility of political orders that focuses on leader understandings and their consequences. It includes studies of failed orders, like the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union, current orders, like the United States, regional orders, such as the European Union, and international orders.

This volume focuses on the assessments political actors make of the relative fragility and robustness of political orders. The core argument developed and explored throughout its different chapters is that such assessments are subjective and informed by contextually specific historical experiences that have important implications for how leaders respond. Their responses, in turn, feed into processes by which political orders change. The volume's contributions span analyses of political orders at the state, regional and global levels. They demonstrate that assessments of fragility and robustness have important policy implications but that the accuracy of assessments can only be known with certainty ex post facto. The volume will appeal to scholars and advanced students of international relations and comparative politics working on national and international orders.