Category Archives: International Relations

The Governable Interval: A Typology of the Conditions Under Which Afghanistan Governs Itself, and Why Their Conjunction Is Rare

Posted on August 15, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The Question Stated Properly The familiar phrase “graveyard of empires” gets the problem backward. Afghanistan has been conquered often and successfully — by Cyrus, Alexander, the Mauryas, the Kushans, the Sasanians, the Hephthalites, the Arabs, the Samanids, the Ghaznavids, … Continue reading →

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The Unmarked Case: North America Revisited — Span, Cohesion, and the Completed Typology

Posted on August 7, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. Why the First Region Has to Be Done Twice Ten papers ago this series began with North America because that is where the concept began. Gottmann named Megalopolis on the Northeastern seaboard, the Regional Plan Association’s America 2050 project … Continue reading →

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The Consolidated Quarter: Megaregions of East Asia — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 7, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The Region the Concept Was Waiting For Nine papers have tested the megaregion against conditions it was not designed for: primacy, water, distance, absence, aridity, saturation, archipelago. East Asia is the first region since North America and Europe where … Continue reading →

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The Crossing and the Island: Megaregions of Southeast Asia — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 7, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. Two Questions in One Region Southeast Asia holds roughly 690 million people across eleven states, and it divides analytically into two halves that pose opposite questions. The mainland — Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and peninsular Malaysia — is … Continue reading →

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The Saturated Quarter: Megaregions of Central and South Asia — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 7, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. Where the Concept Is Both Obvious and Useless Central and South Asia hold roughly 2.1 billion people — about a quarter of humanity — on land area smaller than Brazil and Argentina combined. By any measure of scale, this … Continue reading →

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The Region Ahead of Its Data: Megaregions of Sub-Saharan Africa — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. A Different Kind of Question Every previous paper in this series has asked what a region’s megaregions are. For Sub-Saharan Africa the honest question is what they are becoming, and that changes the character of the analysis in ways … Continue reading →

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The Habitable Fraction: Megaregions of the Middle East and North Africa — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. What This Region Tests Five papers have accumulated a framework by testing it against different structural conditions: coalescence in North America, primacy in South America, water and small size in the Caribbean, distance in Oceania, and legal permeability in … Continue reading →

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The Permeable Continent: Megaregions of Europe — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The Other Origin The megaregion has two intellectual parents, and only one of them was American. Gottmann described the Northeastern seaboard in 1961 and gave the phenomenon its first name. But the European tradition ran in parallel and, in … Continue reading →

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The Long Distances: Megaregions of Oceania — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 5, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The Question Oceania Answers Each region in this series has tested the megaregion concept against a different structural condition. North America supplied the case the concept was built for. South America tested it against primacy. The Caribbean tested it … Continue reading →

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The Sea Between: Megaregions of the Caribbean — Span, Cohesion, and a Working Typology

Posted on August 5, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The Short Answer, and Why It Is Not the End of the Matter On the strict test, the Caribbean has no megaregions. The test requires either a coalescence of adjacent metropolitan labor markets or a transactional corridor joining several … Continue reading →

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