This post is the second in a series examining the future of the international order. One of the five programmatic series that the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace explores is Global Governance, and in 2018, the Chair began a series of conversations focused on the future of the international order. This series of short reflections highlights the ideas discussed, and the solutions offered for improving international relations.
Taking some of the discussion points from the previous roundtable at the ISA Annual Conference in 2018, in July of the same year Professor Hoda Mahmoudi, Research Professor and the holder of the Baha’i Chair for World Peace and Dr. Kate Seaman, the Assistant Director at the Baha’i Chair for World Peace presented a paper titled What comes after the liberal order? Shifting power in the international system, at the joint Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) and International Studies Association (ISA) regional conference in Quito, Ecuador.
The guiding questions provided by the conference organizers were:
- What constitutes power, authority and legitimacy at the global and regional levels?
- Who are the current power contenders? Do they exert leadership to rethink and remake global and regional governance?
- Is a de-Westernizing agenda in the making? If so, what does it look like? If not, why the perceived angst surrounding the demise of Western leadership?
- How is the return of nationalism affecting the current global and regional orders? How is the present variation of nationalism different or similar to what we have encountered in the past and what does this mean for the future?
- What is the role of the BRICS in shaping the new global and regional orders? Do they present a united, counterhegemonic front to established global leadership?
- Are power transitions the same as power transformation at the global and regional levels? Are power transitions always marked by conflict and security challenges or is peaceful change possible? And how would we identify a power transformation if it were present?
- How are these new power dynamics affecting the countries of the Global South (in social, economic, political and security terms)? Are particular regions affected on specific issues more so than others? What have been the responses of Global South countries to the dilemmas posed by power reconfigurations?
The conference theme was transformation in the international system, with a specific focus on the contestation surrounding leadership within global politics, the rise of the BRICS, the backlash against globalization, and new regional challenges. This also involved examining the changing perspectives and foreign policy of the previously dominant states, who now questioned the benefits of global governance resulting in a withdrawal from the international stage. The key question being whether this was causing a fundamental shift in the terms of traditional global influence and creating a more diverse system.
The panel that Professor Mahmoudi and Dr. Seaman participated in was International Order and Foreign Policy and the other presenters included Professor Bear F. Braumoeller, Professor in the Department of Political Science Ohio State University, Professor Brett Ashley Leeds, Professor in the Department of Political Science at Rice University, Professor Elise Pizzi, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Iowa, and Professor Sara Mitchell, F. Wendell Miller Professor of Political Science, University of Iowa.
The panel featured papers focused on explaining the changes in the current international order and state foreign policy. The paper presented by Professor Mahmoudi and Dr. Seaman examined the underlying power shifts within the international system, the changing roles of leading states and rising powers, and examined the fundamental changes that are impacting on the current liberal international order. The paper also looks at how the order might develop in the future, what the alternatives to this order are, and who might provide leadership moving forward.
By examining why the order appears to be in decline, looking at the underlying power shifts within the international system, the changing roles of leading states and rising powers, and the increasingly complex relationships between multiple actors, the paper then outlines the key questions that need to be addressed in order to either arrest this decline, or reformulate the order with more open and equitable practices. The paper then concludes by positing how the order, if proven resilient, could develop in the future, and how the current alternatives to the order can be incorporated to strengthen the order moving forward.
This is not the first time that the liberal international order has been challenged and crises can in fact be seen as drivers of change within the order (Broome et al., 2012). To restructure the liberal international order will require innovative leadership, capable of pushing for larger adjustments during a time of systemic change.
The social practices within the liberal order have the potential to adapt and renew, and by opening up the order to a wider range of actors there is also the opportunity to adopt new global, regional and sub-regional practices (Adler, 2013). New practices need to take into consideration who decides which values or interests should take preference, and how this can be made more inclusive. It is time for a new debate about how the world should be governed.
References
Adler E (2013) Resilient Liberal International Practices. In: Dunne T and Flockhart T (eds) Liberal World Orders. London: Oxford University Press.
Broome A, Clegg L and Rethel L (2012) Global Governance and the Politics of Crisis. Global Society 26(1): 3–17. DOI: 10.1080/13600826.2011.629992.
About the Author:
Kate Seaman is the Assistant Director to the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace where she supports the research activities of the Chair. Kate is interested in understanding normative changes at the global level and how these changes impact on the creation of peace.
You can find out more about the Bahá’í Chair by watching our video here.