This post is the sixth 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.
Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic the International Studies Association Conference in March 2020 was cancelled. The panel the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace had organized was rescheduled to the Virtual Conference in April 2021 and was again included in the special series on Structuring Inclusion.
The 2021 Conference theme was Globalization, Regionalism and Nationalism: Contending Forces in World Politics. The organizers focused the theme on understanding the actors, anxieties, and political forces in international and domestic politics that are shaping-and shaped by- the changing world. They were interested in analysis of the interactions between power, voice, and rules at both the local and international level, and in fresh approaches to the study of international politics. In seeking new approaches they were specifically interested in studies which crossed ideological, disciplinary, regional, and methodological lines and highlighted their interest in work that
1) understand changes at the global level influence regional, national, and local politics, or
2) the reverse: how local, national or regional political interactions might be changing the global order.
The call for papers noted the increase in attacks on globalization, part of a widespread backlash in both developed and developing countries. Pointing to the establishment of the Bretton Woods System in the mid 1940s, the organizers argued that this set the stage for
a liberal international order that has governed political and economic relations between capitalist and democratic nations.
While the pushback against globalization has increased, this is not the first time the order has been challenged, what is different is the ways in which it is now being resisted through democratic elections and rising populist, nationalist, protectionist, and anti-globalization movements. As the organizers also noted
In various ways and in many countries throughout the world, individuals, political parties, and grassroots movements are challenging different aspects of ‘liberal’, ‘international’, and ‘order’.
The guiding questions outlined in the call for proposals included:
- What are the forces challenging the liberal international order (LIO)? Are these similar across regions? Countries? international institutions?
- What interests are and are not represented in anti-globalization movements?
- How have the current structures of power and rules in the LIO influenced the rise of countervailing forces today?
- How can we explain the role of emerging powers and/or the Global South in the politics influencing support and resistance to the current liberal international order?
- How and under what conditions does local dissatisfaction with LIO impact power structures change?
- What is the perspective of the Global South and how are they reacting to these trends?
- What is the future of US political and economic relations with other rising powers, and China in particular?
- What are the challenges brought by accelerating trade, supply chains, capital and technology flows? How and under what conditions do they impact international relations, domestic politics and society?
- How is the current LIO impacting nationalist fever and ethnic conflict?
- How do we envision the legitimacy and functioning of international organizations in the changing global economy?
- How do we understand the role of national and local democratic institutions in the face of changing global order? Under what conditions is current angst about globalization placing democratic institutions under threat?
- What is the role of public opinion in shaping governance issues related to globalization?
- What are the most successful strategies for economic and political development in this new era?
- How are local, national, and international level governments dealing with global crises such as climate change, and immigration?
The panel organized by the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace was focused on how to cross-pollinate between different, often siloed, subfields within international relations in order to build community across the discipline. The panel was chaired by Professor Hoda Mahmoudi.
Professor Anna M. Agathangelou, presented a paper on De-enslave this! Whose Global Studies is it anyway? The paper explored the global as an instituted perspective, not an empirical process, and argued that much of global studies is dominated by an instituted perspective which focuses on ‘monocultures’ and limits the knowledge and power systems of reproduction. She argued that this type of global studies “ takes for granted a dichotomization of time and space, theory and empirics making a series of assumptions about modernity (i.e., science, peoples, natures), theory, practice.” Professor Agathangelou problematized the way in which we think about globalization and the global and how we organize our narratives around this. She argued that
the global and global studies are not peculiar modes of conceptualization belonging to certain sites, peoples, and times like today. Rather, they belong to all of us and are aligned to a conception of a historical development entangled with European colonial capitalism and the anti-struggles and anti-movements and ruptures of it.
Professor Michael Allen’s paper Rethinking International Studies: Layered Ontologies and Shared Paradigms argued that International Studies originated in the study of International relations with a focus on the relations between states. However, international crises and large scale structural changes in the post-war system including decolonization, necessitated the inclusion of transnational actors within the broader field of study. He argued that International Studies has now widened to include, anthropologists, linguists, cultural critics, theologians, geographers, geneticists, and epidemiologists to join the political scientists, economists, sociologists and legal scholars who had previously dominated the field of International Studies. Nothing that
They bring different tools of analysis and different assumptions about the causes of change in the world. But the riches of diversity also mean analytical clutter and empirical compartmentalization.
His paper argued that by focusing on four ontologies of world reality, cutting across disciplines, would allow the creation of shared explanatory paradigms and enable the creation of humane and sustainable responses to real-world challenges.
Professor Jacqueline Braveboy-Wagner’s paper, The Utility of Locating IR/FPA within Global South Area Studies highlighted the lack of inclusion of global south perspectives in international relations. Noting that the discipline has expanded in both the issues it deals with, and the theories and methodologies it utilizes, Professor Braveboy-Wagner noted that while area studies is “the most inclusive platform bringing together scholars from many disciplines in the GS, IR as understood by the mainstream is not well represented in many area studies projects.” Her paper investigated this gap and the different approaches between international relations, foreign policy, and area studies and the importance of incorporating subfields into a more inclusive international relations discipline.
Professor Siba Grovogui’s paper Methods, Norms, and Practices of the Global argued that
Understanding the global and the requirements of international peace are merely a matter of instituting normality or normativity as are often thought.
He argued that International Peace depends on the management of an expanding international community, which is inseparable from international society, and also inseparable from international norms. The key is to develop an understanding of the relationship between time and its expressions as spatial and subjective sensibilities.
This is to say the practice of peace depends first on the relatability of plural sensibilities to the questions of authority, agency, and legitimacy as well as the development of methods for understanding the appearances of norms in the practices of peace as these manifest themselves through interpretations and translations of global norms as commonsense underpinning of conduct.
His paper was focused on how to develop such a method.
Dr. Kate Seaman’s paper Encouraging Interdisciplinarity in International Relations argued that within the field of International Relations it is very easy to become siloed in a specialized sub-field and to disengage from a wider variety of literature. This process begins early in an academic career and her paper examined the process of how this happens, and at what stages interventions might help prevent this. She also argued that we need to think through how we teach International Relations, how we encourage junior academics to focus their research, and what long term impacts this has, not only for the individual scholars, but for the wider field. Dr Seaman also argued that
what is needed is a process of community building across sub-disciplines, and more focus on how this community building can be encouraged.
Each of the papers presented reflected on how we can ensure that a more diverse array of scholarship is valued, and how the knowledge created in sub-fields can be shared more widely in order to engage with a broader understanding of what International Relations is, and how it is done, applied, and understood.
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.