The international order is undergoing one of its most consequential transformations since the end of the Cold War. The crisis of the US-led liberal order reflects a combination of long-term structural changes and more contingent political developments: the relative decline of American power, the rise of China and its construction of alternative institutions and normative frameworks, the erosion of the domestic foundations of liberal internationalism, and the growing influence of populism, nationalism, and anti-globalist ideas. The tumultuous foreign policy of the Trump era has added a particularly disruptive dimension to these processes. Its orientation and impact raise fundamental questions not only about the future of liberalism but also about the future of American hegemony and, more broadly, about the very nature and structure of international order.
This panel invites papers examining the present state and possible future trajectories of the international order and its components during and after the Trump era. Several competing scenarios deserve particular attention. The US-led order may survive, possibly in an illiberal form associated with a predatory hegemony, or it may contract and become part of a Sino-American bipolar system. Other perspectives anticipate the emergence of various forms of multipolarity. More pessimistic scenarios foresee accelerating fragmentation, de-globalization, and a Hobbesian ‘chaotic jungle.’
The panel welcomes theoretically and methodologically diverse contributions addressing these and related questions. Possible topics include national and regional responses to present turbulence, as well as scenarios for the roles and realignments that various states and groups of states in the Global North and Global South may envisage in the short and long term.
We strongly encourage submissions representing diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological traditions, with a focus extending from purely International Relations issues to domestic factors such as populism and nationalism, as well as to the individual level of analysis. The panel also seeks to bring together scholars from different regions of the world and encourages submissions that move beyond predominantly Western perspectives in order to capture the diverse ways in which the transformation of international order is experienced, interpreted, and contested.