Reordering International Order

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Kyle M. Lascurettes
Keyword(s):  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Potential Study ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Dominant Actor ◽  
Historical Periods

Chapter 2 (“Reordering International Order”) reviews the pitfalls of existing conceptions of international order before arguing that order is best conceptualized not as particular material, institutional, or normative environments but instead as the presence of a set of observed rules in world politics. It then returns to the primary empirical focus of the book, dominant-actor preferences for international order. After justifying this focus on the most powerful polities, it more precisely defines dominant actors and moments of order change opportunity and identifies a universe of cases for potential study. It then introduces the nine cases to be studied in chapters 4 through 8 and justifies a focus on these historical periods in particular.

Domestic Politics, China's Rise, and the Future of the Liberal International Order

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Jessica Chen Weiss ◽  
Jeremy L. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Internet Governance ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The Future ◽  
Trade And Exchange ◽  
International Behavior

Abstract With the future of liberal internationalism in question, how will China's growing power and influence reshape world politics? We argue that views of the Liberal International Order (LIO) as integrative and resilient have been too optimistic for two reasons. First, China's ability to profit from within the system has shaken the domestic consensus in the United States on preserving the existing LIO. Second, features of Chinese Communist Party rule chafe against many of the fundamental principles of the LIO, but could coexist with a return to Westphalian principles and markets that are embedded in domestic systems of control. How, then, do authoritarian states like China pick and choose how to engage with key institutions and norms within the LIO? We propose a framework that highlights two domestic variables—centrality and heterogeneity—and their implications for China's international behavior. We illustrate the framework with examples from China's approach to climate change, trade and exchange rates, Internet governance, territorial sovereignty, arms control, and humanitarian intervention. Finally, we conclude by considering what alternative versions of international order might emerge as China's influence grows.

The Problem of Order

After Victory ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
To Come ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
New Distribution

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how states build international order. The great moments of international order building have tended to come after major wars, as winning states have undertaken to reconstruct the postwar world. Certain years stand out as critical turning points: 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919, and 1945. At these junctures, newly powerful states have been given extraordinary opportunities to shape world politics. In the chaotic aftermath of war, leaders of these states have found themselves in unusually advantageous positions to put forward new rules and principles of international relations and by so doing remake international order. The most important characteristic of interstate relations after a major war is that a new distribution of power suddenly emerges, creating new asymmetries between powerful and weak states.

scholarly journals On the concept of international disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782092228
Author(s):  
Aaron McKeil
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Order And Disorder ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Systems

International relations today are widely considered to be experiencing deepening disorder and the topic of international disorder is gaining increased attention. Yet, despite this recent interest in international disorder, in and beyond the academy, and despite the decades-long interest in international order, there is still little agreement on the concept of international disorder, which is often used imprecisely and with an alarmist rather than analytical usage. This is a problem if international disorder is to be understood in theory, towards addressing its concomitant problems and effects in practice. As such, this article identifies and explores two ways international order studies can benefit from a clearer and more precise conception of international disorder. First, it enables a more complete picture of how orderly international orders have been. Second, a greater understanding of the problem of international order is illuminated by a clearer grasp of the relation between order and disorder in world politics. The article advances these arguments in three steps. First, an analytical concept of international disorder is developed and proposed. Second, applying it to the modern history of international order, the extent to which there is a generative relationship between order and disorder in international systems is explored. Third, it specifies the deepening international disorder in international affairs today. It concludes by indicating a research agenda for International Relations and international order studies that takes the role of international disorder more seriously.

scholarly journals Globalization, deglobalization and the liberal international order

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 1305-1316
Author(s):  
Markus Kornprobst ◽  
T V Paul
Keyword(s):  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Conceptual Frame ◽  
The Past ◽  
Epochal Change ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One

Abstract For decades, globalization and the liberal international order evolved side by side. Recently, however, deglobalizing forces have been on the rise and the liberal international order has come to be increasingly beleaguered. The special issue ‘Deglobalization? The future of the liberal international order’ examines the interconnectedness of globalization and deglobalization processes on the one hand and the trajectory of the liberal international order on the other. This introduction provides a conceptual frame for the articles to follow. It discusses globalization and deglobalization processes, compares how they have been intertwined with the liberal international order in the past and presently, and explores how these differences are likely to affect the future of world politics. The special issue makes three important contributions. First, we examine globalization and deglobalization processes systematically. Second, we break new ground in studying the future of international order. Third, we generate novel insights into epochal change.

China and the Struggle over the Future of International Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongying Pang
Keyword(s):  
International Institutions ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Infrastructure Investment ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Investment Bank ◽  
The Future ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Governance Institutions ◽  
The Belt And Road

This chapter discusses China’s changing attitude, doctrine, and policy actions towards international order and offers some tentative findings on the complexity of China’s role in the struggle over the future of international order. This complexity results from China’s efforts simultaneously to consolidate its presence in the existing international order but also to reform existing global governance institutions. The ambition to seek an alternative international order makes it, at least to some extent, a revisionist state. While pursuing an agenda to reform the existing international order from within, China additionally has begun to sponsor an unprecedented number of new international institutions and initiatives of its own, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). How this will play out will depend above all on the interaction of China with a USA still wedded to its hegemonic role in world politics.

Embedded authority: a relational network approach to hierarchy in world politics

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Informal Practices ◽  
Dominant Actor ◽  
Formal Procedures ◽  
Relational Network

AbstractRelations of sovereign inequality permeate international politics, and a growing body of literature grapples with the question of how states establish and sustain hierarchy amidst anarchy. I argue that existing literature on hierarchy, for all its diverse insights, misses what makes hierarchy unique in world politics. Hierarchy is not simply the presence of inequality or stratification among actors, but rather an authority relationship in which a dominant actor exercises some modicum of control over a subordinate one. This authority relationship, moreover, is dramatically different than ones found in domestic hierarchies. It is shaped less by written laws or formal procedures, than by subtle forms of manipulation and the development of informal practices. For this reason, hierarchy cannot simply be reduced the to the dynamics of anarchy, and must be viewed as a relational phenomenon. Ties between actors create positions that permit dominant actors to appropriate and orchestrate the sharing of authority with subordinate intermediaries. This article develops this relational network approach, highlighting how concepts such as access, brokerage, and yoking can illuminate the processes by which authority is enlisted and appropriated in world politics.

scholarly journals International Order and the Access Problem of the Defeated Hegemon: the Case of Russia in the Post-Cold War Era

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Gülteki̇n Sümer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Community Based ◽  
New Members ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Access Problem ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy

It has been evident that Russia as the heir of Soviet foreign policy, could neither achieve to integrate herself into the international order, nor could the international order achieve to find a solution to Russian foreign policy identity quest. As long as Russia cannot find a stable and permanent status for herself in the world politics, her foreign policy will signify a permanent instability on the behalf of the international order. The current hegemonic international order is far from residing technical capabilities in terms of satisfying Russia’s foreign policy expectations, because it is unprecedentedly rigid in terms of allowing or refusing the incorporation of hegemonic power like Russia. While it cannot return to multipolarity, it could not set a community based international order either. Since the current international order was founded upon liberal anti-Soviet values, it entered into a lightness of exposing Russia to make clear-cut choices in her foreign policy. As much as the current international order was founded upon liberal anti-Soviet values, its demands from the new members would much higher that especially Russia would not easily adapt herself to.

scholarly journals Subordinates’ Quest for Recognition in Hierarchy

2021 ◽  
pp. 030582982110509
Author(s):  
Karim El Taki
Keyword(s):  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Material Constraints

The scholarship on hierarchy held the promise of exposing conditions of systemic inequality in world politics. However, a significant strand of it approached the international order from above, privileging the perspective of dominant actors. I make the case for a from-below approach to hierarchical orders, recognising and accounting for understudied experiences in world politics, but also developing a more accurate understanding of hierarchy. Through a relational-sociological approach, I conceptualise hierarchy as a socially differentiated system predicated on recognition. The experience of misrecognition by way of normative and material constraints constitutes actors as subordinates. I propose a framework for subordinate actors’ navigation of hierarchy in quest of social recognition. I identify three strategies that subordinates employ, depending on the misrecognising constraints they counter (normative/material) and the recognition they seek (internal/external). Subordinates may engage in norm appropriation, alternative leveraging, and salvation from victimhood. I demonstrate the applicability of the framework by examining Egypt’s quest for recognition in the aftermath of the 2013 military coup.

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