Centre for Advanced International Studies (CAIS) workshop: World Order(s) in Crisis?

Indeed, today’s world order is invariably conceptualized as either anarchical or hierarchal, Westphalian and state-centric or globalized and deterritorialized, as liberal and consensual or neo-colonial and coercive, homogenizing or fragmenting, a direct product of Western power or a by-product of its entanglements and negotiations with different states, regions, civilizations, and localities. Moreover, if today’s world order is indeed in crisis, what exactly is there a crisis of and what the sources of such crisis are remains equally unclear and deeply contested. Are we witnessing a crisis of capitalism, American power and legitimacy, states and nationalism, globalization and transnationalism, elected and un-elected elites, imagination and ideas, global governance institutions and norms, or liberalism and democracy? What and who are the drivers of such crisis? Populists and nationalists, migrants and refugees, terrorists and religious fundamentalists, democratic and fiscal deficits, fake-news and social media, climate change, ‘strong men’, American decline, rising powers, or even the very same logics and contradictions of capitalism, globalization, and American power itself? Finally, as crisis leads to transformation, what awaits us beyond the Western-based world order?

The University of Exeter’s Centre for Advanced International Studies (CAIS) brings together scholars from diverse theoretical backgrounds and with different geographical expertise, to address these pressing questions over the course of a one-day workshop.

Download the full programme below.