“International Organizations and Peaceful Change: Theory and Practice”
The objective of this edited volume is to assess and discuss how international governmental organizations (IGOs) affect and influence the transformation of the current international order. We aim to provide both a diagnosis of the ability and means of international organizations to contribute to order transitions and to suggest ‘cures’ for the current shortcomings of international organizations in promoting peaceful change. By theoretically analyzing global and regional developments and critically scrutinizing how selected global international organizations contribute to peaceful change, we aim for this volume to be an invaluable source for students, scholars and policymakers interested in peaceful change and international organizations as well as current changes in the international order more generally.
Organizers: T.V. Paul (McGill University), Anders Wivel (University of Copenhagen), and Kai He (Griffith University)
“Great Power Rivalries and Regional Orders: Past, Present and Future”
Great power rivalries are once again at the forefront of international politics, although taking a different form than we witnessed during the Cold War. Following a period of nearly two decades of peace after the collapse of the Soviet Union, what we are witnessing today is a curious resurgence of great power competition in both old and new domains. This include competition in the world’s key regions. These interactions have generated changed dynamics in regional orders in recent years as rivalry becomes the dominant mode of interaction among great powers. Regional states have made use of the opportunities provided by the new great power rivalry to further their security and economic interests. How different are today’s rivalries from the Cold war era when the US-Soviet rivalry defined the contours of many regional conflicts? When the Cold War ended some regional conflicts were settled (e.g. Cambodia, Nicaragua, Southern Africa), while others persisted (Israel-Palestine, South Asia and the Korean Peninsula), showing that systemic forces are only one critical variable that determine conflict and cooperation in the regions. These variations need an assessment on their own merit now that we have the luxury of perspective on both Cold War rivalries and can perceive the contours us new ones. The current great power order is characterized by economically interdependent rising China, using economic, technological and military instruments to gain ascendency, and a declining Russia attempting to shape regional and global orders using the formidable military and diplomatic capacity Moscow retains. The US efforts to restrict China’s goal of achieving hegemony by 2050, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative, asymmetrical technological superiority and militarization of the South China Sea, are generating conflict, but of a different type than we saw during the Cold War. Is the scholarship on systemic/regional interactions, mainly developed during the Cold War era sufficient to understand the new dynamics? What does the past tell us of the present and the future? What new tools we need to explain patterns of regional orders and the impact of systemic rivalries on these orders and vice versa?
Great Power Rivalry Workshop Program
Organizer: T.V. Paul (McGill University)
Navigating International Order Transition in the Post-pandemic World: National Perceptions and Regional Strategies in the Indo Pacific.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is viewed as the toughest global challenge since World War II. Although facing a common enemy of mankind, states have still failed to work together in curbing the rampant spread of the virus. The perils of anarchy, the failure of global governance, and the tragedy of great power rivalries are the key reasons why the world is feckless in coping with the current crisis. Strategic competition between the United States and China has intensified during the pandemic, and it might push the two nations into the “Thucydides trap”—the potential military conflict between the hegemon and a rising power. International institutions, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)—as the backbone of the post-war order—will face a great upheaval in the post-COVID world. The COVID-19 pandemic will not only change, but also accelerate, international order transition in the world. Given the nuclear deterrence under the logic of mutual assured destruction (MAD) among great powers, any hegemonic war between the United States and China seems unthinkable although it is not impossible. Therefore, we might see a different, prolonged, but relatively less violent international order transition period in the post-Covid world in comparison with previous order transition periods, such as the ones following World War I and World War II. How to navigate the turbulence of order transition will be a tough strategic challenge for all nations in the Indo Pacific region in the coming decade. In particular, how do policy elites in different countries perceive the US-China strategic competition? What do they make of the international order transition period? What kind of policy strategies do major powers in the Indo Pacific choose to cope with the challenges during the period of international order transition? This project aims to shed some light on the above questions through intense discussions, dialogues, and debates among leading scholars from the United States, China, Australia, South Korea, India, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.
Organizer: Kai He, Griffith University