The Politics of International Order(s)

Moving empirically and analytically beyond the Western “centre”, this elective course in International Relations critically analyses and challenges the ways in which we interpret the contemporary ‘crisis’ of the international order. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked a watershed moment for politicians and pundits in the “West” of a replacement of a rules-based international order with global power competition, this is an interpretation that rings hollow among many governments and intellectuals in the so-called ‘Global South’ who highlight that what has been an experience of peaceful, democratic, and rules-based growth in the “Global North”, has been one of interventionism, economic marginalisation, and misrecognition in the “South”. With a sustained focus on the African continent, this course engages novel theoretical approaches to international relations to critically examine the emerging tensions between the so-called Global “North” and “South”, and (re)interpret the dominant, neglected, and plural histories and realities of the international pasts, presents, and futures which feed into our current political moment of international “disorder”.