The three worlds: does the liberal order have a future?

Increasing strategic competition is dividing world politics. Does the liberal order have a future in a dividing world?

Are contemporary wars and conflicts undermining the possibility of an open liberal order? And how are global south states actively reshaping the international order, in a context of strategic competition? #LSETheThreeWorlds

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This event was held on Tuesday 6 February 2024

Meet the speakers and chair

G John Ikenberry (@g_ikenberry) is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the School of Public and International Affairs.  Ikenberry is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. In 2018-2019, Ikenberry was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2013-2014, Ikenberry was the 72nd Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, Oxford. Ikenberry is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He recently wrote 'Three Worlds: the West, East and South and the competition to shape global order' for International Affairs Journal.

Rohan Mukherjee (@rohan_mukh) is an assistant professor of international relations at LSE. His research focuses on rising powers and how they navigate the power and status hierarchies of international order. His book, Ascending Order: Rising Powers and the Politics of Status in International Institutions, published in the Cambridge Studies in International Relations series with Cambridge University Press, received the 2023 Hedley Bull Prize from the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) and the 2023 Hague Journal of Diplomacy Book Award. His regional focus is on the Asia-Pacific, particularly how major powers such as India, China, the United States, and Japan, and smaller states in South and Southeast Asia, manage the regional effects of global transitions.

Leslie Vinjamuri (@londonvinjamuri) is director of the US and Americas programme at Chatham House and Professor of International Relations at SOAS University of London. She leads the Institute’s research on the U.S. and International Order.  Her recent publications include ‘Why Multilateralism Still Matters’ (Foreign Affairs, October 2023) and 'Building Global Prosperity: Proposals for Sustainable Growth' (Chatham House, 2022).  The latter was the result of a multi-authored Chatham House initiative that looked at G7 proposals for countering China’s influence in the developing world.

Ayşe Zarakol (@AyseZarakol) grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. She graduated from Middlebury College, Vermont, USA with a B.A. degree in Political Science and Classical Studies. She then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for postgraduate studies, and received her MA and PhD in Political Science. After graduation she worked as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Politics at Washington & Lee University, Virginia. Prof Zarakol joined both the University of Cambridge and Emmanuel College in 2013. In 2023, she was awarded the 8th Rahmi M. Koç Medal of Science (and the first one in IR), given annually to one scholar of Turkish origin for outstanding global success and significant progress in their field

 

Michael Cox is a founding director of LSE IDEAS. He is the author, editor and co-editor of several books including Soft Power and US Foreign Policy: theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectivesThe Global 1989, US Foreign Policy, and US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion.