C9530 - WORLD ORDERS: PRESENT AND FUTURE

Learning outcomes

What kind of world order do we inhabit today and what does its future look like? This course invites students to reflect on these ‘big’ questions about international relations, particularly by focusing on the concept, grand theories, and future scenarios of ‘world order(s)’. The course explores different perspectives suggesting that the world order we inhabit today is chiefly defined, among others, either by states and great power competition, by the spread of liberal norms and governance arrangements, by the deep structures of capitalism and powerful multinational corporations, by complex and multi-scalar globalising processes, by longstanding colonial and racial hierarchies, or by cultural and civilizational diversity. Students will furthermore critically interrogate how ongoing power, economic, technological, ideological, human, and environmental changes may be transforming and bringing about new kinds of world orders in the future. By the end of the course students are expected to: (i) demonstrate an in-depth understanding of key concepts and perspectives on world order; (ii) critically assess and evaluate distinct approaches and theories of world order; and (iii) apply the acquired conceptual tools and theoretical frameworks to reflect on and explore future scenarios of world order.

Course contents

This course aims to provide students with the analytical tools to understand and critically reflect on the present characteristics and future prospects of world order(s). Students will engage with seminal texts in International Relations (IR) and across the social sciences. The course begins by addressing its central concept, that of world order, and exploring the historical emergence of the modern world order. In the second, and main, part of the course, students will encounter multiple perspectives on the contemporary world order and its evolving character. This part unpacks how different perspectives are profoundly shaped, among others, by distinct assumptions about what constitutes order and progress, who the main actors and social forces in the system are, what forms of power and authority drive relations, and what the main sources of international change and stability are. The third part of the course looks at the future of world order(s) in structured but also imaginative ways. Students will be invited to reflect on how to think about ‘the future’, also through an engagement with approaches to the philosophy of history and methodologies like scenario planning. Students will then work towards preparing and presenting a scenario on the future of world order.

Overall, the course explores and critically evaluates different interpretations of world order and what our own place and agency within it is. The starting point is that if we are to “make the world a better place”, as so many aspire to do, we first need to make sense of what the world we inhabit looks like and how it might be transformed.

Readings/Bibliography

The complete list of readings for students attending the course will be communicated on the first day of class and made available on the university’s online platform.

 

Contemporary Debates on World Order

Acharya, Amitav (2025), The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West (London: Basic Books UK).

Cooley, Alexander and Nexon, Daniel (2020), Exit from Hegemony: The Unravelling of the American Global Order (New York: Oxford University Press).

Deudney, Daniel, Ikenberry, G. John, and Postel-Vinay, Karoline (eds.) (2023), Debating worlds: Contested narratives of global modernity and world order (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Gerstle, Gary (2022), The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (New York: Oxford University Press).

Getachew, Adom (2019), Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press).

Ikenberry, John (2020), A World Safe for Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Mearsheimer, John J. (2018), Great Delusion: liberal dreams and international realities (New Haven: Yale University Press).

Phillips, Andrew and Reus-Smit, Christian (2020), Culture and Order in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Zarakol, Ayşe (2022), Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

 

Classics on World Order

Bull, Hedley (1977/2012), The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (4th edn.; London: Macmillan).

Ikenberry, G. John (2011), Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press)

Huntington, Samuel P. (1996), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster).

Mearsheimer, John J. (2014), The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Updated edn.; New York: WW Norton & Company).

Wallerstein, Immanuel (2004), World-systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

Waltz, Kenneth (1979/2010), Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press).

Teaching methods

The course will include both lectures and seminars. Lectures will resemble traditional frontal classes whereas seminars will be interactive and based on active participation by the students. Students are required to keep up with the assigned readings throughout the course and are expected to be prepared to discuss them during the seminars.

Assessment methods

Attending and non-attending students will be assessed via an oral exam at the end of the course (100% final grade).

The oral exam will be divided in two components. The first component will concentrate on the readings and material covered in Part I and II of the course. The second component will focus on a future scenario of world order prepared by the student following the readings and guidelines addressed during Part III of the course. The exam will assess: (i) knowledge and critical engagement with the material covered in the course; (ii) ability to think analytically and conduct original research on a future world order scenario; and (iii) capacity to present orally complex ideas and arguments synthetically and clearly.

This is a highly theoretical course, therefore some previous knowledge of and aptitude towards IR theory is strongly recommended.

Teaching tools

Lecture slides and assigned readings.

Office hours

See the website of Gregorio Marino Doimo Bettiza