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)
Organized by T.V. Paul (McGill) and Markus Kornprobst (Vienna Diplomatic Academy)
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)
(For a special journal issue)
The US decline and retrenchment is increasing the importance of regional dynamics across the international system. Over the past decade, IR scholars have described and conceptualized this development as e.g., “de-centrered globalism”, a “multi-order world”, a “multiplex world”, or a multicultural “no one’s world”, but the links between the regional and global levels and the roles and functions of regional institutions in power politics continue to be poorly understood. This roundtable uses the analytical lens of soft balancing – i.e., attempts at restraining a threatening power through diplomatic and institutional de-legitimation – to explore these links. Soft balancing has been used extensively to understand developments at the great power level, but its focus on diplomatic and institutional strategies holds considerable potential for explaining how rising powers, middle powers and smaller states seek to navigate the emerging international order. Participants discuss developments in the Indo-Pacific, Latin and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe to answer questions such as: What are the characteristics of soft balancing in the regions? How do regional actors apply different soft balancing strategies? When and under what conditions will soft balancing strategies be effective? How does soft balancing impact regional and global orders?
Organized by T.V. Paul (McGill); Kai He (Griffith); Anders Wivel (Copenhagen)
T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University, Montreal, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He served as President of the International Studies Association (ISA) during 2016-17. Paul specializes in International Relations, especially international security and South Asia. He received his undergraduate education from Kerala University, India; MPhil in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Paul is the author or editor of 21 books, nearly 85 journal articles and book chapters, and has lectured at universities and research institutions internationally. His 7 authored books are: Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era (Yale University Press, 2018); The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World (Oxford University Press, 2014, with multiple editions and translations); Globalization and the National Security State (with N. Ripsman), (Oxford University Press, 2010); The Tradition of Non-use of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford University Press, 2009); India in the World Order (Cambridge University Press, 2002, with B. Nayar); Power versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000); and Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Paul is the editor or co-editor of 14 volumes including: The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations, (with Deborah Larson, Harold Trinkunas, Anders Wivel and Ralf Emmers) International Institutions and Power Politics (with A. Wivel, Georgetown, 2019; China-India Rivalry in the Globalization Era, Georgetown, 2018; Accommodating Rising Powers: Past, Present and Future, Cambridge, 2016; Status in World Politics, with W. Wholforth and D. Larson, Cambridge, 2014; International Relations Theory and Regional Transformation, Cambridge, 2012; South Asia’s Weak States: Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament, Stanford, 2010; Complex Deterrence: Strategy In the Global Age (with P.M. Morgan and J. J. Wirtz, Chicago, 2009; The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry, Cambridge, 2005; Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century, with J.J. Wirtz and M. Fortmann, Stanford, 2004; International Order and the Future of World Politics, with J.A. Hall, Cambridge, 1999, 2000 (twice), 2001, 2002 & 2003; and The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order, with R. Harknett and J.J. Wirtz, Michigan, 1998 & 2000.
In November 2018, Paul was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada as a Fellow. In December 2009, Paul’s Book, The Tradition of Non-use of Nuclear Weapons was selected for inclusion in the Peace Prize Laureate Exhibition honoring President Barack Obama by the Nobel Peace Center, Oslo. Power versus Prudence was selected as an ‘Outstanding Academic Title for 2001’ by the Choice Magazine and as a “Book for Understanding’ by the American Association of University Presses. In March 2005 Maclean Magazine’s Guide to Canadian Universities rated Paul as one of the “most popular professors” at McGill University and in May 2005 Paul became the recipient of High Distinction in Research Award by McGill’s Faculty of Arts. During 2009-12 he served as the Director (Founding) of the McGill University/Université de Montreal Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS). He has held visiting positions at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2014, 2017 &2018); Diplomatic Academy, Vienna (2014 onwards); UC Berkeley (2013); East-West Center, Honolulu (2013); the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey (2002-03), Harvard University (1997-98), and as the KPS Menon Visiting Chair for Diplomacy (2011) and Erudite Fellow (2016) at the MG University, Kottayam, India. In addition to President, during 2009-11, he served as the Chair of the International Security Section (ISSS) of the ISA; in 2013-14 as Vice-President of ISA. As ISA president, he spearheaded a taskforce on improving conditions of Global South scholars in international studies. In 2010 he was appointed as the editor of the Georgetown University Press book series: South Asia in World Affairs. He is the founding director of GRENPEC and currently developing the network’s research agenda along with several colleagues from different parts of the world. For more, see: www.tvpaul.com