Narratives of Global Order and Re-Ordering from the Global South

Abstract

The global order is shifting from a unipolar world dominated by the West to a multipolar one with Asia emerging as a major centre of gravity. Narratives of order and re-ordering are powerful tools that shape policy agendas and enable local, national, and global actors to make sense of contemporary or historical orders or changes in those orders. Such narratives emanating from the Global North have dominated Social Science fields such as International Relations (IR). Global South narratives of order have received much less scholarly attention. This article contributes to filling this gap by examining narratives of global order and re-ordering from state and non-state actors in the Mashreq, India, the Maghreb (focusing on Morocco), and Iran. The cases provide a diverse array of narratives for interdisciplinary analysis, highlighting the importance of understanding global narratives from non-Western perspectives. Taking stock of such perspectives in policy and academic analyses is essential for methodological, conceptual, and theoretical pluralism in Social Sciences in general and for the task of globalizing the field of IR in particular.