Abstract Donald Trump's second term in office is causing considerable concern about the future of the liberal international order. Many observers fear a repetition—or even an escalation—of the ‘America First’ policy which in his first term saw numerous instances of contestation of international organizations and agreements. This article takes stock of contestation during the first Trump administration (Trump 1.0) and its varying impact on international institutions. Drawing on insights from recent scholarship and a comprehensive dataset of 41 instances of Trump 1.0's contestation of 24 institutions, the article finds that: 1) Trump contested institutions in various ways; 2) Trump escalated contestation when the US lacked influence within institutions; and 3) the challenged institutions proved largely resilient to Trump's attacks. International institutions can once again withstand Trump's contestation when their bureaucracies and powerful member states find the right balance between appeasement and providing alternative leadership.

Abstract Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the international community has emphasized the repercussions of the war for food security, both locally and globally. However, less attention has been devoted to the role of food as a tool used by belligerents to achieve strategic and tactical goals. Drawing on existing research on food reliance and weaponization, this article introduces ‘food warfare’ as a conceptual framework to capture such dynamics. It identifies four structured practices through which food security is intentionally undermined—blockade, destruction, capture and contamination—and explores them with reference to the case of Ukraine. The article shows that the hostilities have involved extensive use of food warfare, with Russian forces seeking to deprive Ukrainians of sources of sustenance while gaining resources and international influence. Such findings have major implications, highlighting the need for counterstrategies to mitigate humanitarian repercussions while enhancing local resilience capacities. In so doing, the findings underscore the analytical utility of food warfare as a lens to identify, interpret and compare the manipulation of food supplies in contemporary conflicts.

Abstract Since 2018, the presidents of the five central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have gathered annually to participate in the Consultative Meetings of Heads of States of the region. This institutional development has been hailed as a new step towards integration and cooperation in central Asia. Yet several scholars and commentators describe this format as mostly a ‘talking shop’ that pays lip service to the idea of regional integration. To challenge this view, this article offers an emic and idiographic analysis of the Consultative Meetings from the analytical perspective of the English School, positing a twofold argument. First, it considers such meetings as an institution, i.e., a durable practice imbued with normativity and a sense of legitimacy and appropriateness that serves specific functions. Second, it maintains that the Consultative Meetings embody a regional cultural code in which consensus and informality are structuring elements of order, as opposed to representing weaknesses or failure thereof; and by which specific indigenous and political norms such as personal connections between presidents, seniority, respect and prestige affect the operations of fundamental regional primary institutions such as sovereignty, international law and diplomacy. The analysis relies on official materials and news items available online, unpublished documents provided to the author by central Asian diplomats, and interviews with foreign ministry staff members and officials from the region familiar with the workings of the meetings. The arguments offered in this article have implications for understanding processes of central Asian regionalism and non-western logics of order and legitimacy.

Abstract South-east Asian governments have long engaged in soft balancing—and particularly a variant dubbed ‘institutional balancing’—to constrain external powers and thereby pursue security and autonomy. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have occasionally used regional bodies to confront external powers directly, as they did in the 1980s against Vietnam. Since that era, individual ASEAN states or external powers have sometimes sought to lead confrontational and exclusive institutional balancing efforts against China or the United States. Few such efforts have gained traction, however. Instead, to enmesh and constrain external powers, members of ASEAN have relied primarily on drawing them into an inclusive web of ASEAN-centred institutions. In that context, inclusive institutional balancing has meant working within regional bodies to promote a desired balance of influence among external powers, within the relevant institutions and more generally in south-east Asia. This approach remains the norm, even as strategic tensions rise. The article examines why this is the case—an understudied question, given the important differences between confrontational and inclusive forms of institutional balancing. This article shows that confrontational approaches generally require a broad supportive coalition involving one or more powerful ‘anchor states’. Those conditions have been difficult to satisfy in south-east Asia, as this article demonstrates through a review of regional initiatives since the 1980s.

Abstract This article examines the evolving role of public diplomacy in wartime, focusing on how it functions and what shapes its influence on digital publics. Using Ukraine's response to Russia's war of aggression as a case-study, it introduces the Strategic Self framework, composed of two interconnected elements: the Projecting Self, which builds international solidarity through narratives of resilience and shared values; and the Distancing Self, which delegitimizes adversaries by highlighting violations of international norms. The study draws on a qualitative content analysis of 145 high-engagement posts on Twitter (now renamed X) from ten Ukrainian governmental and non-governmental accounts, covering three key phases of the conflict: the initial full-scale invasion in February–March 2022, the Ukrainian counter-offensive and Russia's attempted annexations in August–September 2022, and the one-year anniversary of the invasion in February–March 2023. Thematic coding reveals how the balance between Projecting and Distancing narratives shifted in response to changing wartime conditions—with the Distancing Self gaining prominence during periods of heightened aggression to mobilize support, and the Projecting Self becoming dominant during less intense, stabilizing phases to reinforce unity and shared values. Three key insights emerge: the dual role of othering as both a relational and adversarial practice; the need to balance these dimensions to avoid narrative dissonance; and the central role of adaptability in sustaining digital engagement. These findings offer actionable lessons for policy-makers and communicators seeking to navigate the digital informational dynamics of geopolitical crises.