ABSTRACT How are distinctions between political orders produced, maintained, and unsettled in a multi-order world? Drawing on Trine Flockhart’s conceptualization of global politics as composed of plural and interacting orders, I develop a thicker relational account of the multi-order world by conceptualizing narrativity as a form of boundary work through which lines of differentiation between orders are socially constituted. Rather than focusing on narratives as discrete formulations, I foreground narrativity as a process unfolding across two interdependent modalities: situated narrative work and narrative sedimentation. Empirically, I examine the February 2025 White House meeting between Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Volodymyr Zelensky and its subsequent sedimentation in public discourse. I show how struggles over narrative authority and failures of narrative alignment sedimented as evidence of Western fragmentation, contributing to the reworking of the boundaries of the “West” as an ordering project, while also prompting efforts to sustain its viability.

This article analyzes the presidency of Javier Milei as a distinctive case of libertarian and religious populism in contemporary Argentina. It argues that mileísmo combines a populist moralization of politics with a radical pro-market ideology that sacralizes economic relations while reducing politics to an instrumental role. Drawing on a literature review, survey data on religious change in Argentina, and discourse analysis of speeches, press coverage, and official documents, the article shows how the libertarian project relies on both religious rhetoric and selective alliances with some conservative religious actors. Unlike nationalist or statist forms of right-wing populism, current Argentine populism is explicitly anti-statist, globalist, and strongly aligned with the United States and Israel. The article conceptualizes this configuration as a form of market theology that redefines sovereignty, freedom, and justice in moral and religious terms. By examining the interaction between populism, religion, and foreign policy orientation, the Argentine case contributes to broader debates on the role of religion in legitimizing contemporary political and economic transformations in global politics.

ABSTRACT This article introduces the concept of object diplomacy to analyse how cultural restitution can be mobilised as political currency in global politics. Moving beyond accounts that treat restitution primarily as historical redress, it argues that transfers of colonially acquired objects can accompany, or be staged alongside, less reconciliatory negotiations over geopolitics and influence. Drawing on documentary sources and fieldwork in Senegal, the article analyses France’s 2019 ceremonial handover of the sabre attributed to El Hadj Omar Tall, tracing how it intersected with security cooperation and was shaped by museum infrastructure and legal discretion. Rather than adjudicating the moral status of cultural restitution, the framework shows how, when such transfers are not legally required and objects carry high symbolic weight, governments can stage and sequence them in ways that generate reputational credit while aligning symbolic gestures with material interests. The article concludes that such performances may reproduce, or at least leave intact, the hierarchies they claim to dismantle.

ABSTRACT This article considers the global politics of deindustrialization within the trade union movement during the 1970s and early 1980s. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which represented non-Communist union centrals, sought to forge a one-world strategy focused on multinational corporations, rather than imports, in order to reconcile often-conflicting regional interests as countries industrialized or deindustrialized. One country’s runaway factory was another’s runaway development. Most trade unionists, no matter where they lived, however, could agree that multinational corporations, especially American ones, represented a potential danger. On the one hand, multinationals moving jobs elsewhere were the primary concern of European and North American workers. On the other hand, many trade unionists in developing countries saw multinationals as the source of political interference, even if they brought needed jobs and new technologies. The perceived dangers posed by multinationals were therefore variable, an elasticity that made global trade union political action possible, albeit difficult to achieve, highly unstable and limited in scope. The resulting strategy sought to promote unionization in the global south by entrenching labour standards in trade agreements and by regulating multinationals through international bodies such as the United Nations, the OECD, and the International Labour Organization. These efforts were timid at best and failed miserably, leading trade unionists in Europe and North America to turn inward. Deindustrialization scholars can learn much from these early efforts, even if they failed to counter corporate control over geography.

Ecopolitical catatonia: How political fantasies sustain inaction in global environmental politics

Globalization-led growth in the post-soviet CIS region: findings from advanced panel cointegration methods

This article offers a comprehensive analysis of how the institutional and procedural parameters of the contemporary international relations system are transforming amid a systemic crisis in international law. Utilizing a synergetic approach, the study examines crisis phenomena within the international legal dimensions of global governance. The international system is conceptualized as a dissipative structure with a shifted equilibrium, sustained by the resources of global institutions. The paper examines the functional degradation of key security institutions (specifically the UN and the OSCE) and uncovers procedural distortions in global decision-making. It argues that the current crisis is deeply structural rather than merely conjunctural, driven by the erosion of the foundational principles of the Westphalian-Helsinki system. This bifurcation of the dissipative structure triggers new processes in world politics, forcing the international system to operate within a crisis-driven model. Because international legal norms no longer fully align with state interests, nations increasingly favor narrow, flexible coalitions to pursue their national agendas. The study highlights key trends in global politics, including the shift from multilateral diplomacy to networked and coalition formats (minilateralism), the fragmentation of the international legal space, the regionalization of security architectures, and the instrumentalization of international law by revisionist states. Particular attention is paid to how Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has driven the final dismantling of the liberal international order and transformed the diplomatic process. The article concludes by synthesizing the core trends of this crisis model, suggesting that dissipation will continue until a dissipative attractor emerges to balance the interests of both the Global South and the Global North. Finally, the authors outline avenues for further research, focusing on mechanisms to adapt Ukraine’s foreign policy to minilateral diplomacy. Specifically, it underscores the need to analyze the efficacy of securing bilateral safety guarantees under the G7 Joint Declaration as a novel procedural safeguard for national interests ahead of Ukraine’s full accession to NATO.

International practice theory (IPT) is now firmly established as a key theoretical and methodological framework for International Relations (IR), offering novel ways to address the oversight around the ‘everyday’ in global politics. Yet, the presumed novelty of such an approach is surprising to feminist, race, and postcolonial IR scholars who have thought deeply about the problem of the everyday. Surprisingly, these approaches have been footnotes (at best) in practice-oriented research. Despite the growth of IPT and its increasing influence within the discipline, it has remained perplexingly silent on issues related to gender, race, or colonialism. This Forum brings together an international range of scholars to address these silences. First, we are interested in exploring whether gender, race, and postcolonial scholarship offer relevant concepts, methodologies, theoretical contributions, or case studies that can inform IPT scholars. Second, we are interested in providing a space for scholars of gender and race to ‘speak back’ to IPT. Finally, what does the silencing of gender and race within IPT tell us about knowledge production within our discipline?

In the current era of US-China rivalry, a major theme in international relations scholarship is the study of how Washington is aligning its allies and partners to compete against Beijing. Yet, within this bourgeoning ‘competition-oriented literature,’ we are now witnessing a growing co-existence of competition with cooperation: On the one hand, US allies and partners are aligning with Washington to compete with China; On the other hand, US allies and partners are seeking cooperation against China. What drives this emerging trend of ‘coopetition’? Armed with a novel theoretical framework, this special issue demonstrates that the contemporary patterns of coopetition result from a complex interplay of system- and unit-level forces: while system-level forces dispose US allies and partners to maintain alignment with Washington, unit-level forces drive them to chart their own balance of cooperation and competition with Beijing. Theorising the twenty-first century global politics as a multi-faceted phenomenon, this special issue seeks to re-orient scholarly attention from one-dimensional conception of competition to co-existence of cooperation and competition.

ABSTRACT This article challenges contemporary Kantian arguments for universal basic income (UBI) by reinterpreting Kant's political philosophy through the lens of political realism. Current defences of UBI from a Kantian perspective often rely on an idealist reading that overlooks the practical realities of state power and global politics. I argue that Kant is better understood as a ‘transcendental political realist’ who saw a republican state, defined by the separation of powers, as the necessary precondition for any moral society. From this realist viewpoint, politics is not simply applied ethics; rather, a just political structure is the autonomous foundation upon which ethical life can be built. Applying this framework, the article finds UBI to be a problematic solution to economic dependence. In the current global landscape, UBI risks creating a new form of state domination, undermining the core Kantian value of civic independence. The article concludes that a truly Kantian approach prioritises the establishment of robust republican institutions that empower citizens to become their ‘own masters’, achieving independence through a just system of labour, not through state provision.

ABSTRACT Despite their ubiquity and integration into everyday life, social media platforms remain under-theorized as central spaces for the curation and negotiation of diasporic identity. Contributing to the knowledge in diaspora studies, using digital ethnography and case studies from two Bangladeshi American influencers’ Instagram accounts, this paper shows that from within the postfeminist neoliberal space of social media these women curate a transnational brown/desi girl identity through their drive towards inclusive beauty, challenging patriarchy, racism and global injustices. I argue this enables them to symbolically rupture classifications like racial hierarchies of beauty, normative discourses around ethnic and migrant women and their position within global politics, creating a ‘brown girl’ space built on sharing of common experiences or assemblies whereby the followers of these influencers relate and add to their experiences via like, comment and share – multiplying the reach of the diasporic community.

This article examines how the global transition from a fossil-fuel-based energy system to an electricity-centered energy order is reshaping the geopolitical structure of power. It argues that the rise of an electricity-based civilization is not merely an energy transition, but a profound transformation in the material foundations, strategic logic, and institutional forms of global politics. In contrast to the oil age in which geopolitical competition primarily revolved around the control of fuel reserves and transport routes, the electricity age is increasingly defined by competition over critical minerals, high-end power equipment, nuclear energy technology, and grid standards. Focusing on copper and lithium as strategic resources, transformers and nuclear power as key industrial capabilities, and ultra-high-voltage transmission and technical standards as instruments of structural influence, the article analyzes the emerging geography of power in the electricity era. It further compares the strategic choices of China, the United States, and the European Union, showing that China seeks to consolidate full-chain industrial advantages and enhance its rule-shaping capacity, the United States prioritizes hegemonic maintenance through supply-chain restructuring and alliance-based exclusion, and the European Union pursues a balancing strategy centered on energy sovereignty, regulatory influence, and multilateral coordination. The article contends that the geopolitics of electricity is shaped by three principal fault lines—resources, technology, and rules—while also generating new incentives for cooperation under conditions of climate vulnerability and infrastructural interdependence. It concludes that the future global electricity order is likely to evolve toward a pattern of multipolar leadership, regional integration, and pluralistic co-governance, in which technological capability, resource control, and standard-setting authority jointly determine the reconfiguration of global power.

The world and mental health nursing face several crises that, in different ways, reflect problems of dominance. Global politics are afflicted with a growth of support for right-wing ideologies associated with domineering authoritarian leaders. Mental health services are dominated by a singular application of bio-psychiatric ideas and practices. Both forms of dominance are potentially alienating and harmful. Psychosocial theories offer ways to make sense of authoritarian tendencies across both realms and point to how dominance can be resisted towards progressive transformation. Authoritarian right-wing politics arguably pose an existential threat to society, which is implicated in growing mental distress at the population level and damages services by squeezing resources. Dominant bio-psychiatry visits epistemic and material harms upon the mentally distressed and restricts choice over care and support. Nurses operate at the relational and political nexus of these harms, so must be able to make sense of generative factors and be active in providing remedies. Applying psychosocial theory can raise political consciousness for mental health nurses and support development of a new politicised professional identity. Advocacy and activist-oriented nurses can mitigate harms across societal and practice-level political engagement. We can, and arguably must, be part of resistance movements grounded in a relational ethic of care.

This article examines the peculiarities of coordinating the foreign policy directions of states within modern regional integration associations under conditions of international environment transformation and the intensification of global challenges. The relevance of the topic is determined by the necessity to align the national interests of member countries with the collective objectives of regional cooperation. Among the key issues identified are uneven political priorities among states, differences in levels of integration and interaction, and difficulties in developing common decisions in international policy. The purpose of the study is to identify the main instruments for coordinating foreign policy actions within integration associations and to assess their effectiveness in contemporary geopolitical conditions. Comparative, systemic, and institutional approaches were applied in the research process together with methods of political analysis, forecasting, and generalization of international practice. An examination of the activities of the European Union, ASEAN, the African Union, and MERCOSUR enabled the identification of specific features of interstate interaction models in the sphere of foreign policy. Findings demonstrate that the highest level of effectiveness is achieved through mechanisms based on institutional coherence, diplomatic dialogue, and multilevel cooperation. The obtained results indicate that regional integration structures are gradually strengthening their role in international relations by developing common positions on security, economic, and humanitarian issues. At the same time, the effectiveness of collective actions depends on political trust among participants, stability of institutional systems, and the ability to respond to changes in the international environment. The article proposes a conceptual approach to assessing the effectiveness of foreign policy interaction, encompassing institutional, strategic, communicative, security, and diplomatic components, enabling a comprehensive analysis of the degree of coordination in international decision-making and the effectiveness of joint activities among participating states. Conclusions substantiate that improving the mechanisms of foreign policy interaction is an important prerequisite for strengthening regional stability, enhancing the international influence of integration associations, and ensuring an effective response to contemporary challenges. Prospects for further research include analyzing the digitalization of diplomatic processes, developing multilateral cooperation and adapting integration models to the new conditions of global politics.

The most mineral-rich zone of India, the Chotanagpur plateau has been the center of a scramble for coal, iron ore, bauxite, and manganese since the country’s independence in 1947. Thousands of Indigenous people or “Adivasi” have been displaced by mining operations in the region. In his theorization of “slow violence,” Rob Nixon highlights the challenges of representing ecocides that are made invisible under capitalism. The role of the writer-activist, he says, is instrumental to bringing these ecocides into imaginative focus. This paper uses Nixon’s theoretical framework to focus on Indian Indigenous author Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s narrative strategy of “somatic landscapes” in his dramatization of slow violence in Chotanagpur.Giving figurative shape to the imperceptible threat of ecocide, Hansda turns the Indigenous body into his theater of violence. In the short story collection, The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2017), and the novel, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2013), the Adivasi body becomes the site on which Hansda inscribes the ecological destruction of Chotanagpur. But Hansda also thinks of the Adivasi body as a site of political/personal resistance that involves the reclamation of their relationship with the land. Attempts to reestablish this connection are closely related to their struggle for somatic dignity and autonomy. Hansda’s narrative of slow violence transcends Chotanagpur to lay bare transnational networks of structural violence and the global politics of (in)visibility that dispose of delicate ecosystems and Indigenous lives to make way for neoliberal development.

Gen Z, which constitutes nearly 30 percent of Nepal’s population, has emerged as a “digital vanguard” reshaping the country’s democratic moment. Unlike previous generations, this cohort’s political socialization is heavily mediated by both political globalization and ubiquitous social media networks. This paper will explore Gen Z political mobilization in Nepal and how external geopolitical forces, such as foreign policy ambitions and digital penetration, are changing domestic democratic stability. It will also examine a qualitative, multi-method approach to the systematic literature review, linked to process tracing and youth-led social movement thematic analysis, from 2017 to 2025. The results indicate that Nepali Gen Z mirrors a “post-materialist” value system and, as such, is more inclined toward direct, informal mobilization than toward party loyalty. Studies of digital platforms, not exclusively TikTok, but also Facebook and Instagram, discover rapid mobilizations that run roughshod over domestic censorship and connect local demands to unemployment, infrastructure projects, or the global human rights agenda. Secondly, the paper highlights a systematic shift in youth movements that increasingly seek validation and leverage from global governance institutions rather than from their domestic institutions. This approximation enhances accountability by undermining clientelist political practices but also creates frictions for national sovereignty, the paper suggests. These lessons will clarify how processes of globalized connectivity influence democratic transitions in fragile, developing states confronted with structural economic and political limitations.

ASEAN has established itself as a strong and influential regional organization in contemporary international politics and the global economy. Comprising 11 Southeast Asian nations, it not only serves as a vehicle for regional stability and cooperation but also plays a central role in the Asian economic landscape. The systematic expansion of formal relations between India and ASEAN began especially after the 1990s. This was a period when India implemented structural changes in its economic policies, embracing liberalization, privatization, and globalization. These economic reforms paved the way for India’s deeper integration with the global market and strengthened the economic dimension of its foreign policy. In this changing context, the “Look East Policy” was formulated to strengthen relations with Southeast Asian countries, providing a new direction to India’s foreign policy. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War resulted in profound changes in the international balance of power. The emerging unipolar structure, replacing the bipolar world order, redefined the priorities of global politics. This change was of particular significance for India, as the deterioration of its long-standing strategic relationship with the Soviet Union underscored the need for a rebalancing of foreign policy. Furthermore, the balance of payments crisis that emerged at that time necessitated economic restructuring. Following economic liberalization, India opened its market to a greater extent for international trade and foreign investment. Against this backdrop, India took concrete steps towards institutionalizing multifaceted cooperation with ASEAN through the Look East Policy, launched in 1992. Southeast Asian countries also viewed post-liberalization India as a major emerging market and potential investment destination. Furthermore, India’s role in the regional power balance was increasingly recognized, especially at a time when other major powers were becoming more active in the Asia-Pacific region. Consequently, relations between India and ASEAN gradually strengthened based on mutual economic interests, strategic needs, and shared aspirations for regional stability. Currently, ASEAN is among India’s major trading partners, and bilateral trade and investment cooperation is steadily expanding. The Act East Policy, an evolution of the Look East Policy, has given this partnership a more proactive, implementation-oriented, and strategic character. This relationship plays a crucial role in shaping the Asian balance of power, regional stability, and inclusive development in the twenty-first century. Thus, the nature of cooperation between India and ASEAN is increasingly dynamic, multi-layered and forward-looking, laying the foundation for serving the long-term interests of both sides in the changing global landscape.

ABSTRACT This article conceptualizes the Shia clerical institution (al-ḥawza al-ʿilmiyya) as a resilient, transnational non-state authority that has shaped Shia political theology and practice. Far from an exclusively theological guild, it operates as a normative—political order whose apex, the marjaʿiyya (source of emulation), derives legitimacy from recognized ijtihād, taqlīd, and authoritative fatwas rather than state sanction. Bringing New Institutionalism, Religious Transnationalism, and Critical Geopolitics into conversation, the article theorizes the clerical establishment as an institutionalized religious transnational sustained by four pillars: fatwa politics, strategic political engagement, network-based legitimacy forged through pedagogical and representative ties, and a self-financing religious economy based on khums, zakāt, awqāf, and diaspora contributions. Methodologically, it uses process tracing of the pre-revolutionary period, with Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s leadership (1945–1961) treated as a critical juncture. The case shows how the clerical establishment developed equivalents to state roles in law, representation, and welfare, yet preserved its autonomy through calibrated cooperation, competition, and withdrawal vis-à-vis political regimes. In so doing, it projected authority across multiple regions and diasporas without territorial sovereignty or coercive power—an instance of authority without territory. The article thereby challenges state-centric assumptions in International Relations and offers a framework for analysing long-lived religious authorities in global politics.

The transformation of ASEAN's maritime logistics system faces complex challenges as global maritime trade volume increases from 8.4 billion tons in 2010 to 11.0 billion tons in 2021. As a region that controls 25% of total global trade goods and facilitates $2.8 trillion maritime trade volume by 2021, ASEAN has a strategic role but faces significant challenges in optimizing maritime logistics performance. Despite its strategic centrality, ASEAN exhibits significant disparities in maritime infrastructure, with LSCI scores ranging from 21.35 to 113.78 points. These gaps suggest that geographical advantage alone is insufficient without robust integration into global economic, social, and political networks. While existing literature often examines these dimensions in isolation, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of how multidimensional globalization collectively determines maritime logistics performance. By evaluating these dynamics over a decade (2010–2021), the research offers critical insights into the drivers of regional connectivity. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of multidimensional globalization on maritime logistics performance in ASEAN countries by analyzing the influence of economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization on LSCI. The study uses panel data regression analysis over the period 2010-2021. The dependent variable is LSCI, while the independent variables include Exports of Goods and Services (% of GDP), Individuals using Internet (% of population), and Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism. The estimation results show that economic globalization has a significant positive effect on LSCI with a coefficient of 20.679 (t-statistic = 5.042; p-value = 0.0000). The R-squared value indicates the proportion of the variance in the Liner Shipping Connectivity Index (LSCI) that is predictable from the independent variables. A high R-squared in this model suggests that economic, social, and political dimensions of globalization collectively explain a substantial majority of the shifts in ASEAN maritime performance. Specifically, the coefficient of 20.679 for economic globalization implies that for every percentage increase in export intensity, the LSCI is expected to rise by approximately 20.6 points. This high magnitude underscores that trade-led growth is the primary driver of maritime infrastructure demand. The statistical significance across all variables (p < 0.05) confirms that these findings are not coincidental but represent a robust causal link between globalization tiers and logistics efficiency. Social globalization also has a significant positive effect with a coefficient of 0.421 (t-statistic = 9.118; p-value = 0.0000). In contrast, political globalization has no significant effect on LSCI with a coefficient of 1.765 (t-statistic = 0.582; p-value = 0.5627). The simultaneous test showed an F-statistic of 41.663 (p-value = 0.0000) confirming the jointly significant effect. The coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.648 indicates that the model explains 64.8% of the variation in LSCI. The findings confirm that the economic and social dimensions of globalization are determinants of ASEAN maritime logistics performance, while political stability shows no significant impact in a relatively stable regional context.

Calendars provide insight into the ways in which communal activities are ritualized over time. As analytical tools, calendars assist in interpreting the temporal and spatial layout of archived events. Reading news published in The Morung Express newspaper in 2020 as a series of calendars, this paper analyzes the ways in which indigeneity and religion are articulated, or connected, in Nagaland State in India. As struggles over the production of meaning, articulations point to ways in which commonalities and differences are traversed in relation to local, national, and global politics. As a presentation of empirical material (news) through calendrical schemes (Nagaland for Christ, Incredible Nagaland, and Global Naga calendars), questions around the scale and scope of the articulations of indigeneity and religion are addressed, observing which actors take part in these ritualized articulations. Using an indigenous religion(s) approach, this paper challenges the stark demarcations between the domains of Christianity and Indigenous Religion/s.