The research aims to reveal the specifics of the transformation undergone by the multiverse chronotope in Roger Zelazny’s “The Chronicles of Amber” series within the context of the transition from the traditional fantasy novel paradigm to a postmodernist concept of space and time. The article compares the spatio-temporal models of Amber presented by the two main narrators in Zelazny’s series. The shift in the narrating actor is examined as a manifestation of the rejection of the traditional fantasy interpretation of the literary space-time continuum as a locus of conflict between the forces of good and evil. The scientific originality of the study lies in examining the chronotope as a dynamic category that undergoes qualitative re-evaluation in accordance with shifts in the author’s artistic concept. As a result of the study, it was established that the identified changes correspond to postmodernist ideas in terms of both content and form. The abandonment of a hierarchical organization of the space-time continuum and the transition to a fragmented representation of equivalent objects, which form the artistic space of the multiverse in the second part of the cycle, attest to qualitative shifts in ideological content. These shifts champion the ideas of multipolarity and the balance of power as the foundation of a rational world order.

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of the China-Russia strategic partnership, which is widely promoted by the governments of both countries as a special and exclusive relationship between the two countries in a new era. The article examines why China and Russia, who have historically been rivals or even adversaries, have recently established a framework of close partnership and cooperation that they call “unprecedented in history.” The article discusses a number of topics, including: the logic and dynamics of the historical development of China-Russia relations at various stages; definitions of the concept of strategic partnership and its application in China’s foreign policy, especially in relations with Russia; China-Russia relations as a special case of partnership in political rhetoric and realpolitik (economic, military, diplomatic cooperation), with special attention to Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s position on it; issues and contradictions in the China-Russia strategic partnership. A common feature of the China-Russia partnership and cooperation is the efforts of both sides to create a viable counterweight to US hegemony and to create a new, multipolar world order, which both countries consistently strive for. The author raises the question of the strength and sustainability of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership in the long term and speculates that, depending on geopolitical and domestic political developments in both countries, such a partnership could change radically, as has happened repeatedly in history. The article concludes with a couple of speculative hypotheses about where the development of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership might lead.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has decimated the civilian infrastructure in Gaza and devastated the civilian population. Israel’s seizure of over 50% of Palestinian land in Gaza, its ongoing illegal blockade of humanitarian aid, and expanding attacks in the occupied West Bank reflect a shift in Israeli strategy to the near-complete eradication of Palestinian settled society, which has ominous implications for civilian survival, the future of Palestine as a nation-state, and the viability of international human rights law as a meaningful practice. In contrast to other conflict settings, US medical journals and academic institutions have remained overwhelmingly silent in the face of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which has inflicted death and suffering on Palestinian civilians on a massive scale. In particular the blockade of food and humanitarian aid, and its attempt to bar international humanitarian relief organizations from Gaza, has only offered more credence for the conclusion reached by international humanitarian organizations by 2024, that Israel was committing genocide and using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Silence in the medical literature, within medical institutions and associations, as the foundations of the law-based international world order have been undermined, has enabled mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Today, Israel applies the lessons of Gaza in a destabilizing war in Iran and Lebanon, targeting healthcare workers, universities, and forcibly displacing over one million people in Lebanon, while promising to make parts of Lebanon look like “Khan Younis,” in a striking normalization of genocide. The medical establishment must apply standards of human rights to all human beings equally, without exception, lest we risk rendering international standards of universal human rights meaningless and our world substantially less safe.

Abstract How does a reparation claim intervene in a world order made and unmade by colonialism? This article answers this question by analysing the 2009 reparation case in the British courts that was brought by veterans of the Mau Mau anti-colonialism struggle in Kenya in the 1950s. Colonial rule had been catastrophic, its exploitations and brutalities exemplified by a property law regime that dispossessed the Gĩkũyũ people and emergency laws that licensed torture. Invoking state succession and the statute of limitation, the United Kingdom (UK) sought to place colonialism beyond the temporal reach of reparations claims. However, the presiding judge recognized continuities between the UK and the colonial administration as well as layers of collusion and collaboration between London and Nairobi. The challenge of exercising ethical judgment in an office embedded in an unethical enterprise resonates with that of the Magistrate in J.M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians. He grapples with the temporalities of (in)justice in reaching for a reparative response to colonialism’s catastrophic force. The turn to reparations interrupts law’s space–time continuum by conjoining legal subjects of yesterday and today – here and there – by treating colonial atrocities not as past violations of the rule of law but as symptomatic of the present rules of the game.

Multipolarity has become a defining feature of international politics since the 2000s, yet scholarship remains fragmented with limited cross-perspective dialogue. This study offers an interpretive conceptual analysis that maps and connects key debates, advancing an integrated understanding of multipolarity. We iteratively identify three analytical orientations: integrationist, stressing interdependence and systemic cohesion amid shifting power balances (‘coordinated pluralism’); fragmentationist, emphasising decentralisation, regional rivalries, and the erosion of global leadership; and fragmegrationist, which captures the simultaneous processes of integration and fragmentation shaping world order. By mapping these perspectives, we situate multipolarity within broader debates on world order and related notions, such as the G-Zero world/nonpolarity, heteropolarity/heterarchy, multi-order, polycentrism, post-Western world, multiplex world order, multinodal world, and pluripolarity. Ultimately, our study contributes to establishing multipolarity as a distinct field of study, offering a structured foundation for future theoretical and empirical research on the evolving architecture of global power and governance.

ABSTRACT This article introduces the conceptual framework of locational intersectionality – a margin standpoint on structural inequalities across multiple scales within the colonial-neoliberal world order. Locational intersectionality pays close attention to how unequal power relations shape mutually-constitutive scales, from the body and community to the national and transnational, revealing a continuity that spans space and time. It advances the scholarship that combines intersectionality and space to analyse power inequalities. It does so through a decolonial reworking of intersectionality that, while acknowledging the centrality of race, foregrounds the global South margins, illustrated here through India's stratified caste system. The framework also emerges from a critique of how spatial theorising depoliticised intersectionality by dismissing identity politics. From the #MeToo movement against sexual violence to unequal COVID-19 health outcomes, I demonstrate how this approach lends a situated understanding of oppression, resistance, and justice. Lastly, I examine how locational intersectionality frames epistemology, including our positional reflexivity and citation politics.

This study analyzes the role of BRICS as a geopolitical security instrument within Russia's broader strategy to expand its influence across Africa amid the ongoing structural transformation of the international order toward multipolarity. Originally established as an economic cooperation forum among developing nations, BRICS has since evolved into a political and strategic platform that functions as an alternative to Western-dominated global institutions. This transformation has become increasingly pronounced in the context of escalating geopolitical tensions between Russia and Western states, particularly in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach, this study conducts content analysis of policy documents, official statements by Russian officials, international media reports, and communiqués from BRICS summits and the Russia–Africa Summits of 2019 and 2023. The analytical framework draws on the theories of strategic depth and multipolar institutionalism to examine how Russia leverages non-Western multilateral platforms to build cross-regional strategic depth. The findings reveal that Russia has systematically utilized BRICS as an alternative diplomatic channel to consolidate military cooperation, advance energy investment expansion, and construct anti-hegemonic narratives rooted in South–South solidarity across Africa. Through BRICS, Russia positions itself as a strategic partner that upholds the principles of equality, sovereignty, and non-intervention which stands in deliberate contrast to the hierarchical patterns characteristic of Africa–West relations. This article contributes to the international relations literature by broadening the understanding of the role of multipolar institutions in the security strategies of non-Western states, and by demonstrating how BRICS functions as a geopolitical instrument that reconfigures global power dynamics and South–South relations within the context of an emerging multipolar world order.

The politicization of theology and religion, on one hand, and the “theologization” of politics, on the other, are fundamental characteristics of the relationship between religion and globalization. Globalization enhances, at least in the short term, religion, and religiosity. In this way, globally oriented religions are integrated into the global political discourse on the world order as a competing ideology, whose authority significantly surpasses that of the political and economic system. Globalization raises questions about the new forms, functions, and roles of religious ideologies in the global space. A global religion example is New Age, while a new form example is civil religion. This paper would try to answer the question of whether Bulgarian New Age could shape a civil-religious ideology, whose messages, symbols, and rituals could support the moral integration of (part of) Bulgarian society. Especially in the perspective of Peter Berger, according to whom historically, in Orthodox societies, churches have never functioned as voluntary associations based on the conscious choice of believers, unlike Protestant ones. The analysis indicates that the Bulgarian New Ageism activates followers towards beneficial for society activities. The messages express the historical memory for right and wrong, that is, the reproduction of sacred traditions regardless of specific confessions. They are associated with a revivalist spiritual movement, a consequence of social crisis, uniting people under an ideological banner and missionary vision. They call for moral integration in society, including agnostics and atheists.

Using a randomised, crossover design, we investigated whether exercise snacks could improve indices of glucose regulation assessed by continuous glucose monitoring, compared with an equivalent no-exercise control period in people living with non-insulin-treated type 2 diabetes. Previously inactive participants with well-controlled type 2 diabetes (n=31; 21 female participants, ten male participants; approximately 58 years old, BMI approximately 31 kg/m2, HbA1c approximately 48 mmol/mol [6.6%]) completed two experimental conditions in a randomised, counterbalanced order in the real world under a standardised diet. During the exercise snacks condition (ES), participants completed four 1min bouts of vigorous bodyweight exercise on two consecutive days, guided by instructional videos sent via email. The control condition (CON) involved two consecutive days of no exercise. Participants wore a continuous glucose monitor and a Fitbit watch to record glycaemic responses and heart rate, respectively. The primary outcome was mean glucose during each 48h condition. Secondary outcomes included 2h postprandial glucose responses after standardised meals and markers of glycaemic variability. The difference in mean glucose between ES and CON did not reach statistical significance (between-condition difference -0.2 mmol/l; 95% CI -0.4, 0.0; p=0.07). However, small but statistically significant improvements in standard deviation (-0.1 mmol/l; 95% CI -0.2, -0.1; p<0.001), coefficient of variation (-1%; 95% CI -2, 0; p=0.007), mean amplitude of glycaemic excursions (-0.3 mmol/l; 95% CI -0.5, 0.0; p=0.04) and time in tight range (3%; 95% CI 0, 6; p=0.04) were seen under the ES condition compared with CON. The 2h postprandial glucose average, peak, area under the curve and incremental area under the curve were also significantly lower after breakfast and dinner during the ES condition compared with CON (all p<0.05). Bodyweight exercise snacks totalling 4 min of vigorous activity per day led to small, yet statistically significant improvements in indices of glycaemic variability and postprandial hyperglycaemia in insufficiently active individuals living with well-controlled type 2 diabetes. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06382246.

Importance. An analysis of Canadian foreign policy formation in the first third of the 20th century in the context of the impact of the First World War on the further evolution of the status of dominions. The relevance of the research is determined by the need to study the historical experience of the foreign policy traditions’ formation of individual countries in the context of the constant transformation of the world order. Materials and Methods. The research is based on official published documents on Canadian foreign policy, memoirs, and archival materials from the personal collections of Canadian political figures. The methodological framework of the study is grounded in the principles of historicism and scientific objectivity. Comparative, historical and genetic methods, system analysis, problemchronological and personological approaches are also used. Results and Discussion. This study traces the evolution of Canada’s foreign policy independence from its status as a British dominion in the early 20th century to its acquisition of international sovereignty. It analyzes the key role of Canadian-American relations as a catalyst for independent foreign policy and examines the key stages in the institutionalization of autonomy. Particular attention is paid to demonstrating the evolutionary, progressive nature of this process, which precluded a revolutionary break with the mother country. Conclusion. Based on the results of the study, itias concluded that the formation of Canada’s foreign policy independence is evolutionary, not revolutionary. This process was not a break with the metropolis, but a gradual transformation of imperial relations, during which the dominion expanded its autonomy step by step. The actions of Canadian leaders, often in defiance of outside pressure and established traditions, have played an important role in the country’s foreign policy independence. The key catalyst for the changes was the factor of Canadian-American relations. Having gone from participating in the Imperial War Cabinet to signing the Treaty of Versailles and membership in the League of Nations, Canada came to sovereignty by adopting the Statute of Westminster in 1931 as a natural result of many years of progressive development.

The creation of the new international world order was ushered in after the World War II which saw the allied powers defeat Germany in its attempt to achieve the Final Solution. The effect of World War II was that the pre-existing international legal system, the League of Nations, was abandoned, in large part due to its inability to prevent the global conflict. In other words, the evaluation of the success of the international legal system was predicated on the ability of the institutions and systems of that framework to create international peace and prevent war. It was envisioned that the new international legal system was to achieve the objective of global peace in a way that the League of Nations was not able to do. As such, the successor institution, the United Nations, had the goal of realising the unattained goal of the League. Consequently, if the United Nations were to be unable to secure global peace and if conflict was allowed to arise and escalate to war, then the swift action taken on the League should be meted out to the United Nations. This article will explore the impact of the foreign policy on the institutional strength of the United Nations and the impact on global peace and security, utilising a comparative doctrinal approach as the foundation of the research methodology. In so doing, the War on Terror, the facilitation of the Russia/Ukraine War, the inaction in the Israel/Palestine conflict and the use of international diplomacy to achieve individual state goals, will be explored. The impact will be examined with a view of determining whether the United Nations system is currently in its failed state. This is not solely due to the UN’s failure to prevent conflict, but the fact that its systems are actually facilitating it. In such a situation, the utility of the United Nations in contemporary times must be evaluated in much the same way as the League of Nation’s relevance and success were assessed by its failure to stop the World War II.

This article looks at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) from a structural-realist perspective, trying to understand how the organization’s current major actors China and Russia as well as India manage their relationship within this organization and how they go about relating to the minor states of Central Asia and beyond as members, dialogue partners, or observers. The article argues that the deficiencies often attributed to the SCO cannot be overcome as long as its major actors do not yet agree on how to distribute power among themselves. It tests the hypothesis that the SCO as a multilateral organization – whose rules of the game are not defined by the United States and its allies – gives us an indication as to how its major actors envisage the future world order. Three main characteristics – triangularity, hierarchy, and consensus – regulate the distribution of power in the SCO and also guide the imagination of China, Russia, and India in the making of a new world order.

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.

Building on Cowen’s idea of “reading the global”, this article analyzes the emergences of Area Studies (AS) in British, American, and Chinese universities during different historical periods of significant change in the world order. Drawing on relevant literature, I first demonstrate the metamorphosis of this field over time from classical to contemporary forms and currently toward more critical perspectives. Subsequently through an analysis of key policies and institutions, I argue that AS has emerged from competitions among great powers, reflecting a realist “reading of the global”.

Abstract The Bahá’í Faith was founded in 1863 in Persia and first publicly mentioned in the United States at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions. Growing throughout the first decades of the twentieth century, the germinal American Bahá’í communities established different periodicals with varied foci. The first American Bahá’í periodical to fall under the full aegis of American Bahá’í administrative control was the magazine, World Order (1935-1949). Bahá’ís and non-Bahá’ís published within it and, while not the explicit focus, made many attempts to merge, reconcile, debate, and apply Bahá’í scriptural imperatives and Bahá’í-informed perspectives to the social and spiritual problems of racial prejudice, inequality, segregation, and disunity. But their vast heterogeneity, and sometimes strange, divergent, and contradictory stances on the very definition of “race” together gesture toward the need to understand how, why, and which strategies and logics functioned to mutually constrain and enable the American Bahá’í discursive articulation of the “race” concept. Toward that end, I map the landscape of such discourse with attention to how race was simultaneously understood as both a “cultural” marker and a category like “caste”. I thus explore these discursive uses as they developed against the backdrop of the Great Depression, eugenic race science and its backlash, Aryanism in World War II, and the continued debate over Jim Crow, racial equality, and the scientific and religious connotations of the category of “race” itself.

Kōsaka Masataka (1934–96) was a prominent and self-described realist IR theorist in Japan whose thought shared several key tenets with contemporary liberal internationalism. This article argues that a significant strand of IR theory—one that ultimately supported the US-led international order—originated from an anti-Anglo-Saxon vision articulated by four Kyoto school scholars, including Kōsaka’s father, during wartime debates. These thinkers proposed a new world order grounded in the concepts of a “pluralistic world” and moralische Energie . Kōsaka transformed these ideas into a framework of plural civilizations, each driven by its own underlying “energy.” In postwar Japan, he pursued what William James termed “the moral equivalent of war,” envisioning a “pluralistic world” sustained by liberal internationalism and led by the US, which he interpreted as inherently pluralistic. By examining the ambivalent relationship between the Kyoto school and Kōsaka Masataka, this article challenges the simplistic Western–non-Western binary in contemporary IR theory.

ABSTRACT How is conflict management being reshaped in a multipolar world order? Drawing on within-case process tracing of Myanmar (2007–2025) and fieldwork between 2024 and 2026, this article examines how China and Russia intervene without converging on a model of post-liberal peace. Using multilingual official statements, UN records, borderland media and interviews, it reconstructs how external engagements reshape incentives and produce uneven outcomes. China’s approach links ceasefire brokerage to the protection of development corridors, deploying quiet diplomacy alongside economic coercion and monitoring to secure stability in strategic spaces. Russia’s engagement is organised around sovereignty shielding and security patronage, supplying arms and diplomatic cover that strengthens the capacity of military authorities. The interaction of these scripts generates fragmented post-liberal peaces: pockets of order and transactional truces that stabilise corridors and incumbency yet defer political settlement and prolong conflicts, suggesting that fragmentation is a structural feature of conflict management under multipolar globalisation.

In the context of rapid digital transformation, cybersecurity has emerged as a central component of contemporary international security, fundamentally reshaping the structure and dynamics of global power relations. The increasing dependence of states, institutions, and societies on digital infrastructures has amplified the scale, complexity, and transnational nature of cyber threats, positioning cyberspace as a critical domain of geopolitical competition in the 21st century. This study aims to examine the evolving relationship between international security systems and cybersecurity within the framework of a changing world order. It analyzes how the transition from a traditional, state-centric security paradigm to a multidimensional and networked security environment has altered the nature of threats, actors, and strategic responses. The research focuses on the role of state and non-state actors, the growing importance of public–private partnerships, and the challenges posed by attribution, governance, and regulatory frameworks in cyberspace. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative analytical approach, drawing on comparative analysis, theoretical frameworks in international relations, and selected case-based evidence from leading global actors. It integrates perspectives from security studies, geopolitics, and cyber governance to provide a comprehensive understanding of the contemporary cybersecurity landscape. The findings demonstrate that cybersecurity introduces a new layer of complexity into international security by blurring the boundaries between war and peace, civilian and military targets, and domestic and international domains. The study highlights the limitations of existing international legal and institutional frameworks, emphasizing the need for enhanced cooperation, norm development, and adaptive governance mechanisms. Furthermore, it underscores the strategic significance of cybersecurity in shaping geopolitical competition and influencing the balance of power in the digital age. The originality of this research lies in its integrated analysis of cybersecurity as both a technological and geopolitical phenomenon, offering a multidimensional perspective on its impact on international security systems. The study contributes to the growing body of literature by proposing a conceptual understanding of cybersecurity as a transformative force in the reconfiguration of global security architecture.

The article examines the transformation of the concept of constitutional identity in the context of deglobalization, regionalization, and the formation of a multipolar world. The authors analyze the genesis of the concept of constitutional identity, its doctrinal interpretation in Russian and foreign scholarship, as well as the practice of its application by constitutional justice bodies (using the examples of Russia, Germany, Italy, and France). Special attention is paid to the evolution of constitutionalism: from the instrumental and social models to the value-based model, reflecting national distinctiveness and traditional orientations. The role of the judicial doctrine of constitutional identity as a mechanism for protecting national sovereignty against the extraterritorial application of supranational law (decisions of the ECtHR, EU law) is considered. Based on an analysis of the constitutional amendments of 2020, the authors clarify the content of Part 4 of Article 15 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation as a conflict-of-laws rule establishing the priority of application of an international treaty over a statute, but not over the Constitution. The key significance of Part 2 of Article 4 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which enshrines the supremacy of the Basic Law, is emphasized. The conclusions substantiate the need to find a balance between Article 79 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and compliance with the principle of pacta sunt servanda, while unconditionally preserving the supremacy of the Basic Law.

Abstract This article is a review of Jeff Sebo's Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes. Sebo's book is a groundbreaking contribution to the field of animal ethics, commendable not only for the bold and inspiring vision it offers of our potential for fostering radically improved relationships with nonhumans but also for its inclusion of serious, practical policy suggestions for achieving a new world order in which animals are treated with respect and compassion. This review critically engages with what might reasonably be considered five of Sebo's most interesting and valuable contributions to the literature and urges everyone to read this book and reflect deeply on its moral implications. Sebo is unafraid to tackle controversial questions (such as whether climate change may actually be a good thing for some animals) but also displays—and emphasizes the importance of—humility in the face of epistemic uncertainties. Through this book, Sebo stands out as a leading thinker in contemporary animal ethics whose work is sure to influence future generations grappling with the task of eliminating animal abuse in all its many forms.