CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - VOL. 3 (2023), N. 2 (expired)

New order or world disorder?

 

The current international situation raises many questions about the future and the forms of globalisation, conceived as a regime involving a global spatial fix of capital as a reaction against the crisis of accumulation of the Fordist regime and labour struggles in the core States of the capitalist system.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, a unipolar world dominated by American hegemony emerged, and the process of globalisation was defined by the creation of a global market surrounded by capitalism without barriers. However, despite the exportation of capital in the global south, the delocalisation of production and the integration of China into the World-system, the above-mentioned crisis was not resolved: indeed, this process did not prevent, in the long run, the crisis of American hegemony and the emergence of other powers.

In this scenario, three criticalities have shaped new forms of globalisation, which have accelerated the ongoing process and exacerbated the divergences in the multi-polar world.

First, the recent pandemic has accentuated the North-South differences and inequalities between countries that are able to cope with the infections and those that lack the resources to cope with the spread of the pandemic.

Second, climatic crises are marked by a conflict that is currently not overcome between "developed" and "underdeveloped" countries, where the latter claim the right to reach the level of development of the former, while not limiting energy consumption corresponding to the level of development they aspire to achieve.

Third, the supply chain disruptions (which had already an impact on global growth and inflation) are further aggravated by the war of aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Confederation, which interacts with the previous criticalities. This war is not just the invasion of a sovereign country by another that claims "imperial" expansion. The causes of this war are complex and may be seen in many ways. In this respect, it can be interpreted not only as aggression by Russia, but also as a war between Russia and NATO (via Ukraine as a proxy) and, third, as a “war” of the US against the EU economic system, centred on Germany.

As a consequence, analysts have been focusing on the different and numerous causes that have led to this war. The debate first centred on the "historical reasons" at the origin of the invasion, focusing on the founding moment of "Russian civilisation", identified in the conversion to the Orthodox faith of Kievan Rus' in 988.

The debate can be extended to two other major issues: a) the (presumed) threat to Russia's security represented by NATO's territorial extension and b) the Kremlin's violations of international law.

A Eurocentric perspective has proposed to read the ongoing conflict as a "clash of civilisations". In fact, the opposition occurs, on the one side, between the "collective West" – so-called in the manuals compiled by the Kremlin for state and political media – represented by the coalition of Western liberal democracies, NATO and the European Union (the alliances with other autocracies is always disregarded in this stream of interpretation), and, on the other side, an empire that claims its role as a great power rejecting and challenging Western hegemony in the name of the values ​​of traditions, of a patriarchal vision of society and of imperial "great spaces” conception.

The Russian empire proclaims a decline and a sunset of the West, claims a multipolar world and denounces past (such as colonialism) and present crimes (such as the Gulf wars and neo-colonialism) of the Western world.

Another way to read the conflict is through the world-system theory, placing the current escalation in the longue durée and integrating it with the analyses of the different actors at the global and regional levels. In this respect, the rivalry between the US and China and the war which the US is waging through sanctions (many mainstream commentators analyse the current general and all-encompassing ban on the sales of semiconductors as an act of war), in order to strive to keep hegemony and to forbid a multipolar world to emerge, is of course fundamental. Through these lenses, the economic dimension is fundamental and leads to considering the crisis of overaccumulation and the crisis of profitability, further monopolisation, and skyrocketing inequality.

Thus, the focus of this war has already gone beyond the reality of the invasion of Ukraine. It is instead the “fatal clash" between the Western world centred on the USA and a multipolar world. It is a conflict in which all the limits of the United Nations are emerging, and the position of the European Union is being redefined.

There are many questions that arise in this scenario:

- Is there a “sunset” in the West and what is its significance?

- What are the transformations of globalisation?

- What will be the shape of the further deglobalisation that is yet to come?

- What are the features of the new world order?

- Or can we only hypothesise a global “disorder”?

- What were the violations of international law caused by Russia's war against Ukraine?

- What are the implications for international governance and international organisations?

- What is the significance of NATO expansion: self-defence of Western powers or a threat to the security of other powers?

- The limits of the United Nations: are they unreformable?

- What is the role of the European Union and what are its limits?

- What is China's position in the new global scenario?

- What might be the further development of global capitalism, even in relation to the debate on techno-feudalism?

- Is the current conflict a way of addressing the long-lasting crisis of overaccumulation?

- How is a disentanglement between the interests of geopolitical actors and global capital possible?

All the topics can be addressed with a multidisciplinary approach and from different disciplinary perspectives: e.g., political science, philosophy of law, ethics, political philosophy, international law, public law, political economy, human rights law, and gender studies.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words must be sent by 16 December 2022 (11.59 GMT +1) via e-mail to athena@unibo.it (and in cc luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it and francesco.cavinato2@unibo.it). Successful authors will be notified by 28 December 2022. Papers must be submitted by 31^st May 2023. The expected publication of the issue is set for October 2023.

Please consider that you may also submit pieces of research that are not strictly related to the Call for Papers' topic, although they must strictly adhere to the Journal's themes and purposes (see our manifesto on the website’s homepage, https://athena.unibo.it).