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Why the liberal world order will survive

• Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

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The crisis of the American-led international order would seem to open up new opportunities for rising states-led by China, India, and other non-Western developing countries - To reshape the global order. As their capacities and influence grow, will these states rise up and integrate into the existing order or will they seek to overturn and reorganize it? The realist hegemonic perspective expects today's power transition to lead to growing struggles between the West and the rest over global rules and institutions. In contrast, this essay argues that although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order - openness, rules, and multilateralism - Are deeply rooted and likely to persist. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

• Political Science and International Relations
• American power
• Liberal international order
• Liberal internationalism
• Multilateralism
• Power transitions
• Rising states

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• 10.1017/S0892679418000072

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• Link to publication in Scopus
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• world order Social Sciences 100%
• global rules Social Sciences 67%
• Multilateralism Arts & Humanities 64%
• China Arts & Humanities 60%
• multilateralism Social Sciences 54%
• Developing Countries Arts & Humanities 47%
• Openness Arts & Humanities 41%
• Realist Arts & Humanities 38%

T1 - Why the liberal world order will survive

AU - Ikenberry, G. John

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2018.

PY - 2018/3/1

Y1 - 2018/3/1

N2 - The crisis of the American-led international order would seem to open up new opportunities for rising states-led by China, India, and other non-Western developing countries - To reshape the global order. As their capacities and influence grow, will these states rise up and integrate into the existing order or will they seek to overturn and reorganize it? The realist hegemonic perspective expects today's power transition to lead to growing struggles between the West and the rest over global rules and institutions. In contrast, this essay argues that although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order - openness, rules, and multilateralism - Are deeply rooted and likely to persist. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do.

AB - The crisis of the American-led international order would seem to open up new opportunities for rising states-led by China, India, and other non-Western developing countries - To reshape the global order. As their capacities and influence grow, will these states rise up and integrate into the existing order or will they seek to overturn and reorganize it? The realist hegemonic perspective expects today's power transition to lead to growing struggles between the West and the rest over global rules and institutions. In contrast, this essay argues that although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order - openness, rules, and multilateralism - Are deeply rooted and likely to persist. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do.

KW - American power

KW - Hegemony

KW - Liberal international order

KW - Liberal internationalism

KW - Multilateralism

KW - Power transitions

KW - Rising states

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052550248&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85052550248&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1017/S0892679418000072

DO - 10.1017/S0892679418000072

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85052550248

SN - 0892-6794

JO - Ethics and International Affairs

JF - Ethics and International Affairs

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, the new world order and global public administration: a critical essay.

Comparative Public Administration

ISBN : 978-0-76231-359-4 , eISBN : 978-1-84950-453-9

Publication date: 22 December 2006

The concept of a New World Order is a rhetorical device that is not new. In fact, it is as old as the notion of empire building in ancient times. When Cyrus the Great conquered virtually the entire known world and expanded his “World-State” Persian Achaemenid Empire, his vision was to create a synthesis of civilization and to unite all peoples of the world under the universal Persian rule with a global world order characterized by peace, stability, economic prosperity, and religious and cultural tolerance. For two centuries that world order was maintained by both military might and Persian gold: Whenever the military force was not applicable, the gold did the job; and in most cases both the military and the gold functioned together (Frye, 1963, 1975; Farazmand, 1991a). Similarly, Alexander the Great also established a New World Order. The Romans and the following mighty empires had the same concept in mind. The concept was also very fashionable after World Wars I and II. The world order of the twentieth century was until recently a shared one, dominated by the two superpowers of the United States and the USSR.

Farazmand, A. (2006), "The New World Order and Global Public Administration: A Critical Essay", Otenyo, E.E. and Lind, N.S. (Ed.) Comparative Public Administration ( Research in Public Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 15 ), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 701-728. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0732-1317(06)15031-9

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The Asian world order

Before modern europe existed there was a grand, interconnected political world, rich in scientific and artistic exchange.

by Ayşe Zarakol   + BIO

The process that gave rise to Eurocentrism in social sciences and history is somewhat comparable to the follies of youth. Little children have difficulty believing that their parents existed before their birth. Teenagers often think that they are the first ones to have the experiences they are having as they make their way into adulthood. Young people usually think of previous generations as stodgy and old-fashioned, and of themselves as uniquely special and innovative. And they imagine they will be forever so, as if time will stop moving after them.

Part of growing up, however, is gradually breaking out of such narcissistic naiveté. As we get older, we start realising that others before us had many experiences that resemble ours, even if they enjoyed different fashions and lacked certain technologies. Then the cycle repeats with the next generation. It is perhaps not particularly surprising that our social sciences, which came of age in the 19th and early 20th centuries – ie, ‘the youth’ of European/Western hegemony – also had a similar naiveté about world history. Europe/the West mattered the most at that moment, so it must have always been so. And perhaps it is a sign we are now nearing the twilight years of this hegemony that critiques (and self-critiques) of Eurocentrism have become so commonplace in most social sciences as to be banal.

But while it has been easy to level critiques of Eurocentrism against the social sciences – a low-hanging fruit if there ever was one – it has proven much harder to find solutions to it. There is always the danger that, in attempts to get away from Eurocentrism, we replace one kind of self-regarding history with another. It is also naive to think that only Europeans produce/have produced self-centred and whiggish narratives of history. A Sinocentric or Russocentric world history is no solution – it would just repeat the cycle.

So how do we do it?

I n international relations, too, until recently, students were taught that there was no international order (and thus no international relations) until the 17th century, until Europeans created a regional order via the Westphalian Peace in 1648 and then expanded that around the world. The rest of the world was assumed to be disconnected, stuck in their regional silos, uninterested in the wider world, until European actors connected them first to Europe, and then to each other.

In such textbook accounts, ‘international order’ is usually defined as referring to the system of rules, norms and institutions that govern relations among states and other international actors. The principles and norms that underpin the modern international order are considered to include sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights, non-interference in internal affairs, peaceful settlement of disputes, multilateralism and the rule of law. Westphalia is considered the origin point because of its supposed introduction of the non-interference principle.

There is plenty of international relations material in history outside of Europe and before modernity

The ‘Westphalian myth’ in international relations has come under considerable criticism in recent years, but given the way international order is traditionally defined, it is not particularly surprising that experts maintain that there were no comparable international orders before our modern one (though it is also questionable how long such an order has existed even in modernity). The problem stems from the fact that our terminology grabs some features of world politics that have existed only in modernity (eg, the concept of human rights, international organisations, or even territorial integrity) and builds them into the definition with other features that have arguably been around much longer (eg, sovereignty or mechanisms for peaceful settlement of disputes). Even the term international order is misleading because it presumes nation-states, which are a relatively late feature of human politics.

But if we relax the assumption that only orders created by nation-states are worth studying, then there is plenty of international relations material in history outside of Europe and before modernity that we can investigate. This is why I prefer to speak of ‘world orders’ instead of ‘international orders’, defined as the (man-made) rules, understandings and institutions that govern (and pattern) relations between the primary actors of world politics (but those actors can change over time: nation-states, aristocratic houses, city-states, etc). A ‘world order’ also has a universalising ambition at its core and is expansive in its vision.

When we think of it that way, it is not hard to see that there certainly were world orders before Westphalia and the 17th century: ‘the East’ too has been home to world orders (and world orderers). By looking at Asian world orders that came before European hegemony, we can learn a great deal.

T here was a ‘Chinggisid’ world order as created by Genghis (Chinggis) Khan and members of his house (13th-14th centuries), followed by the ‘post-Chinggisid’ world order of the Timurids and the early Ming (14th-15th centuries) and, finally, a globalising world with its core position occupied by three post-Timurid (and, therefore, Chinggisid) empires (15th-17th centuries): the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals (along with the Habsburgs). These orders were also linked to each other just as our contemporary order is linked to the 19th-century international order – there was a continuity in their shared norms. In each of these periods, the world was dominated and ordered by great houses who justified their sovereignty along Chinggisid lines.

‘Chinggisid’ sovereignty means the following: in the 13th century, Genghis Khan reintroduced to Eurasia a type of all-powerful sacred kingship we associate more with antiquity but one that had disappeared from much of this space after the advent of monotheistic religions and transcendental belief systems that checked the earthly power of political rulers by pointing to an all-powerful moral code that applied to all humans. As such religions gained more power from late antiquity onwards, the power of kingship was greatly diminished throughout Eurasia. Kings could no longer make laws as they had to share their authority with the written religious canon and its interpreters. Genghis Khan and the Mongols broke this pattern of constrained kingship (others had attempted to do so before as well, but never so successfully). The adjective Chinggisid is more apt than Mongol to describe the worlds thus created because these orders were orders of great houses (dynasties) rather than nations.

Such absolute rulers always chased world empire and ended up ordering the world

Genghis Khan claimed law-making power above and beyond that of religious (and other) actors. He made himself the lawgiver but did not claim to be a prophet. Nor did he claim to be merely verbalising divine laws. He made the law and still expected people to obey, even if they already had their own religious rules and laws. Such centralisation of supreme authority in one person requires robust legitimation. The claim to have such awesome authority could be justified only by a mandate for universal sovereignty over the world, as corroborated and manifested by world conquest and world empire. And because Genghis Khan succeeded in creating a nearly universal empire, he also diffused this particular understanding of sovereignty across Eurasia.

The story of Genghis Khan as a world-conqueror and lawgiver lived on for centuries (as inflected by the example of Timur/Tamerlane later), legitimising a certain type of political rule throughout this space and strengthening the hands of rulers desiring to claim centralising political authority, even in places where religious authority (eg, the Islamic jurists) posed a challenge to absolute kingship. And such rulers always chased world empire and ended up ordering the world (often violently and brutally but also at times productively) in their competition for this mantle. The Asian world orders between the 13th and 17th centuries constitute an important history of powerful and influential world orders outside of European hegemony. And insofar as political centralisation is an essential component of modern sovereignty, it may be argued that similar Asian understandings and practices of sovereignty both predate and may have even influenced the European trajectory.

F irst was the original ‘world order’ created by Genghis Khan (and his house) in the 13th century. If there is indeed an ‘East’ that is distinct from the ‘West’, one of the points of separation can be placed here. After all, Genghis Khan’s empire was primarily an ‘Asian’ one, spanning the distance from the Pacific Ocean in the East to the Mediterranean in the West. Actors of (and within) this order interacted with the Indian subcontinent to their South and the European/Mediterranean regional orders to their West (and influenced developments therein and vice versa) but, for the most part, polities in those regions were not incorporated into this order and retained their own logics of power, legitimation, warfare, etc.

In this ‘Asian’ order, people living in the geographies that we now call ‘Russia’, ‘China’, ‘Iran’ and ‘Central Asia’ – basically, most of continental Asia – shared the same sovereign for the first time and then were ruled/dominated by dynasties (the Golden Horde/Jochid, the Yuan, the Ilkhanate and the Chagatai) that directly inherited Chinggisid norms, ie, ambitions of universal sovereignty and dynastic legitimacy based on world conquest, high degrees of political centralisation around the supreme authority of the Great Khan. They were also significantly connected to each other through overland and naval routes that spanned the entire continent, as well as the Indian Ocean.

The existence of such trade routes – the ‘silk roads’ – predated the Chinggisid Empire. After their conquests, however, the Mongols strengthened these connections through the postal ( yām ) system and homogenised the points of contact throughout by their presence in the major spheres of influence within the continent. Thus, late 13th-century Eurasia was as connected as it had ever been (and even more so than some subsequent periods). Famous explorers of the 14th century – eg, Marco Polo or Ibn Battuta – could thus make their way from Europe or North Africa to China with relative ease, causing hardly any more commotion than some curiosity among hosts (who must have been accustomed to travellers along these routes) and facing not much more than some demand for updated information about cities and rulers encountered along the way.

The spread of the Black Death from the East in the mid-14th century spelled the end of that status quo

Yet others travelled in the opposite direction from China to West Asia, and started new lives in Europe or what is now called Iran, under new rulers. A mostly forgotten aspect of this order is the facilitation of epistemic exchange of all sorts, most notably between ‘Iran’ and ‘China’: in the 13th and 14th centuries, bureaucrats, scientists, artists, craftsmen and engineers could be born on one side of Asia and finish their careers on the opposite side, with profound implications for artistic, cultural and scientific standards of both societies. The best (but not only) example of this cultural exchange is the fundamental transformation of Islamic art from the 13th century onwards under Chinese influences, producing among other things the blue-and-white ceramics that are now so closely associated with the Middle East. This process is sometimes called the ‘Chinggisid exchange’ by historians of the Mongol Empire, similar to the Columbian exchange in terms of its world-historical impact.

After holding most of Asia under the same sovereign for more than half a century – which would be no small feat even today, let alone in the 13th century – the world empire/khanate ruled by the Great House of Genghis Khan fragmented into four smaller khanates, each based in territories originally given to different branches of his descendants to govern. Once autonomous, rival khanates went through a brief period of intense fighting to reclaim the mantle of universal sovereignty, but none managed to dominate the others. Eventually they settled into a ‘balance-of-power’ type equilibrium in the early 14th century. This period was particularly good for overland trade across Eurasia, extending the period known as Pax Mongolica.

The spread of the Black Death from the East (or Central Asia) to the West in the mid-14th century spelled the end of that status quo, however, as all but one of the khanates fell apart. The Golden Horde continued to rule the north-western steppes of Asia (present-day Russia), but the Chagatai Khanate (Central Asia) and the Ilkhanate (the Middle East) disintegrated, eventually giving way by the end of the 14th century to the Timurid Empire originating from Transoxiana, and the Yuan were overthrown by the Ming dynasty in 1366. Thus ended the first would-be world order organised by Chinggisid sovereignty.

T he next world order that succeeded Genghis Khan’s and its successor khanates brought more diversity, and a competition between two great powers. From the last third of the 14th century to the middle of the 15th century, the Great Houses of Timur (Tamerlane) and Zhu Yuanzhang (Hongwu), ie, the Ming dynasty, competed to succeed the Great House of Genghis Khan from the two sides of Asia.

As long as the Ming and the Timurids competed, they ordered the world in post-Chinggisid ways. They were post-Chinggisid because neither the Timurids nor the Ming were directly linked to the house of Genghis Khan but were nevertheless very much influenced by the order of their predecessors. They had different views about the Chinggisids but, just as in our modern world, one cannot escape an institutional legacy only by rejecting its creators.

The post-Chinggisid influence is easy to demonstrate in the case of the Timurids because Timur, as a Turco-Mongol ruler himself, did his best to play up any connections. He married a Chinggisid princess. He ruled through a puppet khan from a Chinggisid lineage, never taking the title for himself (he was called amir himself). Still, in all ways that mattered, he deliberately fashioned himself after the model of Genghis Khan and died on the way to attempting to conquer China, just like Genghis. He centralised authority in the Chinggisid mould, seeking world conquest and recognition. He even found a novel way to reconcile the tension between Chinggisid sovereignty and Islam via the title of sahibkıran (Lord of Conjunction), as astronomy/astrology was a bridge between the Chinggisid and Islamic ways of seeing the world.

By contrast, the Ming, who were Han, ostensibly rejected any Chinggisid influences after they overthrew the Yuan dynasty. Still, the preoccupation of the early Ming emperors Hongwu and Yongle with world recognition also demonstrably derived from Chinggisid ideals and thus can be considered post-Chinggisid. In 1403, the Ming emperor ordered the construction of 137 ocean-going ships; later, he ordered the construction of 1,180 more. He put Zheng He in charge of these expeditions which went as far as the Indian Ocean. Modern-day China’s power-projection ambitions have reintroduced these so-called ‘Ming treasure voyages’ to the popular imagination.

Overland trade brought Ming wares to West Asia (which then sold them to the Middle East and Europe)

However, what is often missed in contemporary discussion is the larger context and historical antecedents of these voyages. The maritime envoys were only part of the story – Yongle also sent overland envoys, including to Herat, the Timurid capital. Even experts in the growing field of China’s historical international relations often overlook the degree to which the goal of external recognition drove the early Ming and how that ideal derived from their Yuan (Chinggisid) predecessors and was shared by Central Asian rivals. Much of international relations scholarship, with its bias for a 20th-century world, still imagines inner Asia to be peripheral to world politics in history. But in the 15th century, it was the centre of a world ordered by the Timurids on the one side and the Ming on the other.

Timur failed to conquer China and eventually he had to settle into something like mutual recognition with the early Ming dynasty. A continent of lesser houses connected the great houses of Timur and Yuan or Ming. Some had their own Chinggisid-style world-empire aspirations, and others, the Joseon dynasty in Korea, for example, operated at a minimum with an understanding of the same Chinggisid legacy. Material connections were also part of the legacy of the Chinggisid world order, across Asia. Overland trade brought Ming wares to West Asia (which then sold them to the Middle East and Europe) and silver to the East. Both the Timurid and the Ming also sponsored great works of art and craftsmanship in this period.

Some may object that direct contact between these two Great Houses on the two sides of Asia was infrequent and therefore not enough to constitute a world order. But there is a resemblance between the order of the Timurids and the Ming in the late 14th/early 15th century, on the one hand, and that created by the rivalry of the US and the USSR after the Second World War, on the other. In both orders, one pole downplayed or even ostensibly rejected the legacy of the former world order whereas the other embraced it. But both were products of a shared historical experience and in fact had a lot in common in how they saw the world. Even when the Timur and Ming dynasties did not directly interact, they competed with each other symbolically and in so doing reinforced the normative fabric of the 14th- to 15th-century world order in Asia.

Also like the Cold War order, the Timurid-Ming rivalry was not around for very long. In the middle of the 15th century, a bullion famine, a shortage of money, hit Eurasia and precipitated a period of structural crisis by contracting overland trade. The Timurid dynasty of West Asia was particularly hard hit. The Timurids lost control over their territories. In the second half of the 15th century, Chinggisid influences on the Ming also faded, and neo-Confucianism took over. The neo-Confucian movement empowered bureaucrats and officials and constrained the power and authority of the Ming rulers, checking centralisation. The Ming realm turned more inward-looking, or isolationist. The ‘bipolar’ world order of the Timurid and the Ming Great Houses fragmented before it had the opportunity to congeal into something more institutionalised.

T he next fertile ground for world-ordering projects based on Chinggisid sovereignty norms came from the southwestern corner of Asia. In the 15th century, the region had been dominated by the Timurid Empire/khanate, and Chinggisid sovereignty norms had merged with existing Persian notions of kingship, millennial expectations, astrology and other occult sciences, as well as folk practices of Islam within this region. This fusion of Chinggisid, Persian and Islamic political cultures gave rise to at least three great houses with some of the more ambitious universal sovereignty claims in history: the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals.

By the 16th century, these three Great Houses together claimed sovereignty over more than a third of the human population of the world. They also controlled the core of the world economy. Though often called Islamicate empires, the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals shared more than Islam (and at times contravened prior Islamic practice). As with the previous examples discussed, they too subscribed to the same sovereignty model (at least in the 16th century): a type of sacred kingship, a fused form of vertical political centralisation achieved by the unification of political and religious authority in the same person, made possible by the Chinggisid-Timurid legacies they inherited. Following Timur, the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal claim to greatness was based on the claim of the rulers from these houses to be sahibkıran , universal sovereigns marked by signs from the heavens, living in the end of days, delivering on millennial expectations. Astrology and other occult sciences supported the universal sovereignty projects of these would-be world empires. Thus, in the 16th century, it was primarily the post-Chinggisid and post-Timurid ‘millennial sovereigns’ in Southwest Asia who ordered an increasingly globalising world, not yet the Europeans.

Scholars of international relations tend to see the 16th century as holding the seeds of a world order based on European hegemony. It is undeniable that the 16th century was a period of growth and expansion for Europe (especially for Habsburg Spain), but Europe was growing from a position of greater deprivation than Asia. If we do not read the ending of the story back into the historical narrative, in the 16th century it was still not at all obvious that European actors would come to dominate the world. Almost all histories of this period within international relations treat the Habsburgs’ eastern relations as relatively insignificant, but that is also a projection of the standards of a later time to the 16th century. Especially in the first two-thirds of the 16th century, the main rival of the Habsburgs were the Ottomans, who were themselves engaged in a simultaneous rivalry with the Safavids, from whose orbit the Mughals were trying to break. Smaller European houses had aspirations, to be sure, but their time in the sun had not really come yet, and they initially had to rely on Eastern alliances as well as trade with Asia to get on an upward trajectory.

No region is ‘destined’ to order the world; outcomes are not just path-dependent but also contingent and variable

All of this is to say that we must scrap the traditional narrative lurking in the background of the Westphalian origin myth of international relations, ie, the narrative of an ascendant European order in the 16th century with non-European hangers-on looking in, such as the Ottomans on its periphery (or the Russians). The real picture is just the opposite: the 16th-century world had a core of post-Timurid empires in (south-)West Asia animated by an intense competition focused on universal sovereignty, and European actors such as the Habsburgs were trying to challenge the dominance of that core (while other European players linked into it through trade networks and other alliances). The Ming still had to contend with Mongol warriors on their frontiers, motivated by these same notions; in the northwest, Muscovy had been remade in the image of the Golden Horde. The various peoples of Inner Asia also mostly operated with Chinggisid sovereignty norms still, even if the expectations around centralisation and world empire remained only aspirational. The 16th-century world was thus still very much ordered from the East. It is important to realise this because it disrupts our teleological thinking about the inevitability of European hegemony. No region is ‘destined’ to order the world; outcomes are not just path-dependent but also contingent and variable.

The expansion of this Eastern world order was stopped in its tracks not by destiny or European greatness, but rather by the unpredictable developments of the late 16th to mid-17th century, a politically tumultuous period throughout Eurasia. Some historians label this period ‘the 17th-century general crisis’, a period of prolonged rebellions, civil wars and demographic decline throughout the northern hemisphere. Historians have given different explanations as to what ushered in this upheaval: some suggesting financial causes (eg, the global repercussions of the Spanish ‘price revolution’ – inflation – due to the influx of surplus silver from the New World), whereas others point to demographic contraction. Others now link the chaos of this period to the Little Ice Age : the peak moment of a cooler period in the Northern Hemisphere that extended from the 13th to the 19th century. Prolonged periods of cooler temperatures and storms may indeed have been responsible for all the other factors we associate with the period: crop failures, disruption of overland trade, demographic collapse in hinterlands, rebellions and civil wars.

Whatever the cause, the continued disorder of the 17th century caused the irreversible fragmentation of the 16th-century world order. This was the turning point for the East because, while aspects of the Chinggisid sovereignty norms survived the 17th century and motivated particular rulers (eg, Nader Shah of Persia), no new ‘world orders’ organised around those norms were successfully created after the 17th century . A global perception set in the 19th century that Asia had been irreversibly declining for centuries, even though most Asian and Eurasian states had materially recovered from the crises of the 17th century, and had, in some cases, even gone on to territorially expand in the 18th century (eg, Russia, China). These two developments – the loss of ‘world orders’ originating in the East, on the one hand, and the perception of decline despite continued durability of Eastern states, on the other – are linked.

O ne of the greatest benefits of moving beyond Eurocentrism and thus having more examples outside of European history to think with about our present challenges is that such examples expand our imagination as to what is possible. Until recently, international relations scholars had imagined that international orders do not change very much in terms of their building blocks – it was assumed that only the number or the identity of great powers changed. Until recently, international relations also did not allow for the possibility that the liberal international order may unravel or be replaced by an entirely alien order (in a similar vein to the ‘End of History’ thesis of the 1990s). Such conclusions are somewhat inevitable if one looks at the world only post- 17th century. But world history teaches us different lessons.

When we study the trajectory of Eastern world orders, we see that structural crises punctuate the end of each order (even if the exact chain of causality is hard to ascertain). The fragmentation of each Eastern world order seems to at least correlate with a ‘general crisis’ that affected large areas of the Northern Hemisphere. The original Chinggisid world order fragmented at a time when the plague was spreading across Asia (and then Europe) and came to an end during a period that some historians label ‘the 14th-century crisis’; the post-Chinggisid world order fragmented during a period some historians call ‘the 15th-century crisis’, the effects of which seem to have been felt especially in west Asia and Europe.

The 17th-century crisis period of fragmentation lasted the longest and spelled the end of Eastern world orders

Longue durée hindsight allows us to see that political turmoil during these crises (and during the ensuing fragmentation of the existing order) was not really caused by specific great house rivalries or ‘power transition’ (ie, the things international relations most worries about as being corrosive to order), but rather structural dynamics such as climate change, epidemics, demographic decline, monetary problems etc: ie, the things international relations has not worried about at all until recently. Contrary to the assumptions of the international relations literature about great powers, this history suggests that rivalries by great houses that shared the same understanding of ‘greatness’ in fact strengthened and reinforced the existing world order (even when those rivalries turned violent).

A similar observation can be made about great power competition in the 19th century or the Cold War. Rivalry is constitutive of order (almost as much as trade and cooperation); order decline almost always originates from elsewhere. A final observation is that world orders were not immediately replaced after fragmentation; there were periods without ‘world order’-ers around (or, even if they were around, their presence was not felt by other actors). The 17th-century crisis period of fragmentation lasted the longest and perhaps for that reason spelled the end of Eastern world orders.

Unfortunately, there are enough reasons to suspect that we may be in for a similar period of turbulence and disorder in the 21st century. All the factors that were at play in the 17th century – climate change, demographic unpredictability, economic volatility, internal chaos – that took the attention of world orderers from maintaining world order are also present today.

This Essay is based on the chapter ‘What Is the East?’ of the author’s book Before the West (2022) published by Cambridge University Press.

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48 Global Governance, International Order, and World Order

Arie M. Kacowicz is professor in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• Published: 18 September 2012
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This article explores the concept of global governance by looking at its analytical, theoretical, and normative implications. It argues for the importance of global governance in an age of globalization and contends that global governance should be understood alongside a possible continuum of governance ranging from international order to world government. The article also discusses the concept of a global governance complex that embraces states, international institutions, transnational networks, and agencies which function with variable effect and effectiveness to promote, regulate, and manage the common affairs of humanity.

Introduction: assessing global governance

This chapter explores the concept of global governance by looking at its analytical, theoretical, and normative implications. I present two major arguments. First, in an age of globalization there is an increasing need for global governance, as, in the previous period of “complex independence,” as depicted by Keohane and Nye ( 1977 ), there was a functional need for international regimes and other international institutions to manage complex independence. Second, global governance should be understood alongside a possible continuum of governance ranging from international order (Bull's “anarchical society”) to world government. Along that continuum, there are different ways of assessing and examining global governance, so it might take several institutional forms and denominations, including world order, “new medievalism,” and cosmopolitanism. Moreover, these theoretical and social constructs can coexist simultaneously since they do not necessarily contradict, but rather complement, each other.

The first argument refers to the fact that economic globalization and global problems demand the establishment or creation of new political mechanisms that transcend the state system in order to cope with the complexities of our world. Thus, global governance mechanisms are necessary in order to manage the new world order of economic and environmental globalization and global challenges. As James Rosenau pointed out cogently, “Reinforced by the collapse of time and distance, the weaknesses of states, the vast movements of people and the ever greater complexities of modern life, the question of how to infuse a modicum of order, a measure of effective authority and a potential for improving the human condition into the course of events looms as increasingly urgent” (Rosenau 2002 : 70–71). Hence, we should address questions such as: What do we mean by governance on a global scale (“global governance”)? How is the world governed, in the absence of a world government, to produce norms, codes of conduct, and regulatory, surveillance, and compliance mechanisms? How is that different, if at all, from “international regimes” (see Rosenau 1992 : 1; Duggett 2005 : xi; Weiss and Thakur 2010 : 1; and Hurrell 2007 : 1)? The section on “Defining global governance” spells out the first argument and attempts to answer those questions.

The second argument implies that in order to make sense of global governance we should pay attention to the larger context of both the discipline of international relations (IR) and especially of its real-world context. In the absence of world government, the concept of global governance provides us with a proper theoretical terminology to describe and analyze the complex of systems of rule-making, political coordination, and problem-solving that transcends states and societies, constructing new political realities and reconstructing old ones. Global governance does that by describing the structures and processes of governing beyond the state where there is no single supreme supranational political authority (Held and McGrew 2002 : 8). Yet, as the phenomena and processes of globalization still remain ambiguous and ill-defined, there is a great confusion in the IR literature regarding the possible meanings, dynamics, and scope of global governance. In this context, the possible relationships among global governance and different types of international and world order might clarify the relevance, and limitations, of the concept of “global governance.” Thus, we should address questions such as: What is the relationship among global governance, international order, and world order? How is the world organized politically? How should it be organized? What forms of political organizations are required to meet the challenges faced by humankind in the twenty-first century? The section on “The continuum of global governance” illustrates this second argument. Finally, in the section on “The limitations of global government” I wrap up the two main arguments of this chapter.

Any discussion of global governance in the context of IR should start with an understanding of the significant changes that have taken place in the international society and system. Three major developments are relevant: first, the end of the Cold War; second, the complex processes of economic, political, and cultural globalization; and third, the possible relocation of political authority away from the nation-state and international organizations (IGOs) in the direction of private, non-state actors, including multinational corporations (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as participants and components of an emerging transnational civil society (see Yunker 2005 : 202; Hewson and Sinclair 1999 : 3–4; and Ruggie 2010 : xvii).

Economic and environmental globalization has not occurred in a political vacuum. There has also been a concomitant shift in the nature and form of political organizations, with a re-articulation of political authority occurring in many and multiple possible directions through a dense web of networks and linkages: supranational, international (through the enhancement of international organizations and institutions), transnational, and subnational; as well as public, private, and public–private partnerships. Thus, the idea of global governance is of growing concern among scholars and practitioners alike, with regard to the political dimensions of globalization and of global change (although one can question cause and effect relations in this context). This global governance complex embraces states, international institutions, transnational networks, and agencies (both public and private) that function, with variable effect and effectiveness, to promote, regulate, and manage the common affairs of humanity (see Held and McGrew 2002 : 1, 5; Selby 2003 : 4; Wilkinson 2005 : 6; and Duffield 2001 : 44).

Defining global governance

Global governance in the international relations literature: old wine in new bottles.

The term “global governance” was apparently introduced in the late 1980s, in the context of the international regimes literature, which had a significant impact on scholarly thinking. At the time of the emergence of the neoliberal institutional paradigm, the emphasis was upon the possibility of nation-states cooperating under anarchy, by establishing international institutions. A related theme in the literature dealt with enhancing the capacity of international governance to address problems of global concern (“global problems”), first and foremost through the action of international institutions such as the United Nations (UN). The concept of global governance came into wide public usage in the early 1990s with the establishment of the United Nations Commission on Global Governance (UNCGG) in 1992 and the publication of such seminal works as Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (1992) edited by James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (see Wilkinson 2005 : 4–5; Hewson and Sinclair 1999 : 11–12; Weiss and Thakur 2010 : 30; and Yunker 2005 : 202).

The concept of “global governance” initially overlapped with that of “international regimes,” “international institutions,” “multilateralism,” and “international governance.” Yet contemporary usage in the early twenty-first century refers, in the literature of IR, to a qualitative change embedded in the demand of political globalization to cope with the challenges of economic globalization and global problems (such as environmental degradation or nuclear proliferation). The result has been a movement from government to “governance,” and a concomitant transformation from IR to “global politics.”

As for the concept of “governance,” as suggested by Rhodes and by Zürn in their respective chapters in this book (Chapters 3 and 51, respectively), the reference is to the rise of political authority in the framework of institutions different from the nation-state, which help in the process of governing. Adding “governance” to the “global” we can then spell out alternative definitions, as follows.

Alternative definitions of global governance in international relations literature

James Rosenau, a pioneer intellectual in the field of global governance, refers to the concept as the need for a new ontology to make sense of world politics (Rosenau 1999 : 288–289). This “new ontology” is built on the premise that the world is nowadays comprised of spheres of authority that are not necessarily consistent with the division of territorial space that is the traditional international order of sovereign states. Rosenau, who coined the original term of fragmengration to point out the simultaneous forces of integration and disintegration that shape our world, defines global governance as “a summary term for a highly complex and widely disparate activities that may culminate in a modicum of worldwide coherence or that may collapse into pervasive disarray. In the event of either outcome, it would still be global governance in the sense that the sum of efforts by widely disaggregated goal-seeking entities will have supplemented, perhaps even supplanted, states as the primary sources of governance on a global scale” (Rosenau 1999 : 294; see also Rosenau 2005 : 45–46). The mechanisms and rules of global governance are then created by the actions and agreements of key actors and institutions involved in the global system, including state and non-state entities (see O’Brien et al. 2000 : 125).

According to the UNCGG (1995), governance “is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and co-operative action may be taken. It includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive to be in their interest” (CGG 1995 : 2). At the global level , “governance has been viewed primarily as intergovernmental relationships, but it must now be understood as also involving non-governmental organizations (NGOs), citizens’ movements, MNCs, and the global capital market” (CGG 1995 : 3). In this encompassing definition, the process of global governance includes a broad range of actors, both public and private. Private firms, associations of firms, non-governmental organizations and associations of NGOs all engage in it, often in association and unison with governmental bodies, to create (global) governance without government (Keohane and Nye 2000 : 12).

Similarly, according to Weiss and Thakur, global governance is “the sum of laws, norms, policies, and institutions that define, constitute, and mediate trans-border relations among citizens, society, markets, and the state in the international arena—the wielders and objects of international public power. Even in the absence of an overarching central authority, existing collective arrangements bring more predictability, stability, and order to trans-boundary problems than we might expect” (Weiss and Thakur 2010 : 6). In this sense, global governance is conceived as a system of rules and norms that ensures order on a voluntary, purposive way. Unlike the first definition by Rosenau, this definition, like the UNCGG's one, still emphasizes the paramount role of the states and international institutions composed of states, such as the UN.

For John Ruggie, governance “refers to the workings of the system of authoritative rules, norms, institutions, and practices by means of which any collectivity manages its common affairs” (Ruggie 2010 : xv). In the specific case of global governance, Ruggie follows Rosenau by referring to “global governance as an instance of governance in the absence of government.” Furthermore, Ruggie draws the important distinction between “politics” and “governance” (despite their close relationship); whereas politics always refers to the competition in the pursuit of particular interests, governance is always about producing public goods (Ruggie 2010 : xv; see also Zürn, Chapter 51 , this volume).

To sum up, all those definitions share the concern of global governance with the possible (or potential) regulation of the global sphere, the multiplicity of spheres of authority, and the nature of actors and institutions, both public and private, involved in the regulative process and the production of public global goods. We view the concept as under the slogan of “governance without government” or as a kind of intermediary stage between the management of global problems through traditional interstate politics and the operation of a world government (see Hakovirta 2004a : 14). In other words, as I specify below, global governance can be located in a continuum ranging from international order to world government.

Dynamics and types of global governance

To describe and analyze the dynamics of global governance is a daunting task, since there is no single model or form of global governance, nor is there a single structure or set of structures. In fact, global governance is a broad, dynamic, and complex process of interactive decision-making that is constantly in flux. The emerging complex of global governance encompasses a rich mixture of actors, institutions, and processes that take place on at least at three different levels: supranational (MNCs, IGOs, and NGOs); national (firms, central governments of nation-states, and civil society); and subnational (local firms, local governments, and local civil society) (see Keohane and Nye 2000 : 12–13; see also CGG 1995 : 4; Woods 2002 : 26; and Rosenau 2002 : 76–77).

A number of dynamics of global governance have contributed to the erosion and diminution of state capabilities. At the same time, one can argue the other way around; namely, that the erosion of state capacities contributed to the enhancement of global governance. In any case, one of the most relevant dynamics of global governance has been the shifting balance between hierarchical and network forms of organization, and between vertical and horizontal flows of authority. Associated with this relocation of authority from the public to the private we can discern an important shift in the principal modalities of global rule-making and implementation. Thus, although much of the formal modalities of global governance are still dominated by the interaction among states (traditional IR) and by international institutions such as the UN, we can trace the formulation and implementation of global public policy within an expanding web of political networks that involve non-state actors as well, as in the Global Compact agreement that involves MNCs, or the Kimberley Process that involves both states and non-state actors (see Held and McGrew 2002 : 11; and Risse 2009 ).

Following Rosenau ( 2002 ) and Risse ( 2009 ), for analytical purpose we can establish a typology of six forms of global governance, according to three categories: formal structures (hierarchical); informal structures (nonhierarchical); and mixed formal and informal structures (such as public–private networks and partnerships). The directional flows of authority may be unidirectional (either vertical, top-down or bottom-up; or horizontal, nonhierarchical). Alternatively, the direction can follow multiple flows of authority transmission, both vertical and horizontal. The actors involved might include governments, transnational corporations (TNCs), IGOs, NGOs, business alliances, and public–private, and private–private partnerships. While traditional IR are best typified in Table 48.1 by cell # 1, global governance is best typified in the hybrid of mixed formal and informal structures and multidirectional flows of authority in cell # 6. We should add that all the six cells in Table 48.1 represent different forms and ways of global governance. This typology is summarized in the table (adapted from Rosenau 2002 and Risse 2009 ).

From the reading of the table we can get a better understanding of the multi-level character of global governance as well as the multiplicity of the relevant political actors and institutions. Furthermore, we should locate the complex processes of global governance within an imaginary continuum running from the traditional form of inter national order (the Westphalian system of sovereign states) all the way to the utopian ideal of a world government. This leads to the discussion of the second main argument in this chapter.

The different phases (and faces) of global governance: from international order to world government

There is a long tradition in the discipline of IR of studying the future of international politics by imagining alternative “institutional designs” of alternative world orders as objects of interest in themselves (see Hakovirta 2004b : 47). In this sense, global governance should be located along a continuum of the changing architecture of world politics in terms of governance, as the newest, most sophisticated, but also ambiguous, classification of “world order.” Since global governance aims at providing public goods in the global realm, “governance is order plus intentionality” (Rosenau 1992 : 5).

The continuum offered in this chapter is an analytical prism. Within the two extremes of “international order” and “world government” we might find the different phases (and faces) of global governance. Thus, in reality, we might find hybrid modes of global orders, as is reflected in Table 48.1 , above, which describe the typology of global governance. In other words, as the concept and reality of global governance are ambiguous and encompassing, they might include different typologies, configurations, and forms. Consequently, all six cells depicted in Table 48.1 can be accommodated in these different phases.

In this continuum, we start discussing the idea of a pluralist and limited society of sovereign states, as formulated by Bull in his seminal work on the international society as an anarchical society as a form of international order . This international society might evolve into a world or global society , due to the impact of globalization . Moreover, we no longer refer to an international order, but rather to world order , encompassing a larger number and character of actors, not just nation-states, but first and foremost human beings themselves embedded in a global society . Furthermore, the world order under globalization leads us to the metaphor (again coined by Bull back in 1977) of new medievalism . Finally, at the right end of the continuum, and propelled by a cosmopolitan ideology, we might approximate the liberal ideal of a world government . As we learned previously in the chapter, the concept of global governance might correspond to any of those phases. This argument is summarized in Figure 48.1.

There is an interesting parallel between the stages of Figure 48.1 and the typologies of global governance of Table 48.1 above. Thus, cells # 1 and # 2 roughly correspond to the definition of “international order.” Similarly, cells # 3 and # 4 parallel the concepts of “world society” and “world order,” while “new medievalism” is best reflected in cells # 5 and # 6. We do not have a good example of “world government,” which ideally might reflect a diagonal direction from cell # 1 to cell # 6.

At the first phase of the continuum, the initial form of global governance takes the form of a pluralist and limited society of sovereign states, which embodies the idea of international order within an anarchical international society (see Bull 1977 ). There is an interesting parallel or analogy between the idea of an “anarchical international society” and the concept of “global governance.” Both concepts suggest the feasibility of a peaceful, progressive, benign, and well-ordered international regime in the absence of a unifying governmental, supranational entity (despite the connotation of the society being “anarchic”). Similarly, both ideas are imperfect, voluntaristic, lacking a real government, and aiming at the regulation of norms and the creation of common expectations (see Hurrell 2007 : 3; and Yunker 2005 : 213).

The continuum of global governance.

At a second phase in the continuum, with the impact of globalization, international society might evolve into a world or global society . As a result of the dynamics of globalization, which imply more than just increased interstate interdependence but rather the de-territorialization of IR, world entities other than states are, nowadays, crucial components of contemporary society, which is global rather than international, though it is far from being universal (see Keohane 2005 : 123).

Moreover, moving into the direction of world government, it is obvious that globalization implies that we cannot still refer to an international order, but rather to a world order . By “world order” Bull meant “those patterns or dispositions of human activity that sustain the elementary or primary goals of social life among mankind [humankind] as a whole.” Thus, world order is a wider category of order than the international order. It takes as its units of order not just nation-states, but rather individual human beings, and assesses the degree of order on the basis of the delivery of certain kinds of public goods (such as security, human rights, basic needs, or justice) for humanity as a whole (Bull 1977 : 20; Clark 2005 : 730; see also Whitman 2005 : 27; Hakovirta 2004a : 15; and Rosenau 1992 : 5).

World order can mean alternative “architectural” designs that include the international order itself (such as the ephemeral unipolar structure of the international system), but since they include humanity as a whole they might as well refer to processes of globalization, transcending the traditional structure of the state system. For instance, there are several scenarios of world order that have been discussed in the IR literature and for policy purposes, such as (1) neo-medievalism and the overlapping of authority and identity; (2) the North–South divide; (3) Huntington's “clash of civilizations”; and (4) Kaplan's “coming anarchy” (see Huntington 1996 ; Kaplan 2006 ; and Clark 2005 ).

It is important to notice that the concern with “global governance” since the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the advent of the contemporary age of globalization, has replaced an earlier exploration of what was called “world order studies,” which several scholars criticized as too static and top-down (Weiss and Thakur 2010 : 29). In the early 1960s, the utopian World Order Models Project (WOMP) initiated by Richard Falk and others, adapted the world federalist idea to suit a postcolonial setting, and toward the direction of a potential world government (see Falk 1999 : 7). While not directly critical of world order studies, many contemporary scholars (including Falk himself) prefer to use the term “global governance” and “global democracy” in a conscious effort to expand the epistemic community of academics and practitioners who embrace the key assumptions and principles of world order (see Tehranian and Reed 1999 : 62). As a matter of fact, global governance incorporates the same problématique of world order, heading in the direction of distancing or deviance from world anarchy and chaos (see Hakovirta 2004a : 14). Thus, the concept here becomes more normative than analytic, or at least it carries a strong normative bias.

One possible manifestation of world order, as epitomized by global governance in still another phase (and face) is the idea of new medievalism . In 1977, Bull coined the term to refer to a “modern and secular equivalent of the kind of universal political organization that existed in Western Christendom in the Middle Ages. In that system no ruler or state was sovereign in the sense of being supreme over a given territory and a given segment of the Christian population; each had to share authority with vassals beneath, and with the Pope and (in Germany and Italy) the Holy Roman Emperor above” (Bull 1977 : 254).

Thus, neo-medievalism encompasses an ideal political order in which individuals are governed by a number of overlapping authorities and identities. Bull spoke of a “new medievalism” to connote the fragmentation of authority reminiscent of the pre-Westphalian era, although he did not believe that other political actors were yet strong enough to offer a serious challenge to the nation-state in global politics. More than thirty years later, the image of “neo-medievalism” and the overlapping of political authority and identities have become more and more relevant to make sense of our current world order and as a depiction of global governance. Thus, the relocation and delegation of political authority among the several layers of global governance, as depicted in Table 48.1 above, resembles the complexity of competing and overlapping jurisdictions and spheres of political action and responsibility that characterized medieval Europe (see Held and McGrew 2002 : 10; and Linklater 2005 ).

If new medievalism is a form of global governance, the logical end of the continuum should lead us into the cosmopolitan ideal of world government. In (political) theory, we could imagine a world government that would arise “as the consequence of a social contract among states, and thus it would be a universal republic or cosmopolis founded upon some form of consent or consensus” (Bull 1977 : 253). And yet, since we do not really have a universal global society, cosmopolitan democracy is very unlikely, if not impossible to fulfill on a global scale. Thus, the concept of global governance implicitly assumes that a world government, while idyllic in theory, might be disastrous in practice, as well as morally wrong, by infringing the self-determination and freedom of both the nation-states, and the liberties of individuals (see Keohane 2005 : 124; Yunker 2005 : 203; and Bull 1977 : 253).

Conclusions: the limitations of global governance

Global governance is a fascinating and useful concept to make sense of our complex world, the challenges we face, and the various institutions that can deal with globalization, given the impracticality and/or undesirability of a world government. Yet, it is far from being perfect, and there are several problems and limitations that should be pointed out in the concluding section of this chapter, at the theoretical, practical, and ethical levels.

On theoretical grounds , there are at least two embedded biases in the mainstream literature and analysis of global governance. First, in general terms, the concept of global governance starts with several neoliberal institutionalist premises, similarly to the previous literature on international regimes, although it somehow transcends them. Those premises refer to the possibility of cooperation under anarchy, and the feasibility of international institutions (mainly IGOs). Second, many of the approaches toward global governance tend to be mainstream, and state-centric, and downplay the possibilities of conflict and resistance to globalization and to political governance (see Selby 2003 : 4–7; Gilpin 2002 : 238; Duffield 2001 ; and Tehranian and Reed 1999 : 76). At the same time, some critical writers reject the basic premises of the state as the main political unit, downgrading its relevance in the discourse of global governance, in opposition to IR theory (see Mitrani 2010 ; Held and McGrew 2002 ).

On practical grounds , realist critics like Robert Gilpin, following in Bull's footsteps, point out the political limitations inherent in the translation of global governance from theory to praxis: How can change and peaceful change be achieved? What are the goals of global governance? How can the provision of public (global) goods in the world arena be reconciled with the lingering realities of power politics? Who are “we the people” among the myriad of actors involved in the dynamic process? (see Gilpin 2002 : 247; Keohane and Nye 2000 : 32–33; and Ruggie 2010 : xix).

Conversely, advocates of world government criticize the realities of global governance as being inefficient, insufficient, and anemic. They object the “benign” recommendations of the UNGG (1995) and ask themselves, “Within the present world structure, how can ‘citizens’ movements’ or NGOs possibly participate with superpower nation-states or multinational corporations in something called ‘consensual democratic global governance?’ ” (Martin 1999 : 14). From this standpoint, the idea and reality of global governance is a strained compromise that is subservient to the realities of traditional power politics (see also Held and McGrew 2002 : 13). Hence, attempts to impose policy features on it are anchored in an explicit normative bias.

Finally, on ethical grounds , the concept of global governance does not pay enough attention to the ethical and moral connotations of world order and of globalization (see Murphy 2005 : 90; and Franceschet 2009 ). There are several paradigmatic moral visions of the politics of global governance, including an ethics of reform , which attempt to “civilize globalization” and suggest a social-democratic compromise (see Sandbrook 2003 ); an ethics of responsible governance , geared toward the provision of adequate governance on a global basis; an ethics of cosmopolitan community , which crowns a logic of world order for humanity as a whole as trumping any particular interests of given actors or groups; and an ethics of critique , that follows a Foucauldian premise of referring to global governance as another site of politics, power, and domination (see Franceschet 2009 ).

There are two major normative themes concerned with the dynamics and realities of global governance. First, there is the issue of democratizing global governance and overcoming the inherent problem of “democratic deficit,” making global governance accountable (to whom?) Second, there is the issue of promoting global distributive justice and overcoming poverty and inequality, while keeping a modicum of order in world politics (see Held and McGrew 2002 : 14; Falk 2005 : 106, 118; and Dower 2004 : 116).

With all the imperfections and limitations of both the theoretical concept and the realities it should reflect, global governance remains an essential and indispensable ingredient to make sense of our world. If world government is an unfeasible ideal, while the anarchy (or laissez-faire) of the markets is a recipe for financial global crises, then we have to compromise on an intermediate solution, ranging between international order and world government. Thirty years ago the realities (not the theory!) of complex interdependence demanded the creation of functional international institutions (including international regimes) to cope with it. Nowadays and similarly, in our post-Cold War age of economic globalization and global issues we have to explain and understand that set of political practices, actors, and institutions, both public and private, which improve coordination, provide global public goods, and compete and coexist with the still vibrant and vivid nation-states (themselves major agents of global governance) in providing a political equivalent and response to the functional demands of globalization. It is not just a “new world order” as proclaimed by George Bush twenty years ago; it is actually a new world of actors, networks, alliances, and overlapping authorities and identities, messy but vital, under the umbrella concept of “global governance.” And our job remains to make sense of it, both in analytical and in normative terms.

I would like to thank David Levi-Faur, Claudia Kedar, Mor Mitrani, and Nilgun Onder for their comments on and insights into previous versions of this chapter.

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As a rising global power, what is India’s vision for the world?

India has the opportunity to put in place a new framework for its own security and growth, and that of developing countries around the world. Image:  REUTERS

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Seventy-one years ago – on 15 August 1947 – India gained independence. Over the subsequent decades, the country has managed its evolution in an international system largely created and guided by the United States and its partners. While it was not easy for India to pursue independent domestic and foreign policies within this system, the American-led order was preferable to the British Empire from which New Delhi had liberated itself.

Today, this global system is under serious threat. Washington, along with capital cities across the European Union, finds itself caught in a polarizing debate on the social contracts of its society – questions of domestic inequality and identity have left the US and its allies incapable of effectively championing the values of the international order. Simultaneously, the balance of global economic power has once again tipped in favour of Asia.

Within this shifting global landscape, India has the opportunity to put in place a new framework for its own security, growth and development, and that of developing countries around the world. As a rising global power, this must be India’s principle endeavor in the coming decades.

The changing international order

The extraordinary rise of countries in Asia has spawned at least two new dynamics. First, political boundaries – many of them colonial legacies – are steadily becoming more porous through economic cooperation. Markets are converging across the Eurasian landmass as well as facilitating the geo-economic “union” of the Indian and Pacific oceans. This has resulted in new integrative dynamics; as cultures, markets and communities aspire for development and new opportunities. Second, even though territorial considerations acknowledge economic linkages, political differences are still being reasserted – not just to contest the consensus of the past, but to shape a new order altogether.

Asia is coming together economically but is also threatening to grow apart politically; market-driven growth in the region sits uneasily with a diverse array of political systems.

China is, in large part, responsible for both. While offering a political vision that stands in sharp contrast to the “liberal international order”, China has been equally assertive about advancing free trade, raising new development finance, and offering a new model for development and global governance. The prospect of China using its economic clout to advance its own norms is worrying for India.

A consensus to shape a new order

Given the velocity of change underway, the challenge for India on its Independence Day is to shape an inclusive and equitable international order by the centenary of its independence. To achieve this, India must prepare to act according to its capabilities: by mid-century it must build the necessary state capacity, industrial and economic heft and strategic culture that would befit its status as a leading power. The country could present this as a model for much of the developing world to emulate, and anchor faith in the liberalism and internationalism of the world order.

India, then, requires a “consensus” – a new proposition that will not only guide its own trajectory for the better part of the 21st century, but one that appeals to communities around the world.

What then are the tenets of a “New Delhi Consensus”?

First, India must sustain and strengthen its own trajectory of rapid economic growth, and show to the world that it is capable of realizing its development goals within the rubric of liberal democracy. No argument for the New Delhi Consensus can be more powerful and alluring than the economic success of India. By IMF estimates, India already accounts for 15% of global growth. Even though nearly 40% of its population live in various shades of poverty and barely a third are connected to the internet, India is still able to proportionately shoulder the world’s economic burden. Imagine the possibilities for global growth if India can meet, and even exceed, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

States in the developing world yearn for replicable templates of growth, yet they find themselves with a binary choice between Western democracy, which is ill suited for deeply plural and socially stratified societies, and autocratic systems that have little room for individual freedom.

India, on the other hand has “emerged as a bridge between the many extremes of the world”, as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once remarked . India’s plural and composite culture, he said, was “living proof of the possibility of a confluence of civilizations”. The global 2030 development agenda, for the most part, may as well be a story of India’s domestic economic transformation and of its defence of diversity and democracy.

Second and flowing from the above, Delhi must claim leadership over the global development agenda. It is worth pointing out that India sits at the intersection of the world’s two most dynamics regions, Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. The largest bulk of development finance will emerge from, and be invested in, these regions. It is incumbent on India to ensure that this is not a new means to maximize political interference, but a moment to offer unfettered opportunities.

In his recent address to the Ugandan Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi affirmed that “India’s development partnership will be guided by [African] priorities” – a position that contrasts sharply with the West’s evangelical focus on governance reforms and China’s economic policies in the region. India’s recipient-led partnership framework will allow states to secure development pathways that are economically sustainable and politically acceptable. India now needs to articulate its intentions and the principles that will shape international development cooperation in the days ahead.

Third, Delhi must create and protect the space for equitable and inclusive global governance. For too long, leadership in the international system was considered a free pass to monopolize the global commons. India has always bucked this trend, emerging as a leading power that has never tempered its idealism of “having an interest in peace, and a tradition of friendliness to all”, as one official put it. Whether it is on free trade, climate change or international security, India’s non-interventionist and multilateral approach is well suited to support and sustain global governance in a multipolar world: the new reality of this century.

Finally, India must incubate a new social contract between its own state, industry and civil society. At the turn of the century, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee lamented that India’s democratic growth was held back by three failures: of the government to heed industry voices, of industry to appreciate the objectives of government, and of both in their commitment to the common individual.

Nearly two decades later, the imperative for India to correct these failures is even greater. The spread of information communication technologies and global supply chains implies that businesses and civil society must be made equal stakeholders if India is to develop its own unique consensus. Not only will this add greater legitimacy to India’s proposition, it will also create natural and grassroots champions for the country around the world.

For the first time since the end of the Second World War, a nation state that is wary of hegemonic tendencies and identifies itself with the equitable governance of the global commons is in a position to shape the international order. India is home to one-sixth of the global population and has sustained a unique democratic ethos and a foreign policy that is defined not only by national interest but also by solidarity with the developing world.

As a leading power, India must look beyond raw indexes of economic, political and military might, and craft a consensus that is consistent with its ancient and historic view of the world.

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Essay On World Orders

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Resource Description

This was my HSC, trial and assessment essay for World Order. It got 23/25 in the first assessment, then after improvements it got 25/25 in both trials and HSC. Focuses on the case studies of the South China Sea, nuclear threat and international humanitarian law.

World order refers to the way global events are influenced by the activities and relationships between nation states and significant non-state actors. Various legal and non-legal responses exist to help the international community deal with regional and global threats by promoting cooperation, compliance and multilateralism between states. While responses such as the United Nations, international instruments and non-government organisations (NGOs) have been somewhat effective in promoting and maintaining world order, their effectiveness has been limited by state sovereignty and the non-compliance of states. This somewhat effective nature is highlighted in the world order issues of the South China Sea, the ongoing nuclear threat, and the role of international humanitarian law.

The ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea (SCS) highlights an issue that continues to threaten world order. The SCS is a critical commercial area for undiscovered resources and an estimated $5 trillion worth of global trade passing through every year. Its lucrative nature has caused tension between China and other countries in the region, particularly with regard to China’s non-compliance towards the sovereignty of the surrounding states.

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Essay on My vision of an ideal world order

September 30, 2019 by Sandeep

If you had the power to model and shape an ideal world order, what would your vision be? In order to envision this, there several more questions to introspect on. What kind of world would we want to live in?

What would that look like? What kinds of activities would be at the forefront of culture? In what areas would the most energy be devoted to? What kind of role models would be best for your ideal world?

Once these questions, among many more, are answered to your satisfaction, you will have a rough idea of what your ideal world order would be. But before that, let us understand what a world order is.

What is World Order?

The definition of a world order is a system controlling events in the world, especially a set of arrangements established internationally for preserving global political stability. It is an international-relations term describing the distribution of power among world powers.

World order as a term can be used both analytically and prescriptively. Both usages serve important purposes in grasping the realities of political life on a global level. Analytically, world order refers to the arrangement of power and authority that provides the framework for the conduct of diplomacy and world politics on a global scale.

Prescriptively, world order refers to a preferred arrangement of power and authority that is associated with the realisation of such values as peace, economic growth and equity, human rights, and environmental quality and sustainability. This essay is in reference to world order prescriptively.

My Ideal World Order

My ideal world order would contain several different aspects, some similar to the current world, while others from a completely different perspective. Here are some of the changes I envision in an ideal world.

Energy Utilisation

We all know that due to climate change, or rather, the climate catastrophe, we have only twelve years to save our Earth. It has occurred to me quite often that one of the main reasons for global warming is the over utilization of resources for energy. Scientists are already working on ways to use solar energy to generate electricity.

In my ideal world order, the world would run using the help of a Dyson sphere. A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical mega structure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. In this way, the pollution output rate would fall massively, global warming would decrease, and the world would be a much better place to live in.

World Equality

In my world order, men & women would be considered as equal. Members of the LGBTQ community would be treated as equals. Racism would never be even thought of. There would be no poor and rich difference, but not with communism. No discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, sexual preferences, colour, caste, religion, or opinions would exist.

Every individual would be expected and by social presence adhere to a moral code of conduct, which would include respecting each other, respecting the law, adhering to the law, minding one’s manners in both public & private life. This sort of equality would promote justice and indirectly would improve the law and order situation to its best.

If we could avoid the discrimination, we can avoid the tag of under-developed, developing and developed countries; as each and every country will come upfront to help each other with their requirements in a mutual understanding.

Education System

In my ideal world, there would be little at most to absolutely no resemblance to the current education system. The grading system would be completely abolished. Fishes would be taught to swim as well as they can, monkeys would be taught to climb trees, lions to roar and catch prey, deer to graze and hide from lions.

Elephants would learn to use their trunks to the best of their abilities, squirrels to differentiate between good nuts and bad ones, birds to fly as high as their wings allow, the flightless ones to walk/swim as much as they can. To sum it up, each one would be taught to harbour their own talent and work on that to make it the best they can.

Of course, I don’t mean to say that in an ideal world, we will be educating animals; these animals are simply in reference to differently abled human beings.

Another point under education is that it would be completely free. A school in Assam has begun accepting one small bag of plastic waste as a school fee. The waste collected is then either reused or recycled. Imagine if all the schools and universities used this method!

Our world would be so spotlessly clean, children at a young age would learn how easy it is to reduce wastage and plastic, and parents would not have to go into debts simply to afford good education for their children.

Student debts would also considerably go down, which in my opinion, is an amazing thing. Many students even now are burdened by heavy tuition fee. How nice it would be to unload that burden from their backs!

A Peaceful Existence

In my ideal world order, there would be absolutely no terrorism or war at all. Governments would want only the best for their respective countries – not just to make their nation a superpower, but rather to ensure the welfare of their citizens. All countries would be friendly with each other, with no hostility, disagreements or anger.

Armies would be smaller and digital protection on LoC would be higher. Governments of different countries would be expected to maintain peace, encourage fair & free trade, and cut the beginning of any terrorist seeds at the bud itself.

The world will have deep-rooted respect and pride for the soldiers who sacrifice their personal life to safe-guard the country. A terror free world will also promote tourism and merry amongst the masses who could travel to any part of the country without any fear.

Although people would still be allowed to follow the religion and faith they chose, there would be no fights or trifles among devotees of different religions. Everyone would strictly follow a policy of ‘Live and let Live’.

Addiction Control

Another great hit would be on the addiction forming substances. I would not increase the taxes on alcohol & tobacco products each year, as the government does now to reduce addictions; rather I would completely close down the industries producing these products along with any drug related activities.

This would help a lot many families from getting shattered. Despite of the known health hazards, these addiction forming substances lure the trade industry with their high margin and revenue generation for any country.

My vision is more confined to the general well-being of the human beings with respect to their health, with is undoubtedly much more important than the wealth. In addition, we would form more rehab centres which are verified to help patients overcome addictions and cure themselves.

There are also other ways to get the same feeling as these drugs give, but in a helpful way. Researcher have found several spots in the fore brain, especially in the hypothalamus, which on electrical stimulation, forms a pleasure spot. These stimulation could be given in return for marvellous deeds or for a clean-up drive. This not only motivates people to live their best lives, but also keeps them happier than they could be with drugs.

This is a brief summary of my vision of an ideal world order. The ideal will always be approximate and never exact. However, our vision of an orderly world does not have to remain simply a vision.

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A Guide to the Total Solar Eclipse

By Rivka Galchen

On April 8th, the moon will partly and then entirely block out the sun. The total eclipse will be visible to those in a hundred-and-fifteen-mile-wide sash, called the path of totality, slung from the hip of Sinaloa to the shoulder of Newfoundland. At the path’s midline, the untimely starry sky will last nearly four and a half minutes, and at the edges it will last for a blink. On the ground, the lunacy around total eclipses often has a Lollapalooza feel. Little-known places in the path of totality—Radar Base, Texas; Perryville, Missouri—have been preparing, many of them for years, to accommodate the lawn chairs, soul bands, food trucks, sellers of commemorative pins, and porta-potties. Eclipse viewers seeking solitude may also cause problems: the local government of Mars Hill, Maine, is reminding people that trails on Mt. Katahdin are closed, because it is mud season and therefore dangerous. I have a friend whose feelings and opinions often mirror my own; when I told her a year ago that I had booked an Airbnb in Austin in order to see this eclipse, she looked at me as if I’d announced I was bringing my daughter to a pox party.

Altering plans because of this periodic celestial event has a long tradition, however. On May 28, 585 B.C., according to Herodotus, an eclipse led the Medes and Lydians, after more than five years of war, to become “alike anxious” to come to peace. More than a hundred years before that, the Assyrian royalty of Mesopotamia protected themselves from the ill omen of solar eclipses—and from other celestial signs perceived as threatening—by installing substitute kings and queens for the day. Afterward, the substitutes were usually killed, though in one instance, when the real king died, the stand-in, who had been a gardener, held the throne for decades. More recently, an eclipse on May 29, 1919, enabled measurements that recorded the sun bending the path of light in accordance with, and thus verifying, Einstein’s theory of general relativity .

Any given spot on the Earth witnesses a total solar eclipse about once every three hundred and seventy-five years, on average, but somewhere on the planet witnesses a total solar eclipse about once every eighteen months. In Annie Dillard’s essay “ Total Eclipse ,” she says of a partial solar eclipse that it has the relation to a total one that kissing a man has to marrying him, or that flying in a plane has to falling out of a plane. “Although the one experience precedes the other, it in no way prepares you for it,” she writes. During a partial eclipse, you put on the goofy paper eyeglasses and see the outline of the moon reducing its rival, the sun, to a solar cassava, or slimmer. It’s a cool thing to see, and it maybe hints at human vulnerability, the weirdness of light, the scale and reality of the world beyond our planet. But, even when the moon blocks ninety-nine per cent of the sun, it’s still daylight out. When the moon occludes the whole of the sun, everyday expectations collapse: the temperature quickly drops, the colors of shadows become tinny, day flips to darkness, stars precipitously appear, birds stop chirping, bees head back to their hives, hippos come out for their nightly grazing, and humans shout or hide or study or pray or take measurements until, seconds or minutes later, sunlight, and the familiar world, abruptly returns.

It is complete earthly luck that total eclipses follow such a dramatic procession. Our moon, which is about four hundred times less wide than our sun, is also about four hundred times closer to us. For this reason, when the Earth, moon, and sun align with one another, our moon conceals our sun precisely, like a cap over a lens. (I stress “our moon” because other moons around other planets, including planets that orbit other stars, have eclipses that almost certainly don’t line up so nicely.) If our moon were smaller or farther away, or our sun larger or nearer, our sun would never be totally eclipsed. Conversely, if our moon were larger or closer (or our sun smaller or farther away) then our sun would be wholly eclipsed—but we would miss an ecliptic revelation. During totality, a thin circle of brightness rings the moon. Johannes Kepler thought that the circle was the illumination of the atmosphere of the moon, but we now know that the moon has next to no atmosphere and that the bright circle (the corona) is the outermost part of the atmosphere of the sun . A million times less bright than the sun itself, the corona is visible (without a special telescope) only during an eclipse. If we’re judging by images and reports, the corona looks like a fiery halo. I have never seen the sun’s corona. The first total solar eclipse I’ll witness will be this one.

The physicist Frank Close saw a partial eclipse on a bright day in Peterborough, England, in June, 1954, at the age of eight. Close’s science teacher, using cricket and soccer balls to represent the moon and the sun, explained the shadows cast by the moon; Close attributes his life in science to this experience. The teacher also told the class that, forty-five years into the future, there would be a total eclipse visible from England, and Close resolved to see it. That day turned out to be overcast, so the moon-eclipsed sun wasn’t visible—but Close described seeing what felt to him like a vision of the Apocalypse, with a “tsunami of darkness rushing towards me . . . as if a black cloak had been cast over everything” and then the clouds over the sun dispersing briefly when totality was nearly over. Close has since seen six more eclipses and written two books about them, the first a memoir of “chasing” eclipses (“ Eclipse: Journeys to the Dark Side of the Moon ”) and the second a general explainer (“ Eclipses: What Everyone Needs to Know ”).

“I’ve tried to describe each of the eclipses I’ve seen, and I do describe them, but it’s not really describable. There’s no natural phenomenon to compare it to,” he told me recently. Describing an eclipse to someone who hasn’t seen one is like trying to describe the Beatles’ “Good Day Sunshine” to someone who has never heard music, he said. “You can describe notes, frequencies of vibration, but we all know that’s missing the whole thing.” Total eclipses are also close to impossible to film in any meaningful way. The light level plummets, which your eye can process in a way that, say, your mobile phone can’t.

In the half hour or so before totality, as the moon makes its progress across the circle of the sun, colors shift to hues of red and brown. (Dillard, a magus of describing the indescribable, writes that people looked to her as though they were in “a faded color print of a movie filmed in the Middle Ages”—the faces seemed to be those of people now dead, which made her miss her own century, and the people she knew, and the real light of day.) As more of the sun is covered, its light reaches us less directly. “Much of the light that you will be getting is light that has been scattered by the atmosphere from ten to twenty miles away,” Close said. Thus the color shift.

He showed me the equipment that he has used to watch six eclipses: a piece of cardboard about the size of an LP sleeve, with a square cut out of the middle, covered by dark glass. “I used gaffer tape to affix a piece of welder’s glass,” he said. There are small holes at the edge of the board, so he can see how shadows change as the moon eclipses more, and then less, of the sun. When sunlight comes from a crescent rather than from a circle, shadows become elongated along one axis and narrowed along another. “If you spread out your fingers, and look at the shadow of your hand, your fingers will look crablike, as if they have claws on them,” Close said.

Each eclipse Close has seen has been distinct. On a boat in the South Seas, the moon appeared more greenish black than black, “because of reflected light from the water,” he said. In the Sahara, the millions of square miles of sand acted as a mirror, so it was less dark, and Close could see earthshine making the formations on the moon’s surface visible. At another eclipse, he found himself focussed on the appearance of the light of the sun as it really is: white. “We think of it as yellow, but of course that’s just atmospheric scattering, the same mechanism that makes the sky appear blue,” he said. When he travelled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with his family, in 2017, his seven-year-old grandson said, half a minute before totality, that the asphalt road was “moving.” “It was these subtle bands of darker and lighter, moving along at walking pace. The effect it gave to your eye was that you thought the pavement was rippling,” Close said. He had never seen that before.

The moon doesn’t emit light; it only reflects it, like a mirror. In Oscar Wilde’s play “ Salomé ,” each character sees in the moon something of what he fears, or desires. The etymology of “eclipse” connects to the Greek word for failure, and for leaving, for abandonment. In Chinese, the word for eclipse comes from the term that also means “to eat,” likely a reference to the millennia-old description of solar eclipses happening when a dragon consumes the sun. If the moon is a mirror, then the moon during a solar eclipse is a dark and magic mirror.

A Hindu myth explains eclipses through the story of Svabhanu, who steals a sip of the nectar of the gods. The Sun and the Moon tell Vishnu, one of the most powerful of the gods. Vishnu decapitates Svabhanu, but not before he can swallow the sip of nectar. The nectar has made his head, now called Rahu, immortal. As revenge, Rahu periodically eats the Sun—creating eclipses. But, his throat being cut, he can’t swallow the Sun, so it reëmerges again and again. Rahu is in the wrong, obviously, but in ancient representations of him he is often grinning. To me, he looks mischievous rather than frightening.

The first story I can remember reading that featured an eclipse is Mark Twain’s “ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court .” The wizard Merlin imprisons an engineer named Hank Morgan, who has accidentally travelled from nineteenth-century America to sixth-century Camelot. Morgan, a man who dresses and acts strangely for the sixth century, finds himself, as one would, sentenced to be burned at the stake. But he gets out of it—by convincing others that he is the cause of an eclipse that he knew would occur. As seems only natural for a beloved American story, it’s the (man from the) future that wins this particular standoff, over the ancient ways of Merlin.

To Close, the beginning of an eclipse feels like “a curtains-up statement from the heavens: Science works. Come back in an hour.” He finds it particularly moving that someone, using only measurements and reason, and the laws of celestial motion, could have predicted the April 8th eclipse down to the minute, maybe to the second. The eclipse that surprised the warring Medes and Lydians into peace may not have been a surprise to all; it is said to have been predicted by Thales of Miletus.

I asked Close if he’d ever met someone on his eclipse journeys who wasn’t much impressed. He said no. Still, it’s possible that I and my mirror friend both have the right intuition about this experience we’ve never had. In the last chapter of Roberto Bolaño’s novella “French Comedy of Horrors,” the young narrator witnesses an eclipse while at a soda fountain with his friends; he also witnesses the people around him witnessing the eclipse, including a couple doing a dance “that was somehow anachronistic but at the same time terrifying.” On his way home, he answers a ringing pay phone and finds himself in a lengthy conversation with a stranger who claims to be a member of the Clandestine Surrealist Group, writers living in Paris’s sewer system. The stranger invites the narrator (who wants desperately to be a poet) to join them, at an appointed time and place, months into the future—but says that they can’t pay for his ticket.

His whole eclipse day is banal (soda fountain, pay phone, the price of things) but also tempting, literally surreal, and like a dream. When our hero finally makes it home, at dawn, he sees Achille, the local drunk. Achille tells him that “the eclipse thing wasn’t such a big deal and that people were always getting excited about nothing. In his opinion, true and incredible things happened in the sky every day.” Nature’s everyday wonders might be the more clandestine ones. ♦

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What Solar Eclipse-Gazing Has Looked Like for the Past 2 Centuries

Millions of people on Monday will continue the tradition of experiencing and capturing solar eclipses, a pursuit that has spawned a lot of unusual gear.

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By Sarah Eckinger

• April 8, 2024

For centuries, people have been clamoring to glimpse solar eclipses. From astronomers with custom-built photographic equipment to groups huddled together with special glasses, this spectacle has captivated the human imagination.

Creating a Permanent Record

In 1860, Warren de la Rue captured what many sources describe as the first photograph of a total solar eclipse . He took it in Rivabellosa, Spain, with an instrument known as the Kew Photoheliograph . This combination of a telescope and camera was specifically built to photograph the sun.

Forty years later, Nevil Maskelyne, a magician and an astronomy enthusiast, filmed a total solar eclipse in North Carolina. The footage was lost, however, and only released in 2019 after it was rediscovered in the Royal Astronomical Society’s archives.

Telescopic Vision

For scientists and astronomers, eclipses provide an opportunity not only to view the moon’s umbra and gaze at the sun’s corona, but also to make observations that further their studies. Many observatories, or friendly neighbors with a telescope, also make their instruments available to the public during eclipses.

Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen, Fridtjof Nansen and Sigurd Scott Hansen observing a solar eclipse while on a polar expedition in 1894 .

Women from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and their professor tested out equipment ahead of their eclipse trip (to “catch old Sol in the act,” as the original New York Times article phrased it) to New London, Conn., in 1922.

A group from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania traveled to Yerbaniz, Mexico, in 1923, with telescopes and a 65-foot camera to observe the sun’s corona .

Dr. J.J. Nassau, director of the Warner and Swasey Observatory at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, prepared to head to Douglas Hill, Maine, to study an eclipse in 1932. An entire freight car was required to transport the institution’s equipment.

Visitors viewed a solar eclipse at an observatory in Berlin in the mid-1930s.

A family set up two telescopes in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1963. The two children placed stones on the base to help steady them.

An astronomer examined equipment for an eclipse in a desert in Mauritania in June 1973. We credit the hot climate for his choice in outfit.

Indirect Light

If you see people on Monday sprinting to your local park clutching pieces of paper, or with a cardboard box of their head, they are probably planning to reflect or project images of the solar eclipse onto a surface.

Cynthia Goulakos demonstrated a safe way to view a solar eclipse , with two pieces of cardboard to create a reflection of the shadowed sun, in Lowell, Mass., in 1970.

Another popular option is to create a pinhole camera. This woman did so in Central Park in 1963 by using a paper cup with a small hole in the bottom and a twin-lens reflex camera.

Amateur astronomers viewed a partial eclipse, projected from a telescope onto a screen, from atop the Empire State Building in 1967 .

Back in Central Park, in 1970, Irving Schwartz and his wife reflected an eclipse onto a piece of paper by holding binoculars on the edge of a garbage basket.

Children in Denver in 1979 used cardboard viewing boxes and pieces of paper with small pinholes to view projections of a partial eclipse.

A crowd gathered around a basin of water dyed with dark ink, waiting for the reflection of a solar eclipse to appear, in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1995.

Staring at the Sun (or, How Not to Burn Your Retinas)

Eclipse-gazers have used different methods to protect their eyes throughout the years, some safer than others .

In 1927, women gathered at a window in a building in London to watch a total eclipse through smoked glass. This was popularized in France in the 1700s , but fell out of favor when physicians began writing papers on children whose vision was damaged.

Another trend was to use a strip of exposed photographic film, as seen below in Sydney, Australia, in 1948 and in Turkana, Kenya, in 1963. This method, which was even suggested by The Times in 1979 , has since been declared unsafe.

Solar eclipse glasses are a popular and safe way to view the event ( if you use models compliant with international safety standards ). Over the years there have been various styles, including these large hand-held options found in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1979.

Parents and children watched a partial eclipse through their eclipse glasses in Tokyo in 1981.

Slimmer, more colorful options were used in Nabusimake, Colombia, in 1998.

In France in 1999.

And in Iran and England in 1999.

And the best way to see the eclipse? With family and friends at a watch party, like this one in Isalo National Park in Madagascar in 2001.

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Indian government ordered killings in Pakistan, intelligence officials claim

Allegations of up to 20 assassinations since 2020 follow Canada’s accusation of Delhi role in murders of dissidents

The Indian government assassinated individuals in Pakistan as part of a wider strategy to eliminate terrorists living on foreign soil, according to Indian and Pakistani intelligence operatives who spoke to the Guardian.

Interviews with intelligence officials in both countries, as well as documents shared by Pakistani investigators, shed new light on how India’s foreign intelligence agency allegedly began to carry out assassinations abroad as part of an emboldened approach to national security after 2019. The agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (Raw), is directly controlled by the office of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who is running for a third term in office in elections later this month.

The accounts appear to give further weight to allegations that Delhi has implemented a policy of targeting those it considers hostile to India. While the new allegations refer to individuals charged with serious and violent terror offences, India has also been accused publicly by Washington and Ottawa of involvement in the murders of dissident figures including a Sikh activist in Canada and of a botched assassination attempt on another Sikh in the US last year.

The fresh claims relate to almost 20 killings since 2020, carried out by unknown gunmen in Pakistan. While India has previously been unofficially linked to the deaths, this is the first time Indian intelligence personnel have discussed the alleged operations in Pakistan, and detailed documentation has been seen alleging Raw’s direct involvement in the assassinations.

The allegations also suggest that Sikh separatists in the Khalistan movement were targeted as part of these Indian foreign operations, both in Pakistan and the west.

According to Pakistani investigators, these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper-cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates. The rise in killings in 2023 was credited to the increased activity of these cells, which are accused of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations. Indian agents also allegedly recruited jihadists to carry out the shootings, making them believe they were killing “infidels”.

According to two Indian intelligence officers, the spy agency’s shift to focusing on dissidents abroad was triggered by the Pulwama attack in 2019 , when a suicide bomber targeted a military convoy in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 40 paramilitary personnel. The Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility.

Modi was running for a second term at the time and was brought back to power in the aftermath of the attack.

“After Pulwama, the approach changed to target the elements outside the country before they are able to launch an attack or create any disturbance,” one Indian intelligence operative said. “We could not stop the attacks because ultimately their safe havens were in Pakistan, so we had to get to the source.”

To conduct such operations “needed approval from the highest level of government”, he added.

The officer said India had drawn inspiration from intelligence agencies such as Israel’s the Mossad and Russia’s KGB, which have been linked to extrajudicial killings on foreign soil. He also said the killing of the Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in 2018 in the Saudi embassy, had been directly cited by Raw officials.

“It was a few months after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi that there was a debate among the top brass of intelligence in the prime minister’s office about how something can be learned from the case. One senior officer said in a meeting that if Saudis can do this, why not us?” he recounted.

“What the Saudis did was very effective. You not only get rid of your enemy but send a chilling message, a warning to the people working against you. Every intelligence agency has been doing this. Our country cannot be strong without exerting power over our enemies.”

Senior officials from two separate Pakistani intelligence agencies said they suspected India’s involvement in up to 20 killings since 2020. They pointed to evidence relating to previously undisclosed inquiries into seven of the cases – including witness testimonies, arrest records, financial statements, WhatsApp messages and passports – which investigators say showcase in detail the operations conducted by Indian spies to assassinate targets on Pakistani soil. The Guardian has seen the documents but they could not be independently verified.

The intelligence sources claimed that targeted assassinations increased significantly in 2023, accusing India of involvement in the suspected deaths of about 15 people, most of whom were shot at close range by unknown gunmen.

In a response to the Guardian, India’s ministry of external affairs denied all the allegations, reiterating an earlier statement that they were “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”. The ministry emphasised a previous denial made by India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, that targeted killings in other countries were “not the government of India’s policy”.

In the killing of Zahid Akhund , an alias for the convicted Kashmiri terrorist Zahoor Mistry who was involved in the deadly hijacking of an Air India flight, the Pakistani documents say a Raw handler allegedly paid for information on Akhund’s movements and location over a period of months. She then allegedly contacted him directly, pretending to be a journalist who wanted to interview a terrorist, in order to confirm his identity.

“Are you Zahid? I am a journalist from the New York Post,” read messages in the dossier shown to the Guardian. Zahid is said to have responded: “For what u r messaging me?”

Millions of rupees were then allegedly paid to Afghan nationals to carry out the shooting in Karachi in March 2022. They fled over the border but their handlers were later arrested by Pakistani security agencies .

According to the evidence gathered by Pakistan, the killings were regularly coordinated out of the UAE, where Raw established sleeper cells that would separately arrange different parts of the operation and recruit the killers.

Investigators alleged that millions of rupees would often be paid to criminals or impoverished locals to carry out the murders, with documents claiming that payments were mostly done via Dubai. Meetings of Raw handlers overseeing the killings are also said to have taken also place in Nepal, the Maldives and Mauritius.

“This policy of Indian agents organising killings in Pakistan hasn’t been developed overnight,” said a Pakistani official. “We believe they have worked for around two years to establish these sleeper cells in the UAE who are mostly organising the executions. After that, we began witnessing many killings.”

In the case of Shahid Latif , the commander of Jaish-e-Mohammed and one of India’s most notorious militants, several attempts were allegedly made to kill him. In the end, the documents claim, it was an illiterate 20-year-old Pakistani who carried out the assassination in Pakistan in October, allegedly recruited by Raw in the UAE, where he was working for a minimal salary in an Amazon packing warehouse.

Pakistani investigators found that the man had allegedly been paid 1.5m Pakistani rupees (£4,000) by an undercover Indian agent to track down Latif and later was promised 15m Pakistani rupees and his own catering company in the UAE if he carried out the killing. The young man shot Latif dead in a mosque in Sialkot but was arrested soon after, along with accomplices.

The killings of Bashir Ahmad Peer , commander of the militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen, and Saleem Rehmani, who was on India’s most-wanted list, were also allegedly planned out of the UAE, with transaction receipts from Dubai appearing to show payments of millions of rupees to the killers. Rehmani’s death had previously been reported as the result of a suspected armed robbery .

Analysts believe Pakistani authorities have been reluctant to publicly acknowledge the killings as most of the targets are known terrorists and associates of outlawed militant groups that Islamabad has long denied sheltering.

In most cases, public information about their deaths has been scant. However, Pakistani agencies showed evidence they had conducted investigations and arrests behind closed doors.

The figures given to the Guardian match up with those collated by analysts who have been tracking unclaimed militant killings in Pakistan. Ajay Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in Delhi, said his organisation had documented 20 suspicious fatalities in Pakistan by unknown attackers since 2020, though two had been claimed by local militant groups. He emphasised that because of Pakistan’s refusal to publicly investigate the cases – or even acknowledge that these individuals had been living in their jurisdiction – “we have no way of knowing the cause”.

“If you look at the numbers, there is clearly a shift in intent by someone or other,” said Sahni. “It would be in Pakistan’s interest to say this has been done by India. Equally, one of the legitimate lines of inquiry would be possible involvement of the Indian agencies.”

Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi, publicly acknowledged two of the killings in a press conference in January, where he accused India of carrying out a “sophisticated and sinister” campaign of “extraterritorial and extrajudicial killings” in Pakistan.

Islamabad’s accusations were met with scepticism by others, due to the longstanding animosity between the two neighbouring countries who have gone to war four times and have often made unsubstantiated accusations against the other.

For decades India has accused Pakistan of bankrolling a violent militant insurgency in the disputed region of Indian-administered Kashmir and of giving a safe haven to terrorists. In the early 2000s, India was hit by successive terrorist attacks orchestrated by Pakistan-based Islamist militant groups, including the 2006 Mumbai train blasts , which killed more than 160 people, and the 2008 Mumbai bombings , which killed 172 people.

Both countries are known to have carried out cross-border intelligence operations, including small bomb blasts. However, analysts and Pakistani officials described the alleged systematic targeted killings of dissidents by Indian agents on Pakistani soil since 2020 as “new and unprecedented”.

The majority of those allegedly killed by Raw in Pakistan in the past three years have been individuals associated with militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and in several cases have convictions or proven links to some of India’s deadliest terrorist incidents, which have killed hundreds of people. Others were seen to be “handlers” of Kashmiri militants who helped coordinate attacks and spread information from afar.

According to one of the Indian intelligence officers, the Pulwama attack in 2019 prompted fears that militant groups in Pakistan were planning a repeat of attacks such as the 2008 Mumbai bombings.

“The previous approach had been to foil terrorist attacks,” he said. “But while we were able to make significant progress in bringing the terrorist numbers down in Kashmir, the problem was the handlers in Pakistan. We could not just wait for another Mumbai or an attack on parliament when we are aware that the planners were still operating in Pakistan.”

In September, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, told parliament there were “credible allegations” that Indian agents had orchestrated the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist who was gunned down in Vancouver. Weeks later, the US Department of Justice released an indictment vividly detailing how an Indian agent had attempted to recruit a hitman in New York to kill another Sikh activist, later named as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Both men had been major advocates of the Khalistan movement , which seeks to create an independent Sikh state and is illegal in India. India denied any involvement in the killing of Nijjar, while according to a recent report , India’s own investigation into the Pannun plot concluded that it had been carried out by a rogue agent who was no longer working for Raw.

According to one Indian intelligence official, Delhi recently ordered the suspension of targeted killings in Pakistan after Canada and the US went public with their allegations. No suspicious killings have taken place so far this year.

Two Indian operatives separately confirmed that diaspora Khalistani activists had become a focus of India’s foreign operations after hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly Sikhs from Punjab, descended on Delhi to protest against new farm laws. The protest ultimately forced the government into a rare policy U-turn, which was seen as an embarrassment .

The suspicion in Delhi was that firebrand Sikh activists living abroad, particularly those in Canada, the US and the UK, were fuelling the farmers’ protests and stirring up international support through their strong global networks. It stoked fears that these activists could be a destabilising force and were capable of reviving Khalistani militancy in India.

“Places were raided and people were arrested in Punjab, but things were actually being controlled from places like Canada,” said one of the Indian intelligence operatives. “Like other intelligence agencies, we had to deal with it.”

In the UK, Sikhs in the West Midlands were issued “threat to life” warnings, amid growing concern about the safety of separatist campaigners who Sikhs claim are being targeted by the Indian government.

Before the US and Canadian cases, a high-profile Khalistani leader, Paramjit Singh Panjwar , was shot dead in Lahore last May. Pakistani investigators claimed they had warned Panjwar that his life was in danger a month before he was killed and said another Khalistani activist living in Pakistan has also faced threats to his life.

Panjwar’s assassination is among those alleged to have been carried out by Indian operatives using what Pakistani agencies described as the “religious method”. According to the documents, Indian agents used social media to infiltrate networks of Islamic State (IS) and units connected to the Taliban, where they recruited and groomed Pakistani Islamist radicals to carry out hit jobs on Indian dissidents by telling them they were carrying out “sacred killings” of “infidels”.

These agents allegedly sought help from former IS fighters from the Indian state of Kerala – who had travelled to Afghanistan to fight for IS but surrendered after 2019 and were brought back through diplomatic channels – to get access to these jihadist networks.

According to an investigation by the Pakistani agencies, Panjwar’s killer, who was later caught, allegedly thought he was working on the instructions of the Pakistan Taliban affiliate Badri 313 Battalion and had to prove himself by killing an enemy of Islam.

The killing of Riyaz Ahmad , a top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, in September last year was allegedly carried out by Raw in a similar manner. His killer, Pakistan believes, was recruited through a Telegram channel for those who wanted to fight for IS, and which had been infiltrated by Raw agents.

They have claimed the assassin was Muhammad Abdullah, a 20-year-old from Lahore. He allegedly told Pakistani investigators he was promised he would be sent to Afghanistan to fight for IS if he passed the test of killing an “infidel” in Pakistan, with Ahmed presented as the target. Abdullah shot and killed Ahmed during early morning prayers at a mosque in Rawalkot, but was later arrested by Pakistani authorities.

Walter Ladwig, a political scientist at King’s College London, said the alleged shift in strategy was in line with Modi’s more aggressive approach to foreign policy and that just as western states have been accused of extrajudicial killings abroad in the name of national security, there were those in Delhi who felt “India reserves the right to do the same”.

Daniel Markey, a senior adviser on south Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, said: “In terms of India’s involvement, it all kind of adds up. It’s utterly consistent with this framing of India having arrived on the world stage. Being willing to take this kind of action against perceived threats has been interpreted, at least by some Indians, as a marker of great power status.”

The allegations of extrajudicial killings, which would violate international law, could raise difficult questions for western countries that have pursued an increasingly close strategic and economic relationship with Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government, including pushing for intelligence-sharing agreements.

A former senior Raw official who served before Modi’s premiership denied that extrajudicial killings were part of the agency’s remit. He confirmed that nothing would be done without the knowledge of the national security adviser, who would then report it to the prime minister, and on occasion they would report directly to the prime minister. “I could not do anything without their approval,” he said.

The former Raw official claimed that the killings were more likely to have been carried out by Pakistan themselves, a view that has been echoed by others in India.

Pakistani agencies denied this, pointing to a list of more than two dozen dissidents living in Pakistan to whom they had recently issued direct warnings of threats to their lives and instructed them to go into hiding. Three individuals in Pakistan said they had been given these warnings. They claimed others who had not heeded the threats and continued their normal routines were now dead.

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