Rethinking International Relations in Times of Global Transformation
A special issue of World (ISSN 2673-4060). This special issue belongs to the section "Inclusive and Regenerative Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 December 2026 | Viewed by 112
Special Issue Editors
Interests: international relations; international law; global governance; conflict and security; IR theory; political theory
2. School of Business and Economics, Metropolitan College, 10672 Athens, Greece
Interests: AI; technology and society; global politics; politics of emerging technologies; AI governance and global regulatory frameworks; organisational behaviour; sustainability; liminal spaces
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Contemporary global politics is undergoing significant shifts that challenge established assumptions about international order, authority and cooperation. Large-scale armed conflicts, intensifying geopolitical rivalries, widening global inequalities and the rise in digital and algorithmic governance reveal deep structural tensions within the international system. These developments expose the limits of prevailing theoretical frameworks in International Relations and call for analytical approaches capable of explaining how power configurations, institutional authority and normative structures are evolving in both formal and informal arenas of global governance.
This Special Issue examines how the reconfiguration of political authority unfolds across global, regional and sectoral institutions, including, for example, the UN system, the WTO, the Bretton Woods institutions and regional security or economic bodies. Of particular interest are the shifts from the relatively stable rules-based multilateralism of the post-Cold War period toward increasingly fragmented, contested and plurilateral modes of cooperation, in which authority and legitimacy are redistributed through hybrid institutional forms, ad hoc coalitions and differentiated governance mechanisms.
This Special Issue aims to provide a rigorous and forward-looking assessment of the forces redefining international and societal trajectories in the twenty-first century, tracing how political and legal authority is reconfigured across levels of governance and how these shifts influence broader global dynamics. It aligns closely with the scope of World by examining global challenges, mapping emerging configurations of authority and governance and assessing their implications for human societies across regions. It promotes interdisciplinary scholarship that advances our understanding of international cooperation, conflict, governance, inequality and the future of global order.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to):
- Transformations in global governance and multilateral institutions;
- Geopolitical competition, war and security reconfigurations;
- Digital, algorithmic and technological shifts in global politics;
- Inequalities, power asymmetries and structural hierarchies in world politics;
- Climate change, resource politics and global environmental governance;
- Societal resilience, political transitions and post-conflict futures;
- Comparative and regional perspectives on international order;
- New theoretical approaches in International Relations and global studies.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Konstantina Oikonomou
Dr. Chris Mantas
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. World is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- global transformation
- international relations
- global governance
- geopolitics
- multilateralism
- conflict and security
- normative change
- power and inequality
- global order
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