As the structures that defined world politics weaken, scholars of International Relations (IR) debate the emergence of a new order, variously called multi-order, multi-plex, or multi-polar. These debates usefully engage important questions about the nature of the international political environment in which leaders and decision makers must seek to advance the needs and interests of their states. However, these debates about international order do neither fully explore the importance and development of national foreign policies in bringing about these new orders and ordering practices, nor do they sufficiently address the role of leaders and decision makers in pushing or steering world politics in specific directions.
Seeking to shed light on these questions, the panel invites papers that take a Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) perspective, which holds that understanding that human decision makers, single or in groups, and the foreign policies they conduct are the foundation of all international interactions. This panel will include papers that engage these questions and that probe the role of national foreign policies and leaders in influencing the shape of the emerging (dis-)order.
Some of the questions we anticipate the papers to address are: What preferences do leaders and decision makers express for the contours of the emerging new order? What developments do they seek to facilitate, minimize, or halt? What sort of foreign policies do states field to address this re-ordering, and how are they patterned across the world? Are the most influential voices those of states or leaders from larger powers? Or does a less structured world offer opportunities for smaller states, alone or in groups, to wield influence in new – and possibly unexpected – ways?
Keywords: global order, Foreign Policy Analysis, crisis, leaders, decision-making, agency
