Possibilities of Assessing the Changing Nature of International Politics in the Coming Multi-Order World
Possibilities of Assessing the Changing Nature of International Politics in the Coming Multi-Order World

Summary/Abstract: In her recent, praised and prized paper, ‘The Coming Multi-Order World’,Trine Flockhart has argued that the current international system is moving towards one consisting of several different orders ‘nested within an overall international system’. When he claimed something similar in his book World Order,Henry Kissinger was labeled as a constructivist by some commentators.In Kissinger’s case, these changes are particularly consequential, given that they bring about the unprecedented danger of simultaneous breakup within and across the many orders of today’s world. The author’s intention here is two fold: on the one hand, to examine what are the changes in the very notion of international politics, given the transformation of classical concepts such as interests, identities, sovereignty, legitimacy, conflict and cooperation. On the other hand, and this is the central issue, to look for suitable theoretical frameworks to successfully grasp the changing nature of international politics and the realities of the coming multi-order world. The presumed answer is that the nature of the incoming changes produces the need for more subtle and complex,cross-over theories of international relations. As it is obvious from Kissinger’s example, traditional realist theory and social constructivism seem to converge irresistibly. In that sense, ‘hybrid’ theories such as Barkin’s realist constructivism and ‘liberal realism’ of the English School seem to be gaining on traditional grand theories in regard to their relevance and research potential.

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