Theory, change and the search for epistemological courage in shaping a new world order

Abstract

No matter how narrowly you focus your spatial or temporal lenses, you are bound to catch sight of multiple significant challenges to human community. Many of these challenges are shared, such as Covid-19, though their impacts on individuals and groups are felt unevenly. Some challenges are immediate and existential, such as the wars in Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen. Others, such as race, gender, caste, and class-based inequalities, are deeply embedded in social structures, providing privilege and persecution, and reward and oppression in unequal measures. And climate change, though slower moving, holds out the prospect of leading to total social collapse. How to make sense of these dramatic changes? This essay explores the adequacy of theories of IR and G/IPE in explaining the emergent world (dis)order. It argues that, whether orthodox or critical, theory must find a way to centre humanity within the biosphere if theory is to adequately inform practice.