A new world (dis)order? Lessons from the past, decisions for the future

We are living through what many now call a poly-crisis: politically, economically, technologically, and culturally. War of conquest returned to Europe with Russia's invasion of Ukraine; the Middle East remains in flames; the United States has unilaterally attacked Iran, has forced regime change in Venezuela, and is threatening to annex Greenland from NATO ally Denmark; and China is steadily extending its reach across the Indo-Pacific through grey-zone tactics and economic coercion. Beneath these shocks lie deeper structural shifts: the growing power of big corporations and big tech, the retreat of democracy, and mounting institutional paralysis. And as the great powers compete for dominance, the legal order that has structured international life since 1945 has lost legitimacy and is visibly coming apart.

This lecture argues that making sense of the present requires returning to how and why that order was first built the way it was, and by whom. Political agency, then as now, was key. Those decision-makers "present at the creation" after 1945 were driven by a shared conviction of "never again world war," one that had emanated from Europe, and anchored it in the UN. Multilateralism, internationalism, and interdependence were the guiding principles for creating peace, stability, and prosperity, at least in the West, with Bretton Woods, NATO, the European Project, and the CSCE as hallmarks of a system that took shape even as the wider world remained divided by East-West conflict. The seemingly peaceful transformation of 1989-91, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, fuelled talk of an "end of history" and of an American unipolar moment. With the other superpower gone, great-power rivalry seemed to give way to globalisation: economic and political liberalisation. That narrative, however, obscured a deeper duality between the "post-Wall" world and the "post-Square" trajectory: in Asia, Tiananmen opened one diverging path for the PRC, while in Russia, revanchism and a stillborn democracy opened another — both revealing the allure of flourishing authoritarian capitalism. In the new millennium, democratic backsliding, post-9/11 American overreach, and, eventually, a Sino-Russian rapprochement fractured what remained of a common Western vision.

Today, this lecture contends, leaders differ not merely over interests, as in the Cold War and post Cold War eras, but over what a global order should even look like. We are living through a rupture actively shaped by Putin, Xi, and Trump, each driven by very conceptions of order.

Not only are great powers back, but so is great-power thinking — fixated on dominance, power projection, and spheres of influence, not self-restraint and respect for international norms and principles. War, kinetic and hybrid alike, has again become an acceptable tool of statecraft, seriously violating the equal right to sovereignty and territorial integrity. For European states and leaders caught at the centre of these shifts — between an uncertain new order or, worse, no order at all, and struggling all the while with their own plurality of visions — the closing question is how they can keep advancing their own common enterprise, and with it, the peace, stability, prosperity, and open democratic societies Europe was built to secure.

Meet our Speakers & Chair

Professor Kristina Spohr is a specialist in the International History of Germany since 1945 and interested in questions of World Order, Diplomacy & Strategy and the practice of Applied History. She is now writing a global history on the Arctic.

Chairs:

Vassilis Monastiriotis is Director of the LSE Centre for Research on Contemporary Greece and Cyprus - Hellenic Observatory, Professor in Political Economy and Eleftherios Venizelos Chair of Contemporary Greek Studies at the European Institute, LSE.

Aristeidis Samitas is Professor of Finance, Vice Rector for Finance and Development, Director of MSc in FinTech and Director of the Financial Investments Lab within the Department of Business Administration at the School of Economics and Political Sciences, University of Athens.

More about this event

The LSE Athens Lectures series has been organised by the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics for the period from 2014 to 2021. The series is relaunched in 2024-25 as a joint initiative of the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, MSc Programme Financial Technology, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and the LSE Centre for Research on Contemporary Greece & Cyprus - Hellenic Observatory. For more information visit: www.lse.ac.uk/HO/Athens-Lectures

Any questions?

You can contact us at Hellenicobservatory@lse.ac.uk

Photography

Photographs are regularly taken at events both by staff and members of the media. Photographs from events taken by Hellenic Observatory staff are often used on our social media accounts and online or printed publications.

Media queries

Please contact the Hellenic Observatory if you would like to request a press seat or have a media query about this event, email Hellenicobservatory@lse.ac.uk.

Podcasts

We aim to make all our events available as a podcast upon receiving permission from the speaker/s to do this, and subject to no technical problems with the recording of the event. Podcasts are normally available 1 week after the event. You can access the podcast and video on each event’s page and on our Podcasts and Videos page.

LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of The London School of Economics and Political Science.

From time to time there are changes to event details so we strongly recommend that if you plan to attend this event you check back on this listing on the day of the event. Whilst we are hosting this listing, LSE Events does not take responsibility for the running and administration of this event. While we take responsible measures to ensure that accurate information is given here (for instance by checking that the room has been booked) this event is ultimately the responsibility of the organisation presenting the event.

LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of the London School of Economics and Political Science.