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 has returned to Europe, conflict continues to engulf the Middle East, and great-power competition is reshaping international relations. Beneath these shocks lie deeper structural shifts: democratic backsliding, institutional paralysis, and the growing power of big corporations and big tech, while the post-1945 international order is losing legitimacy and coherence.
This lecture argues that making sense of the present requires returning to how and why that order was built, and by whom. Political agency, then as now, was key. Those “present at the creation” after 1945 were driven by a conviction of “never again world war”, anchoring multilateralism, internationalism, and interdependence in institutions such as the UN, Bretton Woods, NATO, the European Project, and the CSCE. Yet the seemingly peaceful transformation of 1989–91, with all the talk about “the end of history”, obscured a deeper duality between the “post-Square” and “post-Wall” trajectories, as China and Russia followed divergent paths towards authoritarian capitalism.
Today, leaders differ not merely over interests, but over what global order should look like. We are living through a rupture shaped by Putin, Xi, and Trump, each advancing very different conceptions of order. As great-power thinking returns, Europe faces a defining question: how can it advance its common enterprise while safeguarding peace, stability, prosperity, and open democratic societies?
Meet our Speakers & Chair
Kristina Spohr is a Professor at the Department of International History, LSE. She 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.
Panayotis Tsakonas is Professor of International Relations, Security Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). He is also Director of the Institute of Migration and Diaspora Studies and Head of the Programme on Security and Foreign Policy at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Professor Tsakonas has held research positions at several leading academic institutions, including Harvard University (1998–1999), Yale University (2003), and the University of Oxford (2015). He has also served as an Advisor to the Greek Ministry of National Defence (1996–1998) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1999–2003), as well as President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Security Studies (KE.ME.A.) (2016–2019). His research and publications—including books, monographs, chapters in edited volumes, and articles in peer-reviewed academic journals—have appeared in Greek, English, German, French, and Italian. His research interests focus on the evolution of international cooperation, regional security, crisis management, the resolution of interstate disputes, and Greece’s grand strategy.
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 was organised by the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics from 2014 to 2021. The series was relaunched in 2025 as a joint initiative of the LSE Centre for Research on Contemporary Greece & Cyprus (Hellenic Observatory), the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, and the MSc Programme in Financial Technology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Following a highly successful relaunch, the series continues in 2026/27 with an exciting programme of lectures and discussions bringing leading academics, policymakers, and practitioners together to address some of the most pressing issues facing Greece, Cyprus, Europe and the wider international community.
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