Who builds world order when the hegemon won't?
The central question is no longer who will lead the world. It is how cooperation can continue when no one reliably does.
For eighty years, the world economy rested on a simple assumption: powerful nations would provide the public goods that allowed everyone to prosper. That assumption is rapidly failing. The United States increasingly treats its alliances and market access as assets to monetise rather than institutions to sustain, while China has yet to convince much of the world that it can provide trusted leadership.
The debate on US-China rivalry therefore is asking the wrong question.
Drawing on economics, international relations, and recent experience from Asia and beyond, Danny Quah proposes a different model of international cooperation. Instead of waiting for great powers to restore the old order, countries with the strongest incentive to preserve stability can build “multilateral-enough” institutions through flexible coalitions, shared incentives, and practical collaboration. Inadvertent cooperation becomes the norm. Agreements such as the CPTPP, RCEP and the WTO’s interim appeal arrangement suggest that effective international rules no longer require universal consensus—or hegemonic permission. Great Power presence and sponsorship are optional.
But if the world's rules will be written by whoever needs them most rather than whoever's biggest, how should the UK navigate this new international landscape?
Meet our speaker
Professor Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His research interests lie in international economic relations, economic growth and development, and income inequality and social mobility. Quah's current projects (1) study the modern practice of economic statecraft, including how to build future multilateralisms; and (2) analyze the impact of fraying multilateralism on economic growth and social mobility.
Discussant
Dr Sichen Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at LSE. From 2024 to 2025, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. She earned her PhD in Political Science from UC San Diego in 2024.
Her research examines the challenges that geopolitics poses to globalisation. She also studies how firms respond to political tensions by adjusting their investment strategies, as well as how the public in the US and China reacts to great power competition.
Chair
Professor John Sidel is Sir Patrick Gillam Chair in International and Comparative Politics (Joint appt: LSE Government & LSE IR) and Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. He is a specialist on Southeast Asia and has conducted extensive research in Indonesia and the Philippines in particular.
More about this event
The Department of International Relations at LSE is now in it's 99th year - one of the oldest as well as largest IR departments in the world, with a truly international reputation. Throughout 2027 we will celebrate our centenary with a series of events and initiatives involving faculty, students, alumni and the public. We are ranked 2nd in the UK and 5th in the world in the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2026 tables for Politics and International Studies.
The Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre (SEAC) is a multidisciplinary, regionally-focused academic centre at LSE. Building on the School's deep academic and historical connections with Southeast Asia, SEAC seeks to foster world-leading academic research focused on the region’s cultural, economic, political, religious, and social landscapes, drawing on the LSE’s signature strengths in the social sciences, history, and law.
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