International relations and democracy in a multipolar world

Date: 15-16 May 2025
Venue: Research Centre Conference Suite, 9th Floor, Fawcett House, LSE

This two-day conference was organised and sponsored by the LSE Phelan US Centre, and convened by Rohan Mukherjee (LSE Department of International Relations), Luca Tardelli (LSE Department of International Relations), Theresa Squatrito (LSE Department of International Relations), and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (LSE Department of Government).

The US-led international order is under strain from without and within. Authoritarian powers such as Russia and China are challenging the core tenets of global cooperation and conflict management. Rising states of the Global South like India, Brazil, and South Africa demand reformed multilateralism in the institutions of global governance, and the US and its Western allies face a domestic surge of right-wing populism that seeks to reverse the eighty-year-old open and interdependent system of international  relations. At stake is democracy, a core tenet of American political life and foreign policy.

Historically, most international organisations that managed the international global order were grounded in Western democracy, with major waves of decolonisation pushing the international order in democratic directions. Now, the US-led order faces questions about its viability as a domain of democratic discourse and practices, indeed whether it was ever democratic at all, as the decolonised seek greater voice in global governance.

The conference considered how important these democratic discourses and practices are in the broader context of challenges to the US-led international order and the domestic contestation over the future trajectory of US foreign policy.