Ayse Zarakol: "A new world order is quite possible in which the world will be fragmented and there will be no real order".

Are there precedents for the current international chaos, are we witnessing the decline of Western hegemony, and is a new world order in the making? Ayse Zarakol, an expert in International Relations at Cambridge University, shared her research on these issues and analyzed the current geopolitical instability, marked by chaos, war and violence. In particular, she lamented the role of the West in the current conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and its positioning since, by siding with one side, it has damaged its credibility and commitment to international laws and institutions and, especially, to the global south: "We have lost the skill to propose rules for all, if something is morally wrong in one case, it should be wrong in all".

"This fragmentation and this inability to create an order or policies that can be followed by the majority of countries may be the cause of the current disorder and disorder leads to more violence," he has pointed out.

However, she also explained that this status of disorder is not something new in history and is similar to what happened in the 17th century. "This century is a good point of comparison since there was a long period of disorder, war, rebellions, absolutist leaders, scientific development , even climate change," she pointed out. In this sense, according to the researcher, having a broader view of history allows us to put the present in perspective. Zarakol stated that it was after this period of chaos that the West established its hegemony in the world order.

Possible scenarios

What can we expect from the current status ? "Right now the order created by the Western powers has stopped growing, in fact, it is collapsing," she stressed. The expert has ventured to offer three possible scenarios resulting from the period of disorder we are living today. "A new world order in which the world is fragmented and there is no real order is quite possible," she said. In his opinion, the most viable option is that there is no hegemonic power or order, but rather several separate orders that are able to coexist.

Secondly, other powers may replace the West's place and an order led by Eastern powers may emerge. "This would delight countries like Russia and China but it is not clear that they will be able to reverse the current order," he said.

A last option is the disappearance of any order subject . However, the expert recalled that these are all possibilities that have already been seen in history but none of them can be foreseen with certainty since the Social Sciences cannot predict the future. "Unexpected things can always happen in politics that change history, we could even see the end of the democratic era," she predicted.

Nevertheless, Zarakol preferred to be hopeful: "In the last century, efforts have been made to create a more egalitarian order. Even if the necessary conditions are not in place in today's world, I prefer to believe that a better world is possible."