Heterarchy in World Politics

Abstract

Even a cursory review of major world headlines over the past year underscores the highly complex and interdependent nature of world politics. Most states are struggling to deal with high inflation in the aftermath of Covid pandemic disruptions. A major international cryptocurrency exchange collapsed, leaving investors furious and decrying a failure of governance. The war in Ukraine grinds on, but the implications of the struggle for world energy and food markets, as well as Moscow’s capacity to offset the pain of multilateral sanctions illustrates both the scope and depth of global interdependence as well as the influence of transnational networks and alternative power centers willing to condone Russia’s aggression. This complexity presents difficulties for prevailing theoretical approaches to international relations (IR) theory such as realism, institutionalism and constructivism which share the assumption of a unitary state actor but focus on alternative causal factors to explain recurring patterns of state behavior and predict future outcomes under-specified conditions.