Security in Context, in collaboration with the Northwestern University Qatar Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South and the Center for Peace and Development at the University of Oklahoma, is issuing a call for papers on the theme of “The Global South in an Era of Great Power Competition.”
We are accepting paper proposals for policy and research papers in the 2,500-3,500 word range. Please submit 400-word abstracts/proposals or completed papers by April 20th, 2023 to: submissions@securityincontext.org The papers will be reviewed by a joint editorial committee between SIC, NUQ_IAS, and OU CPD. The final papers will be published by Security in Context as part of a special publication series on Multipolarity, Great Power Competition, and the Global South. Published papers will receive a modest honorarium. Authors of published articles will be invited to present their papers at a public international conference to be held in October 2023.Travel expenses will be covered.
This initiative will examine the contours of the emerging world order in relationship to the politics of security and insecurity, militarism, and geopolitics. How does Great Power Competition produce insecurity in the Global South? How can we understand the interplay between the agenda of the Big Powers and the agency of middle, rising, and smaller South countries? What do the geopolitics and political economy of multi-polarity look like when viewed from different locations? How are questions of security and insecurity represented differently by Northern and Southern media actors? Who speaks on behalf of vulnerable populations, countries and regions in the Global South? If multinational institutions are increasingly ineffective or being challenged, how will global governance be managed?
Some of the themes the papers can discuss include but are not limited to the following:
- Governance: Who Speaks on Behalf of the Global South?
- Media and Insecurity: Global South Media Representation of Multipolarity
- Impact of Great Power Competition particularly by US, China, Russia on Global South
- Multipolarity and the New South South Relations
Governance: Who Speaks on Behalf of the Global South?
The last twenty years have seen the “Rise of the Rest,” which not only includes China and India, but also the increasing assertiveness of large middle-income countries as well as smaller wealthier countries who are able to project their power on a regional and even global basis. At the same time, the effectiveness of multinational institutions such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization as forums for deliberation and problem solving is being called into question both from the North and the South. This theme will examine these power shifts and their impact on middle income and poorer countries. In the early post-Cold War, the Western powers led the charge towards multilateralism, but as this gives way to multipolarity and regional blocks, how will global governance be managed? The theme will focus in particular on how global governance will manage or respond to the questions of global inequalities (economic; gender; environmental, and others), environmental justice, and militarism and its impacts (destruction and displacement). Who are the main actors? What is the role of Global South civil society, governments, trade unions? Today, large developing countries are increasingly capable of advancing their interests. But what about the rest of the South? How will smaller, poorer countries advance their interests in terms of global economic, social, and environmental policy? What are the prospects for a 21st Century “non-alignment movement” and what kind of benefits might it offer on the economic and social front?
Media and Insecurity: Global South Media Representation of Multipolarity
This theme will examine how media by location and type differs in its approach to questions of global insecurity, particularly as great power competition increases in intensity, as well as what role media is playing to counter militarism, securitization, and global polarization. Does the media in the Global North and Global South differ in its representation of insecurity? In what ways are inequities within the Global South between larger more powerful developing countries and poorer ones reflected in media capacity, coverage, or in a country’s ability to influence media representation? How can the media play a role in facilitating a North-South and South-South dialogue? This theme will also provide a critical perspective on transnational media representations and audience reception of security-related issues, paying special attention to developing countries, which are often silenced in global North and/or mainstream media coverage.
Multipolarity and the New South-South Relations
Following World War II South-South economic relations were viewed by many movements and states in the global South as an alternative to North-South unequal relations. The “Third World” movement of the post-war period attempted to organize the countries of the Global South to advance their common interests. The Third World movement used existing multinational institutions such as the G-77 within the United Nations General Assembly or created parallel forums and institutions such as the Non-Aligned Movement.
More recently however, we have seen a dramatic change in the nature and scope of South-South relations to include economic/financial, humanitarian, social, cultural, security, and other forms of exchange. For example, in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, China has become a major provider of healthcare services and testing kits both for Northern and Southern countries. Some questions to be explored may be: how are the new South-South relations reshaping global economic, finance, and security (cultural, social, etc.) landscape? How are nation-states strategically positioning themselves through new alliances and coalitions? What are the methodological, ethical, and other issues involved in studying these questions? In what ways do today’s South-South relations differ from the “Third World” era?
