Security in Context Announces Major Initiative on Future of the Global Order

Security in Context announces major Africa-centered initiative on future of Global Order

Security in Context is pleased to announce a major two-year grant funded initiative examining the future of the Global Order from a Global South perspective, with a primary focus on the African continent. The initiative will be led by Samar Al-Bulushi, a Senior Researcher at Security in Context, and assistant professor of anthropology at University of California Irvine.

In recent years, a growing number of Global South states have sought to address what they perceive as an unequal world order plagued by double standards. This raises new questions about the future of global governance, says Al-Bulushi. “While it is clear that the world is trending toward multipolarity, we still need a deeper understanding of what this will look like concretely,” she says. The primary focus of the work will be on the African continent as a lens through which to understand multipolarity from the “bottom-up,” she says, “as it manifests in regions where external powers are competing for influence yet forced to respond to push back from local politicians, intellectuals, and activists alike.”  

“There has been considerable attention paid to Great Power competition,” says Al-Bulushi, “but the interests and drivers animating elites and other local actors’ behavior in and across the Global South have yet to be adequately considered. This initiative aims to fill this gap.”

The initiative will complement the focus on Africa with comparative analysis from Latin America, and Middle East and the Blue Pacific regions.

The main questions the initiative will aim to address include:

• How do political elites, intellectuals, and activists in different parts of the Global South view the emerging multipolar order, how do these differ from each other and from those in the West?
• What issues do they prioritize and what do they believe needs to change?

Omar Dahi, Director of Security in Context said that "we are very excited to be undertaking this major initiative under Professor Al-Bulushi's leadership and in collaboration with multiple partners across several continents. The initiative advances Security in Context's core mission which is to highlight the priorities in non-Western societies on key global issues such as militarism and warfare, development, and global governance."