Changing World Order and Regional Responses

The early 21st century was marked by profound geopolitical transformations that only a few can fully grasp and even fewer understand in terms of their implications for the future. The liberal international order, once taken for granted, is increasingly contested by new power configurations, regional assertiveness, global rise of authoritarianism and alternative governance models. Great power competition, fragmentation, and multipolarity challenge long-standing norms of cooperation, while crises such as Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, tensions in East Asia, renewed competition in the Arctic and instability and wars in the Middle East accelerate the sense of a world in flux. In this shifting context, regional responses become crucial sites for both adaptation and innovation. This Research Topic seeks to explore how global systemic changes reshape regional orders, and how regional actors – whether states, institutions, coalitions, and non-state actors – respond to an uncertain international environment. While much of the existing scholarship focuses on the strategies of major powers, smaller and medium-sized states also act as laboratories of adaptation, resilience, and creativity in world politics. Their strategies shed light on the broader dynamics of order and disorder, and offer important lessons for navigating complexity. Theoretical debates oscillate between realism’s emphasis on power and anarchy, liberalism’s focus on cooperation and institutions, and constructivist insights into the role of norms, identity, and values. Yet these frameworks often remain detached from the realities of smaller regions. To address this gap, we invite contributions that combine theoretical reflection with regional case studies, showing how systemic pressures and local contexts interact. Innovative approaches – drawing from political science, economics, psychology, or even metaphors from physics and mathematics – are welcome to expand the analytical toolkit for studying global order. Approaches challenging conventional boundaries between domestic politics and international affairs are especially encouraged. Potential sub-themes include, but are not limited to: • Conceptual and theoretical innovation: New frameworks for understanding the world order and its regional manifestations; interdisciplinary approaches bridging IR, economics, psychology, and beyond; with a specific emphasis on making syntheses of domestic politics and foreign policy; including innovative theoretic approaches. • Regional strategies and adaptations: How regions such as Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia or Latin America navigate shifting global structures and balance between great powers, including adaptation to global challanges. • Institutions, alliances, and cooperation: The evolving role of regional organizations, multilateral institutions, and security or economic alliances in mitigating systemic uncertainty. • Scenarios and futures of world order: Empirical and theoretical analyses of possible trajectories – multipolarity, bipolarity, hegemonic persistence, or realist anarchy – and their regional consequences. We particularly encourage submissions that highlight Central and Eastern Europe, or the Visegrád countries, and other regions often at the crossroads of global competition, but the call is open to all regional perspectives. Comparative and interdisciplinary studies are especially valued. By bringing together diverse insights, this Research Topic aims to clarify conceptual debates, provide empirical evidence, and offer policy-relevant knowledge. In a time when the future of world order appears increasingly opaque, regional responses may hold the key to understanding and shaping the global order of tomorrow. Topic editors: Peter Rada, Péter Stepper, Ömer Turan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79389/changing-world-order-and-regional-responses