International Affairs

Abstract China has become a major actor in Latin America. It has increased its influence within the region at an unprecedented pace without facing significant contestation from the United States during most of the first 20 years of the twenty-first century. The US response came during Donald Trump's first administration (2017–2021), when it adopted significant measures to counterbalance against C…

Abstract Amid the reconfiguration of the post-Cold War world order since the mid-2000s, the evolution of the European Union's positioning towards China has been primarily a response to the constraints imposed by the relative decline of US hegemony and episodes of erosion of the transatlantic link, as well as by the growing US–China rivalry. Seeking to elucidate the evolution and implications of t…

Abstract Multiplexity is a promising but underdeveloped concept that describes the shift towards a post-hegemonic global order, which is more decentred, diversified and pluralistic, yet deeply interdependent and increasingly shaped by non-western agency. This article is the first to apply and to reassess the concept of multiplexity in the context of the international space order. Two key argument…

Abstract This article, and the special section in International Affairs it introduces, ask: how can we best read the post-liberal era of world politics? The resurgence of hard power has led many to turn to realism, even as a liberal lens reveals key features of the world we inherited. Meanwhile, diverse state and non-state actors around the globe are (re)asserting their voices in international af…

Balancing pressures: the politics of governing the European economy. By Fabio Franchino and Camilla Mariotto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2025. 274pp. £90.00. Isbn978 1 00959 581 0. Available as e-book.Crisis cycle: challenges, evolution, and future of the euro. By John H Cochrane, Luis Garicano and Klaus Masuch. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2025. 328pp. £30.00. Isbn978 0…

Abstract Beginning with the United States in 2016, more than 70 countries and international organizations have published strategies and policy recommendations for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures. This article locates these policies in the shift from a hierarchical distribution of power to a flatter diffusion of power in which systemic interactions can be top-down, bottom-up or horizo…

Abstract This article acts as a conclusion to the special section in this issue of International Affairs. It draws on the articles included in the special section and the broader research project behind it, which seeks to offer a reading of power and pluralism in the post-liberal era, building on the concept of a ‘multiplex world order’ first introduced in Acharya's 2014 work The end of American …

Abstract Scholarship on multiplex orders has largely focused on the spatial dimensions of multiplexity. This article explores the notion of temporal multiplexity, arguing that global orders also operate through distinct and coexisting temporal regimes. Drawing on and expanding Amitav Acharya's multiplex framework, we theorize how different actors experience, interpret and structure time within in…