'A rupture, not a transition? Scenarios of change in the global ecological and rules-based order' with Prof Steven Bernstein

Chaired by Professor Louise Fawcett, Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Changing Global Orders

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s stark pronouncement in Davos on the “rupture” of the rules-based order captured the sense of many that long-held international norms hold little sway and the practices of major powers are increasingly unpredictable. Yet, change in global order(s) is nothing new. Our current conceptual frameworks risk overstating contemporary change even as they may have missed more subtle, but still significant, changes in global order and governance over the last several decades.

This talk makes the case for analysing international norms, practices, and their interaction to understand processes of change and continuity in global order. It identifies four scenarios of change, with illustrations from aspects of the global ecological, development, and rules-based order.

Steven Bernstein is an Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow for the Programme on Changing Global Orders. He is Distinguished Professor of Global Environmental and Sustainability Governance, Acting Chair of the Graduate Department of Political Science, and Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab, University of Toronto. His research spans the areas of global governance and institutions, global environmental politics, and international political economy. 

He has published several books, most recently ‘Norms, Practices and Social Change in Global Politics’ (Cambridge University Press), and over 90 scholarly articles and book chapters. His current projects investigate transformative policies and initiatives to achieve decarbonisation, coherence and incoherence in global sustainability governance, and change and transformation in international relations and global environmental politics.

For more information and to register, please see the event page at the Oxford Martin School: 'A rupture, not a transition? Scenarios of… | Oxford Martin School