After American Hegemony: Navigating a disrupted international order
The conference is organized by the DIST Department, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Torino World Affairs Institute.
Speakers for the Fabio Armao and Davide Pellegrino.
The conference aims to address current topics of international importance within the economic and political landscape.
The end of the American domination has featured in declinist literature on the United States, starting from Keohane’s After Hegemony (1984), followed by Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of Great Powers (1988) to Cooley and Nexon’ Exit from Hegemony (2020) and most recently, Drezner’s End of US Exceptionalism (2024).
The underlying assumption is that now and for the foreseeable future, the US will no longer be what they used to be on the global stage and that the source of relative decline is to be found in domestic conditions. Indeed with the launching of the Iran war, the dismantling and re-ordering of the international political economy and regional security arrangements are already taking shape.
What is the present and future of international relations and global governance in a world in which the US ceases to perform its traditional post-WW2 roles and actively act in a roguish way against values, norms, institutions and allies they used to stand up for?
How are domestic politics informing a populist transnationalist movement in Europe and the rest of the world?
In this changing context can middle powers, as articulated by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney in January 2026, foster an alternative international order and will it still be ‘liberal’?
What impact has the aggressive turn in economic statecraft and military intervention had in informing foreign, economic and security policy approaches in other regions in the world?
These are the questions the conference will seek to answer.
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