Conference Program

New academic security dimension has emerged in aegis of contemporary international relations that is configured with economic and social interest realization perspective pursued by some geopolitical actors. Confrontational globalization promotes trend of intercontinental cooperation without developing regional and national interdependence. Moreover, the paper seeks to define content of economic security and economic threat identity and how both are correlating with international security system. It is very interesting to stress that new type of warfare concept is being perceived in conjunction with realization and implementation of economic interests and national interests as whole. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the existing international order underwent fundamental changes. The post-Soviet space has become a place of struggle for political and economic influence of several players: Russia, the West, and later China. Among the main subjects of the game were energy resources, around which political conflicts arose, related to access to them and issues related to the course of transmission routes (crude oil, natural gas). In the theory of international relations, natural resources are considered the second (after space) source of state power. Hence, geoeconomic confrontation between North and South already concentrated in the Eurasia space.

In the last decades, new patterns of world order emerged through the creation of distinct institutions and policy positions by the global political South. While the political West emphasizes democracy, market economy, and universal human rights as guiding principles for international order, the political South prioritises national autonomy, non-intervention in internal affairs and state-permeated economies. Russia's war in Ukraine increases divergences in international order and global governance, since the political South rejects military aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, cultivates a good relationship with Moscow and criticises Western conceptions of world order as paternalistic. Core actors of the Southern World Order (SWO) are the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which created international institutions as alternatives to the Liberal International Order (LIO). These countries, however, did not leave the LIO and continue close economic relations with the West. I argue that this dual track strategy correlates with the plurality of domestic societal forces, which includes ideational and material ties with the West. The paper examines the characteristics of the SWO and employs the societal approach to governmental preference formation to analyse the domestic ideas and interests that shape the dual track policies of Brazil, India, and China.

There has been much talk of a Global South-Global North divide in responses to a war that “Western” states view as a blatant violation of constitutive principles of world order. There is less discussion about this contrast representing a democratic divide. Yet the adoption of a studiously “non-aligned” stance by some of the world’s largest democracies (such as India and Indonesia) throws into question the policy efficacy of framing the war as a struggle between democracy and autocracy, as favoured by the Biden administration. Only by addressing this democratic divide can there be joint North-South progress in countering threats to world order of the sort posed by the war in Ukraine.

The paper highlights the importance of acknowledging affinities in domestic political structures that are obscured in dichotomous generalisations about the Global South and Global North. It outlines possible ways of drawing on those affinities to bridge divides between Global South and Global North democracies on contentious policy issues.

This paper draws on liberal theory regarding the role of state preferences in international relations. As well as questioning the analytical utility of reifying a purported North-South dichotomy in international relations, the paper argues that there are numerous avenues for addressing challenges of cooperation between Global South and Global North democracies.

Transitional justice as a political concept not only changes behavior in successful contemporary peace-building, but more importantly, changes identities and institutional contexts. An introduction to transitional justice is also seen as an international justice mechanism for democratizing a particularly violent political environment. The successful contributions of transitional justice to democratization in Latin America in the mid-1990s, the end of communism in Eastern Europe, and negotiated transitions in South Africa were confirmed. It is in this context that transitional justice in Sri Lanka was introduced in 2015 through the resolution of the UN Human Rights Council under the coercion of the West. Various efforts are being made by national and international actors to implement continuous transitional justice interventions. Nevertheless, it is widely acknowledged that these efforts have so far failed and that Sri Lanka's democratization remains elusive. This, in short, identifies the different challenges of global liberal democratic theory in the countries of the Global South. Transitional justice in Sri Lanka has an ideological foundation. Instead it fails to properly understand the historical, cultural and socio-political uniqueness of Sri Lanka.