This book examines the ongoing power transition and its ramifications for world order from an international society perspective. In that perspective, the outcome of big changes in the distribution of power is a matter of socialization rather than structural determination or the resilience of the so-called Liberal world order. Consequently, the key question of this book is how the ongoing power transition affects, and is affected by, the social institutions of world order including sovereignty, the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, trade, humanitarian intervention, national self-determination, and environmental stewardship. The guiding theoretical assumption of the book is that power transition stimulates fundamental institutional change rather than major conflict or a breakdown of international order, while international organizations are key arenas for the realization and negotiation of such changes, not the victims of hegemonic retreat. The argument is pursued in sections on rising and declining powers (Anglo-America, Russia, China and the EU, among others), consequences for the fundamental social institutions and changes in international organizations, globally and regionally. In combination, the chapters reveal the contours of the coming world order.

Tonny Brems Knudsen is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Cornelia Navari is Visiting Professor of International Affairs at the University of Buckingham and Emeritus Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, UK.

1. Power Transition and Institutional Change: Theorizing the New World Order.- Part I. Theoretical Investigations.- 2. Power Transition and World Order: Three Rival Theories and the Dynamics of Change.- 3. International Society and Power as a Social Role.- Part II. Powers.- 4. The End of Anglo-America?.- 5. Russia: Power Transition, Revisionism and Great Power Management.- 6. China, Power Transition, and the Resilience of Pluralist International Society: Beyond Realism and Liberalism.- 7. Power Transition as a Challenge to Normative Power Europe.- Part III. Fundamental Institutions.- 8. Global Power Shifts and International Law.- 9. Culture, Diplomacy and Power Transition.- 10. Liberalism, Democracy and Power Shift.- 11. Humanitarian Intervention and Great Power Management in a Post-Hegemonic World Order.- Part IV. Organizations and Regimes.- 12. Power Transition and the Economic Order: How much change?.- 13. China and a New Order in the Arctic.- 14. Power Transition and the Regime for Outer Space in a US-hegemonic Space Order.