The Rhetoric of a New Global Order--Call for Submissions
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The Rhetoric of a New Global Order
On January 20, 2026, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave an impassioned speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where he told global leaders that the rules-based system that had ordered international relations since the end of World War II was over. “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order,” Carney offered, “the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics…is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” Although Carney never called out Donald Trump by name, it was clear that he was signaling that Trump’s transactional foreign policies (not to mention the country’s willingness to elect him twice) had hastened the end of the old liberal international order and the need for something new, and fast. “We know the old order is not coming back,” Carney offered, “We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just.” In essence, the world needed a “new world order” and Canada wanted to help lead the way.
Carney was not the first person to signal this shift in geopolitics, nor will he be the last to try and define, shape and lead in this “new world order.” Fifteen years earlier, for instance, journalist Fareed Zakaria suggested that the world was already moving into a “Post-American World” where the rise of regional powers and new trade connections would define the new century. More recently New York Times journalist Li Yuan suggested that China has long seen the new world order as being defined as “the rise of the East and the decline of the West.” Arguments have recently abound as experts and leaders from all walks of life jockey to be the ones who define the new world order. Some assert that the old order just needs reform and rejuvenation from a re-engaged United States. Others point out that the world is returning to a Westphalian order of the 19th century. While others assert that the world is entering into a completely new order unseen in human history. What is clear is that the race to define, shape and even lead this new world order is being hashed out in real time.
In this book, we propose to examine and analyze the roles that communication plays in this ongoing conversation about a new global order. How are leaders throughout the world attempting to define and shape this new order? How are middle powers and small states adapting to this fracturing of the global order? How is the United States undermining an order it helped to build? How are global challenges, like climate change, going to be dealt with in this new environment? How will alliance structures differ as time progresses? What is the fate of globalism and integration in a world where the siren calls of populism and nationalism seem to be winning? All of those questions and more are potential topics for this edited collection.
We seek chapter proposals that analyze how international actors—states, individuals, and organizations—are dealing with this global rupture. We seek for this book to be truly global in nature. Chapter proposals should cover this issue from a wide range of global perspectives from all corners of the globe (including the United States). Potential topics might include:
The rhetoric of middle powers (e.g. Canada, Mexico, India, Brazil, Russia)
Rhetoric on trade/trade regimes
U.S. role in the world in this new era
Discourse about the role of international institutions
Rhetoric encouraging the fracturing of the old world order
Specific country positions/narratives about this era
New initiatives to deal with global challenges
The rhetoric surrounding the rethinking and redefinition of this new era
Discourse on NATO/defense alliances
Different takes on American exceptionalism
The rhetoric of transnational corporations
The only hard and fast requisite is that submissions help to expand our understanding of the new world order from a communication perspective specifically. All methods and approaches to communication and media research are encouraged and welcome.
Please submit title, contact information, and your chapter proposal of no more than 500 words to Dr. Jason Edwards (j3edwards@bridgew.edu) and Dr. Jason Gilmore (jason.gilmore@usu.edu) by August 1st, 2026.
Jason Edwards