Table Of ContentHETERARCHY IN WORLD
POLITICS
Heterarchy in World Politics challenges the fundamental framing of international
relations and world politics. IR theory has always been dominated by the
presumption that world politics is, at its core, a system of states. However,
this has always been problematic, challengeable, time-bound, and increasingly
anachronistic.
In the 21st century, world politics is becoming increasingly multi-nodal and
characterized by “heterarchy”—the coexistence and conflict between differently
structured micro- and meso- quasi-hierarchies that compete and overlap not only
across borders but also across economic-financial sectors and social groupings.
Thinking about international order in terms of heterarchy is a paradigm shift
away from the mainstream “competing paradigms” of realism, liberalism, and
constructivism. This book explores how, since the mid-20th century, the dialectic
of globalization and fragmentation has caught states and the interstate system in the
complex evolutionary process toward heterarchy. These heterarchical institutions
and processes are characterized by increasing autonomy and special interest capture.
The process of heterarchy empowers strategically situated agents—especially agents
with substantial autonomous resources and, in particular, economic resources—in
multi-nodal competing institutions with overlapping jurisdictions. The result is
the decreasing capacity of macro-states to control both domestic and transnational
political/economic processes. In this book, the authors demonstrate that this is not
a simple breakdown of states and the states system; it is in fact the early stages of a
structural evolution of world politics.
This book will interest students, scholars and researchers of international
relations theory. It will also have significant appeal in the fields of world politics,
security studies, war studies, peace studies, global governance studies, political
science, political economy, political power studies and the social sciences more
generally.
Philip G. Cerny is Professor Emeritus of Politics and Global Affairs at the
University of Manchester, UK, and Rutgers University-Newark, USA. His
research interests are the theory of world politics and political economy.
Innovations in International Affairs
Series Editor: Raffaele Marchetti
LUISS Guido Carli, Italy
Innovations in International Affairs aims to provide cutting-edge analyses
of controversial trends in international affairs with the intent to innovate our
understanding of global politics. Hosting mainstream as well as alternative
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The series invites both engaged scholars and reflective practitioners, and is
committed to bringing non-western voices into current debates.
Innovations in International Affairs is keen to consider new book proposals in
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Titles in this series include:
Megatrends of World Politics
Globalization, Integration and Democratization
Edited by Marina M. Lebedeva and Denis A. Kuznetsov
Africa–Europe Cooperation and Digital Transformation
Edited by Chux Daniels, Benedikt Erforth and Chloe Teevan
Heterarchy in World Politics
Edited by Philip G. Cerny
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HETERARCHY IN WORLD
POLITICS
Edited by Philip G. Cerny
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Philip G. Cerny; individual
chapters, the contributors
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-39875-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-40341-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-35261-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003352617
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CONTENTS
Notes on Contributors vii
SECTION I
Theory and History 1
1 Heterarchy: Toward Paradigm Shift in World Politics 3
Philip G. Cerny
2 From Postinternationalism to Heterarchy: Turbulence
and Distance Proximities in a World of Globalization and
Fragmentation 16
Dana-Marie Ramjit
3 Heterarchy and Social Theory 30
Carole L. Crumley
4 New Medievalism (Re)Appraised: Framing Heterarchy
in World Politics 42
Aleksandra Spalińska
5 From Empire to Heterarchy 54
Gita Subrahmanyam
6 Heterarchy and State Transformation 67
Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri
vi Contents
7 Political Power in a Heterarchical World: A Categorization
of Extra-state Authorities 80
Rosalba Belmonte
8 Globalization, Heterarchy, and the Persistence of Anomie 93
Alexandre Bohas and Michael J. Morley
SECTION II
Issue Areas and Case Studies 105
9 Nationalism, Capitalism, and Heterarchy: Continuity
and Change in the 21st Century World Order 107
Peter Rutland
10 Heterarchy and the Limits of Global Governance 119
Philip G. Cerny
11 Metropolitan Diplomacy: Global Metropolitan Law and
Global Cities Seen from the Heterarchy Perspective 131
Mădălina Virginia Antonescu
12 Heterarchy in an Age of Intangibles and Financialization 143
Philip G. Cerny
13 WTO Dispute Settlement and the Appellate Body Crisis
as a Case Study of Heterarchy 155
Judit Fabian
14 Heterarchy and Global Environmental Change 167
Gabriela Kütting
15 Heterarchy and Global Internet Governance: The Case of ICANN 179
Hortense Jongen
16 Heterarchy in the Mexican Competition Network:
The Case of COFECE and IFC 190
Alejandra Salas Porras
17 Heterarchy in Russia: Paradoxes of Power 203
Richard Sakwa
Index 215
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Mădălina Virginia Antonescu is a scientific researcher at Bucharest University,
Romania. Her research interests are urban politics, cultural anthropology, and
international relations.
Rosalba Belmonte is a postdoctoral researcher in political sociology at Tuscia
University in Viterbo, Italy. Her research interests are the distribution of political
power, the state and extra-state authorities, gender relations, and gender-based
violence.
Alexandre Bohas is Professor at the ESSCA School of Management in Angers,
France, and research associate at CERGAM in Aix-Marseille. His research inter-
ests are cultural globalization, politics, and business, and transnational governance.
Philip G. Cerny is Professor Emeritus of Politics and Global Affairs at the Uni-
versity of Manchester, UK, and Rutgers University-Newark, USA. His research
interests are the theory of world politics and political economy.
Carole L. Crumley is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research interests are complex adaptive systems
in the social sciences, especially governance, and historical ecology.
Judit Fabian is currently a post-doctoral visiting researcher at the Graduate
School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, a fellow
at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, and a core and founding member of the
Gender Research Hub of the World Trade Organization. Judit’s overall work cent-
ers upon the idea of democratic global economic governance, and her current
research focus is world trade politics.
viii Notes on Contributors
Shahar Hameiri is Professor of International Politics in the School of Politi-
cal Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. His
research mainly examines the politics of state transformation, with a particular
focus on Southeast Asia, China, and the Pacific.
Lee Jones is Professor of Political Economy and International Relations at Queen
Mary University of London. His research interests are political economy and the
transformation of states and governance, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia
and China.
Hortense Jongen is Assistant Professor of Politics at the Vrije University Amster-
dam and researcher at the University of Gothenburg. Her research interests are the
new modes of global governance, with a specific interest in global and regional
internet governance and the global fight against corruption.
Gabriela Kütting is Professor of Politics and Global Affairs at Rutgers University-
Newark, New Jersey. Her research interests are in environmental justice, colonial-
ity and the global environment, global governance, and environmental politics.
Michael J. Morley is Professor of Management at the Kemmy Business School,
University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interests are international and cross-
cultural management.
Dana-Marie Ramjit is Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Adler
University, Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests are postinternationalism,
heterarchy, and contemporary governance.
Peter Rutland is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, Middletown,
Connecticut. His research interests are nationalism and Russian and East Euro-
pean politics.
Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of
Kent at Canterbury, Senior Research Fellow at the National Research University—
Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and Honorary Professor in the Faculty of
Political Science at Moscow State University. His research interests are Russian
politics and international relations.
Alejandra Salas Porras is Professor of Political Science at the National Autono-
mous University of Mexico, Mexico City. Her research interests are national and
global elites, the political economy of development, and think tanks.
Aleksandra Spalińska is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Political Science and
International Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Her research interests
Notes on Contributors ix
are theorizing world order, international relations theory, research design, non-
state actors, and postmodernity.
Gita Subrahmanyam is a part-time lecturer at Birkbeck College and other Uni-
versity of London institutions, and a part-time international development policy
consultant whose clients include UNESCO, African Development Bank, Sida,
and GIZ. Her academic research focuses on empires and state theory, while her
practical policy work focuses on education and employment.
