EVENTS

About the Speaker

Prof. Bharat Wariavwalla is an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). He is working on the issues of multiculturalism and state as an identity. He retired from the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) as a Senior Associate in 1992. He has numerous publications here and abroad on international security issues, on ethnic and civil nationalisms.

Abstract

The presentation will centre firstly on the order that prevails at present. In different forms and with different power configurations the prevailing order was laid by the United States under President Roosevelt at the end of the Second World War. It had at its core, a rule based trading system formalised by institutions like the GATT and later the World Bank and the IMF; and in the political and security domains - the UN Security Council. When it failed, international security came to rest on American-Soviet power balance. In brief, what emerged at the end of the Second World War was a capitalist order, based on the twin institutions of liberal democracy and market economy. This was most severely challenged by the Soviet Union. Moscow failed in its bid to overthrow this order. The question is whether, China is an upholder of this order or its challenger, over a period of time. Are there other challengers – like India and Brazil?  Will the competition between the US and China   end in a grand clash (which seems out of question) or will it take the normal course of relations between great powers - a mix of competition and cooperation.

The future of the world order depends greatly on the future course the capitalist system takes. With huge and growing economic inequalities in the advanced countries of Europe and America and the rise of aggressive nationalism, there could be serious undermining of the liberal capitalist order.