Foreign Policy in a Fragmenting World: Strategic Autonomy, Multi-Alignment and the Global South’s Search for Agency

The contemporary international order is being reshaped by intensifying great-power competition, weakening multilateral institutions, regional conflicts, technological disruption, economic fragmentation, and growing uncertainty about the future of global governance. These transformations have created particular challenges and opportunities for states in the Global South. Rather than aligning exclusively with a single power bloc, many of these states are pursuing strategic autonomy, multi-alignment, issue-based partnerships, regional cooperation, and new forms of South–South engagement. This panel examines how emerging and developing states are reformulating their foreign policies in response to an increasingly multipolar and contested global system. It invites theoretical, comparative, and country-specific papers addressing how domestic politics, leadership, national identity, economic priorities, security concerns, historical experiences, and civilizational perspectives influence contemporary foreign-policy choices. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which states seek to balance relations with established and emerging powers while preserving policy autonomy and expanding their international influence.
The panel welcomes papers on India and other Asian, African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and small-state experiences. Possible themes include strategic autonomy and multi-alignment; middle-power diplomacy; minilateralism and flexible coalitions; foreign-policy responses to US–China rivalry; emerging-power engagement with multilateral institutions; BRICS and South–South cooperation; climate and development diplomacy; regional security; technological and economic statecraft; and competing visions of global order. By bringing together diverse regional and conceptual perspectives, the panel seeks to assess whether the foreign-policy strategies of Global South states represent pragmatic adaptation to geopolitical uncertainty or a deeper transformation of international order. It also asks whether these strategies can contribute to more representative, democratic, and effective forms of global governance. The panel will advance comparative dialogue between International Relations theory, foreign-policy analysis, and Global South perspectives.