Contested Statehood in a Contested International Order: Furthering a Research Agenda

Abstract

This article serves as the introduction to this Special Forum on Contested Statehood in a Contested International Order. The articles in this Special Forum (SF) are premised on the argument that the persistent ontological and epistemological contestations over the nature of such state-like polities are strongly intertwined with recent ontological and epistemological contestations of the broader international order. To introduce such an intellectual project, this paper sets out the themes that inform this SF’s analyses of the relationships between international order and contested states. I first pay heed to the manner in which existing scholarship has already studied the embeddedness of state contestation in their broader international environment. Subsequently, this paper acknowledges that the study of international order itself is becoming a rather saturated field of research, and it therefore refrains from adding too many thoughts about the nature, virtues, and vices of (the transformation of) international order per se. Instead, this paper’s final section will outline three broad “themes of contestation” that intersect between scholarship of contested statehood and international order and that broadly underpin the research contributions to this SF. These three themes revolve around violent and/or peaceful modes of international ordering, inclusive and/or exclusive modes of international ordering, and particularistic and/or universalistic modes of international ordering.