2nd Annual Interdisciplinary WZB Conference 2026

Challenges to International Orders: Causes and Consequences

Great Powers and less powerful states alike increasingly act outside international law. New alliances and rivalries are emerging. The declining importance of the UN Security Council and NATO, wars, as well as the weaponization of tariffs and technology, seem to wash away international norms and institutions, especially the liberal ones. Moreover, many voices from the Global South demand a new order that ends what they consider Western domination. What many once saw as a stable global order ─  understood as the set of institutions, norms, and power relations that structure interactions among states and across borders ─  now appears more fragmented, contested, and open to decline, or at least transformation.

This 2nd Annual Interdisciplinary WZB Conference 2026, to be held in October in Berlin, will bring together researchers from political science, sociology, economics, and law to examine how international orders are being challenged and reshaped ─ and what this means for states, societies, and global cooperation. The conference opens on the evening of 7 October 2026 with a high-level public discussion featuring Odile Renaud-Basso (President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) on the roles of international organizations, financial institutions, as well of Germany and Europe in a changing transatlantic and global order.

Confirmed keynote speakers and panelists are:

• Anita Gohdes,  Hertie School Berlin
• Charles A. Kupchan,  Georgetown University
• Clémence Lenoir, Economic Advisor to President Emmanuel Macron
• Cristiane Lucena Carneiro, University of Sao Paulo
• Dani Rodrik, Harvard University and CEPR
• Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania
• Xuefeng Sun, Tsinghua University
• Ambassador Katherine Tai, 19th United States Trade Representative

Paper submissions closed on 23 April 2026. Unfortunately, participation without paper acceptance is not possible.