Panel: Competition or conflict? The West and the rest

15:30 – 17:00
Panel: Competition or conflict? The West and the rest

If a previous era of geopolitics is crumbling, there is significant disagreement about who stands to benefit going forward.

One account insists that a collection of new “civilisation states” will emerge as the major competitors to the West. Such states are said not just to have different interests but to possess a confident, competing, civilisational mission. Russia, India, China or Turkey are often mentioned.

Some go even further, suggesting that in fact all of these “competitors” to the West share a basic orientation which makes them natural allies. The BRICS countries, for example, are said to be in the process of creating a new, alternative world order.

If much of this rhetoric can be overblown – the BRICS countries, for example, are as divided on key issues as they are united – the sense of a new “clash of civilisations” seems very real. Certainly, countries like Russia make no secret of their desire to establish a new order and to challenge the supposedly “immoral” culture of Western societies.

What is the real threat, if any, posed by the shift in the balance of power and the emergence of civilisational competitors? Are there in fact opportunities in the midst of this shift for countries with a strong national culture or sense of mission? Is the “non-Western” order a reality, or overhyped? And what is the real driver of the change in geopolitical power – the relative decline or the West, or its perhaps only temporary incoherence?

Speakers :
- Monika Gabriela Bartoszewicz, Associate Professor in Societal Security and Safety Department of Technology and Safety, UiT University Norway
- Anton Bendarzsevszkij, Director at Oeconomus Economics Research Foundation
- Niccolo Soldo, writer, Fisted by Foucault
- Krzysztof Tyszka-Drozdowski, writer with a specific focus on globalization, industrial policy, and international conflict

This panel is part of the event Culture War Goes Global? Geopolitics in a new era: https://brussels.mcc.hu/event/culture-war-goes-global-geopolitics-in-a-new-era

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