Writing International Order, Ordering Insecurity

Writing International Order, Ordering Insecurity

Jérémy Dieudonné, Oliver Turner, Writing International Order, Ordering Insecurity, Global Studies Quarterly, Volume 6, Issue 2, April 2026, ksag084, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksag084

Abstract

International order (IO) remains one of the most powerful ideas in global politics. This article challenges prevailing scholarly interpretations of IO as a set of material structures and as a means to enhance security. Drawing from theories of securitization, it argues that state capabilities and international institutions do not objectively constitute international order in themselves. Rather, the meaning of international order comes subjectively from discourses attached to those structures, with meaning-giving power and agency of their own. Further, international order-as-discourse has always operated purposefully and persistently in the name of international in security, with political elites writing and rewriting order to mythologize stable conditions of the past to be recaptured, or of the future yet to be realized. With a primary focus on the United States and its political elites, we show that by promoting realities of danger and disorder, leaders and policymakers have engaged throughout history in this process we term “ordering insecurity”. International order, we contend, is an especially potent and effective political discourse because of its ability to invoke existential fears around global stability and survival in the service of policy goals.