As geopolitical realignment intensifies conflict and exposes failures in Western-led intervention, space is opening for alternative actors and approaches. Gaza marks a critical juncture as non-Western third-party actors assume prominent roles, raising questions about their intervention logics and implications for peace processes and outcomes. This paper develops a typology distinguishing transformative third-party intervention from dominant realist and liberal paradigms. Transformative intervention, as conceptualized here, pursues structural redress rather than conflict management, centers historically marginalized voices and agency, and engages global institutions and norms that shape intervention contexts and outcomes. Through interpretive case studies of South Africa and Qatar in Gaza and beyond, the paper examines the transformative, realist, and liberal logics evident in their practices across diverse forms of third-party intervention. Analysis reveals that both cases display strong transformative orientations grounded in distinct normative histories, capabilities, and structural positions. Their selective, hybrid use of realist and liberal instruments reflects the practical need to preserve access, leverage, and room for action within an order they seek to transform. The overall intervention can nonetheless be understood as transformative, in which those approaches are selectively deployed within a broader orientation toward structural redress, inclusion, accountability, and the pluralization of peacemaking authority.
Populism has become one of the most dynamic concepts in the social sciences literature over the past two decades. Offering a significant analytical framework for explaining crises of representation and the transformation of contemporary forms of leadership within the discipline of Political Science, populism has been intensely debated at both the theoretical and empirical levels since 2010. During this period, populism has gained an interdisciplinary scope of research in interaction with sub-disciplines such as comparative politics and discourse analysis. In this context, besides studies focusing on the political strategies, rhetorical styles and behavioral repertoires of populist actors, the International Relations literature includes theoretical and empirical studies conducted on the global diffusion of populism (Ramos and Torres 2020; Kaltwasser and Sandoval 2024), its effects on foreign policy decision-making processes (Destradi, Cadier and Plagemann 2025) and challenging stances towards international institutions (Spandler and Söderbaum 2023).
Power in the international system is becoming more diffuse. Amid intensifying great-power rivalry and the erosion of the rules and norms that underpinned much of the post-World War II global order, several countries in the Global South have become more active players on the world stage. This has extended to the realm of conflict mediation. This article explores the macro-level structural factors that may shape changes in these countries’ mediation behavior. It does so by drawing on Power Transition Theory (PTT) as a heuristic lens to assess the structural incentive environment for mediation. The two-level incentive framework developed here attempts to link the velocity of global and regional systemic changes to shifts in middle powers’ mediation behavior. It posits that incentives to mediate are weakest when hierarchies are stable globally and regionally and grow as change accelerates at either level. A quantitative operationalization of structural change and a qualitative review of Türkiye’s mediation engagement suggest that systemic turbulence may create conditions more conducive to mediation, but is not, on its own, sufficient to explain variation in mediation behavior. PTT’s structural logic helps examine how systemic shifts may reshape the risks, opportunities, and incentives for middle-power mediation.
This article examines key issues concerning China’s rise to great-power status in the 2000s and its implications for the International Relations discipline. The existing IR scholarship deals with questions concerning the nature of the Sino-US power transition, whether this rivalry constitutes a new type of Cold War, or whether it will eventually lead to open warfare between China and the US. Other points of discussion include the relevance of the China Model across different parts of the world and its potential role in authoritarian diffusion. China’s rise also requires an examination of the country’s economic impact abroad, and particularly in the Global South. While the Western world, by and large, considers China’s rise a threat, developing countries tend to view it as an opportunity. Nevertheless, China’s trade and investment ties to Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia have far more complex outcomes than the generic titles “mutual gain” or “debt trap” suggest.
Climate change is already happening, but at an accelerating pace that is surprising even the experts responsible for tracking its progress. The world is far from ready to cope with its impacts. This is particularly true of the defense and security sectors, which have not yet come to terms with the fact that climate change amplifies the risk of conflict. The academic world began to become aware of these links in the 1990s. Thomas Homer-Dixon, a pioneer in this field, points out in chapter 16 (pp. 356-364) the prescient nature of his work: environmental disruptions will not trigger conflicts directly, but will act as threat multipliers through their impact on access to key resources, the well-being of populations, and the cohesion of social groups.
