ABSTRACT
World orders embodies a compromise between power, purpose and visions on how to regulate the global economy. The concept also reflects different theoretical orientations in IPE, however. Realists focus on power. Their concern is about security consequences of globalization. Liberals focus on complexity of regulating global market integration and are concerned with the slowing down of globalization. Constructivists focus on underpinning visions and values. Liberal constructivists warn about eroding support to the underlying social purpose of the liberal order. Critical constructivists look for alternative visions of world order among those who are contesting the liberal order. Yet, the precise lines of transformation can be difficult to observe. Transformations are intersecting and contradictory. The final section investigates the transformation towards a multipolar trading disorder and asks whether current trade tensions represent a temporary setback or a deeper transformation. The disorder cuts deep, however. It appears to affect most domains of a world order: a redistribution of global power, an institutional crisis rooted in decades of internal dysfunctionality, and an eroding support of the free trade vision in many societies. The trading disorder forces the IPE discipline to reconsider the role of states, and by extension agency, in economic globalization.
