ABSTRACT
This chapter takes realism and the English School’s international society idea beyond their Euro-centric character and away from their focus on geopolitics, power balance and anarchy. Instead of anarchy as absence of higher authority providing order, anarchy is defined as the presence of complexity with which states and other actors have to contend. Complexity, chaos and uncertainty cause the diffusion of power in complexity which is analysed here in three forms: dispersal, dissolution and dilution. This chapter analyses the current context of governance and changes to the international liberal order, an emerging polycentric multilateralism, notably when confronting financial crisis and climate change.
