The Role of Eurasia in a Multi-Polar World

Preface

As part of its Observatory Program, Istanbul Policy Center (IPC), in cooperation with the German Council on Foreign Relations (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, DGAP), organized a conference on “The Role of Eurasia in a Multi-Polar World.” This one-day roundtable took place on December 6, 2017 at DGAP’s Berlin office. The purpose of this roundtable was to develop new ideas and gain fresh insights from a small group of international participants with a view toward contributing to the ongoing debates on the role of Eurasia amidst the shaping of the post-Western world. The conference has drawn upon the work done by IPC in cooperation with the Transatlantic Academy over the past five years on the future of the post-war liberal international order. For the past five years, the observatory has concluded that the West’s “material and ideological hegemony” has come to an end as the “rising rest” have taken a greater role on the world stage. While the observatory’s past reports have focused on the West’s ability to remain a significant player in promoting liberal values and practices and contributing to the shaping of a rules-based world in future, the rise of populism and nationalism across Europe and the United States have diminished the liberal order’s global influence and led scholars to seek out a new world order within a broader geography outside of the “sliding West.”