The Changing Balance of Power and Emerging Global Issues
The order that is emerging is not a new hegemony or a return to classical multipolarity. It is a system with several centres, overlapping and competing institutions, and interdepen…
The order that is emerging is not a new hegemony or a return to classical multipolarity. It is a system with several centres, overlapping and competing institutions, and interdependence that has itself become an instrument of coercion.
This is chapter 58 of the PSIR Optional Notes, from the part on South Asia and the World Order in the Paper II syllabus. The complete book is a free download.
UPSC syllabus
The changing balance of power and the contemporary world order; emerging issues: climate change, migration, health and pandemics; international political economy and globalisation.
In one page
- The distribution of power is now asymmetric across domains: economic weight is distributed, military reach and financial infrastructure much less so. Any claim about polarity must say which dimension it means.
- Acharya‘s multiplex world is the most useful formulation: multiple modernities, multiple regional orders, overlapping institutions, and no single organiser.
- Weaponised interdependence (Farrell and Newman): networks of finance, data, energy and supply have become instruments of coercion, exercised through chokepoints and panopticons.
- Minilateralism and institutional competition have replaced universal rule-making: Quad, AUKUS, IPEF, BRICS expansion, the AIIB and the New Development Bank alongside the Bretton Woods institutions.
- Climate is the issue with the clearest collective action structure and the widest gap between commitment and delivery; differentiation and finance remain the political core.
- Migration is governed by a fragmented regime: a strong refugee convention, no corresponding framework for economic migration, and non-binding compacts since 2018.
- Health governance was tested by COVID-19 and found dependent on state notification and voluntary funding, treated in Chapter 43.
- Technology is the newest axis of competition: semiconductors, artificial intelligence, critical minerals and standards, with export controls as the principal instrument.
The changing balance of power
Asymmetry across domains
The single most common error in answers on the world order is to assert a polarity without specifying the dimension. The accurate description disaggregates.
| Domain | Distribution |
|---|---|
| Economic output | Genuinely multipolar. Several economies of comparable weight; the largest share has fallen substantially over four decades |
| Military reach | Highly concentrated. Only one state can sustain operations globally; several have formidable regional capability |
| Financial infrastructure | Concentrated. The dollar’s share of reserves and of trade settlement, and control of clearing and messaging systems, confer coercive capacity |
| Technology | Bipolar and narrowing. Two centres in semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum, with chokepoints held by a small number of firms and states |
| Normative authority | Diffuse and contested. No state or bloc commands agreement on the rules |
| Demographic and resource | Shifting toward Africa and South Asia over the century |
The competing descriptions
Set out in Chapter 41 and summarised here: multipolar, non-polar (Haass), multiplex (Acharya) and unbalanced multipolarity. Amitav Acharya‘s formulation is the one worth adopting because it makes a claim the others do not: that the emerging order is not simply a redistribution of power among great powers but a change in the nature of order, with multiple modernities rather than one model, regional orders with their own logics, overlapping institutions, and complex interdependence, none of which existed in nineteenth-century multipolarity.
New instruments of power
Weaponised interdependence. Farrell and Newman’s argument is that networks of exchange have hub-and-spoke structures, and states with jurisdiction over the hubs acquire two capabilities: the chokepoint effect, denying adversaries access to a network, and the panopticon effect, gathering information about flows through it. Illustrations: financial sanctions and the exclusion of banks from messaging systems; export controls on semiconductors and manufacturing equipment; and restrictions on critical mineral processing. The implication is that interdependence, which liberal theory treated as a source of peace, has become a source of coercive capacity, which is a direct challenge to the assumptions of Chapter 39’s liberalism.
Institutional competition. New institutions are created not to replace old ones but to compete with them: the AIIB and the New Development Bank alongside the World Bank; the Belt and Road alongside multilateral development finance; the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership alongside the WTO; and BRICS expansion alongside the G7. The result is regime complexity, where states choose the forum most favourable to their position.
Minilateralism. Small, purpose-built groupings, the Quad, AUKUS, I2U2, IPEF, the Chip 4 arrangement, that trade universality for effectiveness. Their advantage is speed and cohesion; their cost is legitimacy and the exclusion of those most affected.
Grey-zone competition. Coercion below the threshold of armed conflict: cyber operations, information manipulation, economic pressure, maritime militia and lawfare. Its attraction is deniability; its danger is the absence of established escalation thresholds.
Emerging issues
Climate
Covered in Chapter 45. What belongs here is its bearing on the balance of power: the energy transition redistributes strategic advantage from hydrocarbon exporters to holders of critical minerals and manufacturers of clean technology, which is itself concentrated; carbon border measures convert climate policy into trade policy, which India has contested; and climate finance is the currency in which Southern cooperation is negotiated. India’s position, per capita emissions, the historical carbon budget, common but differentiated responsibilities, and its practical bet on solar, is treated in Chapters 45 and 52.
Migration
The regime is deliberately incomplete. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol define a refugee narrowly by well-founded fear of persecution on five grounds, and establish non-refoulement as the core obligation. There is no corresponding treaty for economic migrants, for the internally displaced, or for those moving because of climate.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees, both 2018, are non-binding and were adopted over objections from several states. The practical governance is bilateral: labour mobility agreements, readmission arrangements and externalised border control.
India’s position: not a party to the 1951 Convention or its Protocol, and without domestic refugee legislation, so it has hosted large refugee populations, Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils, Afghans, Rohingya, under executive discretion rather than legal obligation. Its interest is in the other direction as well: as the largest source of international migrants and the largest recipient of remittances, India’s priority in multilateral negotiation has been Mode 4 movement of professionals and the portability of social security, treated in Chapter 51.
Health
Covered in Chapter 43. The systemic lesson for the world order is that a health emergency exposed the same asymmetry as everything else: manufacturing capacity, procurement power and intellectual property concentrated, need distributed. The TRIPS waiver proposal India and South Africa advanced, and India’s own vaccine supply programme, were both attempts to act on that gap.
Technology
The newest axis and increasingly the decisive one. Semiconductors, where design, equipment and fabrication are concentrated in a small number of firms and jurisdictions, and where export controls have become the principal instrument of strategic competition. Artificial intelligence, where compute, data and talent are similarly concentrated and where governance is being contested between innovation-first and risk-first approaches. Critical minerals, where processing rather than extraction is the chokepoint. And standards, where the body that writes a technical standard shapes the market that follows it.
India’s approach: production-linked incentives and semiconductor fabrication investment; digital public infrastructure offered as an exportable model; participation in iCET, the Mineral Security Partnership and supply-chain initiatives; and resistance to data localisation being characterised as protectionism.
India in the emerging order
The concluding synthesis an answer should be able to make.
- Position. A large economy without a bloc, a democracy that is not Western, a claimant on reformed institutions rather than a defender of existing ones or a builder of alternatives. This position is unusual and is the source of India’s leverage.
- Method. Multi-alignment: simultaneous participation in arrangements whose members are rivals, on the calculation that in a multipolar system the unclaimed state is courted by several.
- Vulnerability. Weaponised interdependence cuts both ways: India’s technology, energy and financial dependencies are real, and its capacity to withstand pressure from any single source is limited.
- The binding constraints. Economic capability relative to China; a neighbourhood that has not consistently cooperated, per Chapters 55 to 57; and delivery capacity on the connectivity and development commitments India makes.
- The claim. That order can be plural, that universality can be built from many traditions rather than exported from one, and that a state may be a partner of several without being an instrument of any. Whether that claim is a durable strategy or a phase permitted by great-power competition is the open question of the decade.
Where answers lose marks
- Asserting a polarity without specifying the domain. Economic weight is distributed; military reach and financial infrastructure are not.
- Treating interdependence as pacifying. Weaponised interdependence is the significant recent development and it reverses the liberal expectation.
- Presenting new institutions as replacing old ones. They compete with them, producing regime complexity and forum shopping.
- Describing the migration regime as governed by a treaty framework. Only refugees are, and narrowly; the 2018 compacts are non-binding.
- Ending on a generic call for cooperation. The examinable conclusion is about which instruments remain available when universal rule-making has stalled.
Asked before
- Discuss the constraints on American hegemony today and which are likely to become more prominent. (2023, Paper II, 15 marks)
- India offers an alternative universality. Comment. (2025, Paper II, 15 marks)
- Emerging technologies are posing a serious threat to human security. Illustrate your answer with suitable examples. (2023, Paper II, 15 marks)
Answer skeleton
Assess the character of the emerging world order and India’s place within it. (20 marks, 350 words)
Frame. Refuse a single label. Power is distributed asymmetrically across domains, so any answer must say which dimension it is describing.
The disaggregation. Economic output genuinely multipolar; military reach highly concentrated; financial infrastructure concentrated and coercive; technology bipolar and narrowing; normative authority diffuse and contested.
The best description. Acharya’s multiplex world: multiple modernities, regional orders with their own logics, overlapping institutions, complex interdependence, and no single organiser. Distinguish this from classical multipolarity, which had none of those features.
The new instruments. Weaponised interdependence, chokepoint and panopticon effects through finance, data and supply networks; institutional competition producing regime complexity; minilateralism trading universality for effectiveness; grey-zone coercion below the threshold of war.
The issues that will test it. Climate, where the collective action structure is clearest and delivery weakest; migration, governed by a deliberately incomplete regime; health, where capacity and need are inversely distributed; and technology, now the decisive axis.
India’s position. A large economy without a bloc, a non-Western democracy, a claimant on reform rather than a defender or a challenger; multi-alignment as method; and an articulated claim that universality can be plural.
India’s vulnerabilities. Technology, energy and financial dependencies; capability gaps relative to China; an uncooperative neighbourhood; and a delivery deficit on its own commitments.
Conclude. The order is neither a new hegemony nor a stable multipolar equilibrium but a contested plurality, and India’s strategy is well matched to it. The open question is whether multi-alignment is a durable position or one permitted by a phase of great-power competition, and that will be settled by whether India’s capability grows faster than the pressure to choose.
Last-mile revision
- Disaggregate power: economic multipolar, military concentrated, financial concentrated, technology bipolar, normative diffuse.
- Descriptions: multipolar, non-polar (Haass), multiplex (Acharya), unbalanced multipolarity.
- Weaponised interdependence (Farrell and Newman): chokepoint and panopticon effects.
- Institutional competition: AIIB, NDB, BRI, RCEP, BRICS expansion; regime complexity and forum shopping. Minilateralism: Quad, AUKUS, I2U2, IPEF. Grey-zone competition.
- Migration: 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol, non-refoulement, five grounds; no treaty for economic migrants or climate displacement; 2018 compacts non-binding; India not a party and without refugee legislation; Mode 4 as India’s offensive interest.
- Technology: semiconductors, artificial intelligence, critical minerals processing, standards; export controls as the instrument; India’s PLI, DPI, iCET and the Mineral Security Partnership.
- India: unaligned large economy, multi-alignment, plural universality; constrained by capability, neighbourhood and delivery.
Read the rest. This chapter is one of 58 in the complete PSIR Optional Notes, covering Paper I and Paper II in full — free to download.