In a time of apparent disorder and instability, questions abound as to where power is located. Who is in control? Who makes decisions on the big issues that affect people’s lives?
Questioning the assumption that we are now in an interregnum, a temporary period between stable orders, Alameda’s ‘After Order’ research project considers the possibility that we have entered a time of more frequent crisis – a time after stable orders.
Through dialogue, and critical engagement, this collaborative research initiative explores the dispersion of claims to sovereignty, the disputes these claims have produced, and the implications for efforts to build new pathways – alamedas – to a better society.
‘As the neoliberal order has frayed, so too have the institutions that once anchored political authority. Sovereign powers are now exercised by states, corporations, armed groups, and other actors — forcing us to rethink what sovereignty means, and who it is really for’.
Conversations on power, sovereignty, and crisis in an unstable world.
After Order is organised around five interconnected research streams. Together, these research streams explore how sovereignty is being transformed:
Explores how changes in political economy affect the exercise of sovereignty, and considers alternatives to neoliberalism that enable more just transitions.
Addresses the rise of big tech firms, how they reshape authority, and how their growing power is contested, including by movements seeking popular control over digital infrastructure, data, and governance.
Examines the rise of an authoritarian politics of disorder and its relation to the distribution of sovereign powers to illicit traffickers and other criminal organisations, parastate militias and mercenary groups.
Engages with social movements, particularly in Brazil, to understand and learn from their autonomous efforts to achieve food, energy, and water sovereignty.
Focuses on states and communities whose sovereignty is constrained, denied, or undermined by trade, finance, and war, as well as systems of colonial and racial domination.