This book offers a multidisciplinary insight into the significance of infrastructural change for global orders. While infrastructures form the material basis of our everyday lives and their design and use determine the further development of our societies, infrastructures themselves often remain invisible in everyday life. Although they are and have always been subject to political conflicts their contestation often only becomes visible when the circulation of data, goods and people is disrupted. Rarely has this been more evident than at the moment, when we are experiencing a multitude of overlapping global crises. The threat of the nearing climate catastrophe shows us the inadequacies and climatic impacts of our energy and transport systems. The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis underline how dependent we are on infrastructures and how their political instrumentalization contributes to the escalation of conflicts. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the vulnerability not only of national infrastructures but also of global supply chains. These crises illustrate twofold: first they show that transnational infrastructures are no longer only deepening ties between individuals, societies, and states. This was for long the hope of transnational actors. Infrastructures may still stabilize global orders, but they also foster their reconfiguration, facilitating the establishment and rise of certain political actors and the decline of others. Second, these crises force us to ask about the significance of transformed infrastructures for global orders; how this transformation manifested itself historically and how it is shaping the present and future alike. What can a comprehensive understanding of the impact of infrastructures on global orders contribute to the challenges of the 21st century? With this anthology we approach this question from different perspectives. The book deals with infrastructures in different fields - from energy to transport, from communication to migration - and at different levels of society - local, regional, global. What unites all the contributions is an interest in showing what the respective dynamics within and among these fields as well as the driving forces behind these developments mean for our society. This book is aimed at a wide audience from infrastructure researchers to IR experts as well as from colleagues with expertise in specific policy fields to the general reader interested in the effects often invisible transnational infrastructures have on the organization of their everyday life.
This book explores how infrastructural changes impact the production, development and contestation of global order(s). Infrastructures, the material basis of our daily lives and the subject of political conflicts, often become significant for social and political orders when disruptions occur in the circulation of data, goods and people - especially during global crisis. Energy and transport systems, for example, are central to the climate crisis, the Russian war in Ukraine, and the ensuing energy crisis.
Transnational infrastructures not only strengthen ties between individuals, societies, and states, as the liberal literature on globalisation and interdependence suggests. Instead, while they may stabilize global orders, they also foster their reconfiguration, contributing to power shifts and new conflicts. This prompts the question of how infrastructural transformation manifests itself historically and how it shapes present and future global order(s).
The contributions to this volume approach these themes from different disciplinary perspectives, examining infrastructures in energy, transport, communication, and migration. They analyse how infrastructures impact global orders at different societal scales, highlighting the importance of understanding the infrastructure-order(s)-nexus in tackling 21st-century challenges.
The editors
Hans-Jürgen Bieling is Professor for Political Economy at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen.
Thomas Diez is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen.
Riccarda Flemmer is Junior Professor for "Political Struggles in the Global South" of the Global Encounters Platform at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen.
Andrea Futterer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen
