The central text of the present issue responds to an urgent problem of our time. At a historical moment when the world order established after the Second World War is increasingly crumbling and being challenged, international relations expert Stephen Walt outlines the key elements of and the path toward a possible better world order.
The focus on politics includes three further essays: Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes link war and the nightmare of depopulation, Francesca De Benedetti warns against an Orbanization of Europe by Giorgia Meloni, and Kristina Broučková develops a differentiated view of the relationship between elections and democracy.
Four essays deal with questions of digital technology and artificial intelligence. Rogers Brubaker explains the relationship between digital technocracy and populism, Viola Schiaffonati calls for a critical discussion on the design choices in digital technologies, and Erich Prem and Angelika Adensamer point to the limits of artificial intelligence and warn against its unreflective application by state authorities.
The philosophical essays of the issue address Jan Patočka's reflections on a post-European world (James Dodd), the notions of witness (Marek Kettner) and perspective (Jakub Čapek), the Hegelian politics of contradiction (Bartosz Wójcik), and the reception of Kant in India (Manidipa Sanyal and Subhoranjan Dasgupta).
In a section on memory and history, Łukasz Kiełpiński points to the “memoir fever” in 20th century Poland and Anna Narinskaya offers us an insight into the lives of Jewish converts in the Soviet Union through her own family memories. Further, Ola Hnatiuk draws attention to research gaps in the study of Austrian-Soviet relations during the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1933, Michał Narozniak discusses sexual modernity in Galicia, and Georgios Varouxakistraces the origin and development of the idea of the West.
Dragan Đunda and Tendai Ganduri address sociological and political implications of infrastructure projects and issues.
Finally, we point to the IWM publication The Balkans: Mission Possible by Maria Todorova, which is to be released by Mandelbaum Verlag in the spring of 2025.
I hope you enjoy the read!
Evangelos Karagiannis
