This special issue of International Organization is composed of fifteen short essays that consider how longer-term trends (including the rise of China, the anti-globalization backlash, the rise of populism, the emergence of new technologies, the slowing or reversal of democratization in many countries, and the existential threat of climate change), along with recent developments in US foreign policy, are likely to affect the future of global governance and world order. The contributors consider a variety of different issue areas, as well as cross-cutting trends. Some contributors anticipate significant change; others predict incremental change; and still others expect mostly continuity. The collection suggests a future research agenda focused on the impact of long-term trends and immediate shocks on local, regional, and global equilibria.

States are reshaping the global digital economy to assert control over the artificial intelligence (AI) value chain. Operating outside multilateral institutions, they pursue measures such as export controls on advanced semiconductors, infrastructure partnerships, and bans on foreign digital platforms. This digital disintegration reflects an elite-centered response to the infrastructural power that private firms wield over critical AI inputs. A handful of companies operate beyond the reach of domestic regulation and multilateral oversight, controlling access to technologies that create vulnerabilities existing institutions struggle to contain. As a result, states have asserted strategic digital sovereignty: the exercise of authority over core digital infrastructure, often through selective alliances with firms and other governments. The outcome is an emergent form of AI governance in techno-blocs: coalitions that coordinate control over key inputs while excluding others. These arrangements challenge the liberal international order by replacing multilateral cooperation with strategic—and often illiberal—alignment within competing blocs.

Politics is increasingly negative, especially surrounding elections, raising concerns about mass disengagement and democratic backsliding. Despite these worries, the literature on how negativity in voting affects democratic attitudes and voting intentions is riddled with ambiguous and contradictory results. We argue that this may partly be due to the failure to distinguish between two types of negativity in voting: (a) understanding voting as a way to act against a specific party, politician, or policy (negative meanings of voting), and (b) opposition to voting itself (an anti-voting orientation). Contrasting these to the classical conception of voting to support a party, politician, or policy (positive meanings of voting), we conceptualize these constructs and validate their measurement in twelve countries, differing in geography, political systems, and levels of democracy (N = 23,828). We arrive at two main conclusions. First, positive and negative meanings of voting are complementary and compatible attitudes. Modeling positive and negative voting separately rather than relative to each other shows a more nuanced picture of negative voting than previous work. Second, negative voting and anti-voting orientation are distinct types of negativity that relate differently to classical conceptions of voting and democratic attitudes. The first signals political dissatisfaction but belief in the electoral process. The second corresponds to such a disillusionment about voting that it inhibits dissatisfaction with democracy. As such, this distinction highlights the multifaceted nature of political negativity from a citizen perspective and helps clarify the relationship between negativity and democracy.

Any theoretically informed predictions about the future of international order and global governance must reckon with the power and intentions of the United States. We argue that fundamental changes in the nature of domestic audience constraint within many democracies, and the United States in particular, undermine both the willingness and the capability of the United States to continue its role as the underwriter of international order and global governance. A US government unbound by domestic constraint will have difficulty building broad coalitions to solve national and international problems because it will have reduced incentives to invest in public goods, including national defense, science and technology, and future economic prosperity; reduced barriers to corruption that undermines the quality of and trust in US capabilities; and reduced state capacity, including the capacity to finance wars and other long-term international commitments. We argue that three trends were especially relevant in reshaping domestic audience constraint: information fragmentation, extreme polarization, and a global threat environment that facilitated executive power concentration. Together they reduce the costs and risks for leaders to escape domestic audience constraints, weakening the institutional and accountability mechanisms that give democracies advantages in the international system. Though these trends affect many democracies, the undermining of US domestic constraint is particularly consequential because the United States shaped and buttressed the current system. An unconstrained United States likely means a less cooperative and less predictable global order, irrevocably altering the post-1945 system.

Digital technologies are often seen as a powerful means for poverty reduction. Yet, much of the existing research focuses on macro-level outcomes, leaving gaps in understanding individual-level mechanisms and the processes behind successful digital interventions. This study addresses these gaps by examining how online platforms, developed as social innovation efforts, enable smallholder farmers in Japan to escape poverty. Using a qualitative, case-based approach, we analyze six social enterprises and explore how stakeholder mobilization drives the success or failure of these platforms. We developed a schematic model that captures the nonlinear, collaborative nature of the social innovation process. Our findings reveal a systemic account of why and how only two of the six platforms achieved meaningful impact, offering insights into the factors that shape the effectiveness of digital technologies in reducing poverty. In the end, our model offers practical implications for future digital poverty reduction initiatives.

Despite extensive media coverage on issues related to intellectual property (IP) in China, the academic literature on this topic has been sporadic. Two factors might be at play here. One is the multifaceted nature of IP: as IP is a legal asset with significant implications for firm performance and social welfare, the literature is scattered in various disciplines such as law, economics, strategy, and political science. The other is the unique institutional environment in China: policy-driven investments in IP have resulted in the decoupling of IP as a value appropriation mechanism in market competition and IP as a nonmarket strategy to engage with regulators. This review aims to bring the multiple streams of literature into a structured framework, with a side-by-side comparison with research based in developed countries, mostly in the US. Building on the combined research streams, we then recommend avenues of future research that can potentially speak to a broad audience in innovation, competition, and nonmarket strategies.