Rebuilding the world order: Two strategies for a fragmented world

Prof. Dennis J. Snower | 21 July 2026

As the postwar international order fragments and universal agreement becomes increasingly elusive, policymakers face a pressing question: what form of cooperation can replace the postwar hegemon-led, rules-based system? This column examines two complementary answers.

Mark Carney argues that coalitions of middle powers can preserve stability, resilience, and strategic autonomy in an era of great-power rivalry. The author of this column proposes a broader architecture of pivotal power coalitions organised around human flourishing, policy alignment, and polycentric governance. Their dialogue illuminates one of the defining policy challenges of our time: how to combine geopolitical realism with effective collective action. Together, these approaches offer a practical roadmap for building a more resilient, cooperative, and problem-solving world order.

Read the full article published for CEPR

About the Author

Dennis J. Snower is Co-President of The New Alignment and Honorary Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. He is the Founding President and a Fellow of the Global Solutions Initiative, Berlin; Professorial Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford University; Non-resident Fellow at Brookings. Previously, he was Program Chair at The New Institute, President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and Professor of Economics at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. Dennis J. Snower earned a BA and MA from New College, Oxford University, an MA and a PhD at Princeton University. He is an expert on labor economics, socio-economics, public policy and inflation-unemployment tradeoffs. He is currently working on a new paradigm for economics with David Sloan Wilson. He is the author of a major report on digital governance with reform with Paul Twomey.