Annual Program: Seminar on Theme 3: Universalisms and Global Governance – DECRIPT – Academic Year 2025–2026
Since the 1960s—considered a turning point in the international system—the foundations of the dominant world order, its norms, and its claims to universality have been continually challenged. The end of the Cold War, and even more so in recent decades, has only intensified these challenges, now driven by a plurality of state and non-state actors seeking to redefine hierarchies, norms, and modes of governance on a global scale. In a context marked by the realignment of power balances and the proliferation of transnational crises, civilizational narratives have thus emerged as central instruments of legitimization, contestation, and the projection of values, whose dissemination and operationalization lie at the heart of international arenas, which have become privileged spaces for expression and confrontation.
The cross-disciplinary program (Axis 3), led by INALCO in collaboration with Paris Panthéon-Assas University and Sciences Po Paris, aims specifically to analyze these dynamics by drawing on insights from political science, international relations, law, history, economics, and information and communication sciences. It aims to develop a detailed typology of forms of contestation of the international system and norms claiming universality, by analyzing the political and institutional effects of civilizational narratives in different contexts and spaces of governance; but also, in this sense, to move beyond binary oppositions—particularly between the “West” and the “Global South”—which appear increasingly irrelevant for capturing the complexity of the positions, alliances, and forms of contestation at play.
Furthermore, this program also aims to assess how these narratives influence global governance of major global issues—conflict resolution, arms control, development, climate change, natural resource management, and migration—by either undermining or reinventing frameworks for international cooperation within multilateral forums.
Finally, it seeks to examine the evolution of the value systems espoused by Western actors, the critiques directed at them—particularly from the perspective of neo-imperialism—as well as the way in which their own narratives tend to gradually dissociate themselves from references to institutionalized universalism.
In this vein, this seminar aims to highlight the diversity of theoretical and empirical perspectives that can be drawn upon to analyze civilizational narratives and their role in contemporary transformations of the international system, by employing multiple levels of analysis (macro, meso, and micro). Admission is free, and the seminar can be attended in person or remotely.
Seminar Organization : Delphine Allès (INALCO), Jean-Vincent Holeindre (Paris Panthéon Assas), Frédéric Ramel (Sciences Po). Avec Louise Beaumais, postdoctorante du programme DECRIPT.
Contact : View e-mail
Session 1 : The role of Intergovernmental organizations in a new era : linking polarization and identity politics"
Guest : Gordon M. Friedrichs (Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Germany)
Date : 6th october 2025, 14h00 - 16h00
Place : Inalco PLC
Session 2 : International Law and Narratives of Civilization in Global Governance: Legacies, Practices, and Challenges
Guests : Coralie Klipfel (Maîtresse de conférences en droit public à l’INALCO) et Thibaut Fleury Graff (Professeur en droit public à l’Université Paris Panthéon-Assas)
Date : 10th december 2025, 16h30 - 18h30
Place : Sciences Po
Session 3 : Global International Relations and the Transformation of the World Order: Beyond Discourses on the Decline of the “West”
Guest : Amitav Acharya, politiste, titulaire de la Chaire UNESCO sur les défis transnationaux et la gouvernance à l'American University (Washington D.C.)
Date : 23th january 2026, 14h00 - 16h00
Place : Inalco, Maison de la Recherche
Session 4 : Beyond Realpolitik: Chinese and Western Conceptions of Justice and the World Order
Guest : Ned Lebow, Professeur émérite de théorie politique internationale, Département des études de guerre, King’s College, Londres
Date : 9th february 2026, 15h30 - 17h30
Place : Inalco, Maison de la Recherche
Session 5 : Between a communicative approach to strategic narratives and narrative archaeology: rethinking civilizational narratives beyond their content
Guests : Mylène Hardy (Inalco, PLIDAM), Karoline Postel-Vinay (Sciences Po, CERI)
Date : 16th march 2026, 14h30 - 16h30
Place : Inalco, Maison de la Recherche
Session 6 : TBA.
Guest : Arnaud Mercier (Université Panthéon Assas, IFP)
Date : 11th may 2026, 14h30 - 16h30
Place : Inalco, Maison de la Recherche