PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The contributions to this volume show the utility of four different modes of construction—universalizing, bundling, upscaling, and creating urgency—in analyzing the creation of global challenges. They also identify additional modes that appear salient in the particular cases under examination. In summarizing the contributions, the Conclusion first identifies noteworthy characteristics of global challenges—their complexity, liability to perpetual contestation and re-invention, and tight connections to particular solutions. Second, it examines the distinction between “incumbents” and “challengers” and the various forms it takes throughout the volume, and assesses its benefits or otherwise to the analysis of global challenges. Third, it explores how the discourse on global challenges can either reinforce or challenge dominant world-political orders, such as the capitalist market-based system and the liberal international order. The process can reproduce existing global orders, adapt them, or foster new actors, policies, and concepts. The Conclusion also expounds on the historical interaction between Western and non-Western actors. However, in the end, large-scale transformations appear unlikely since the discourse of global challenges tends to support and adapt rather than challenge the present political order.