STAIR is accepting submissions to the following sections of its current issue, Issue 21.1 - A Geoeconomic Global South? Strategic Agency in a Fragmenting World:

• General Section: manuscripts on topics in the fields of International Relations/Affairs, Political Science, Contemporary/International History, Area Studies, Development Studies, and related fields. Articles may take theoretical or policy-oriented approaches.

• Book Review: reviews of books in International Affairs or related fields which have been published within the last three calendar years. Please find a suggested shortlist below.

• Theme Section: manuscripts on the theme of A Geoeconomics Global South? as outlined in the following description.

• Essays: manuscripts on the theme A Geoeconomics Global South? as outlined in the following description.

A Geoeconomic Global South? Strategic Agency in a fragmenting world

“Geoeconomics” has emerged as a key concept for analysing the growing entanglement between states’ industrial strategies and their foreign policies. First defined by Luttwak (1990) as the logic of conflict in the grammar of commerce, commentators and scholars increasingly use "geoeconomics” to describe great powers' amplifying reliance on economic statecraft (Baldwin, 1985) to advance their geopolitical ambitions and build resilience against external coercion. The once dominant belief that globalization is positive-sum and mutually beneficial has given way to fears of being subjected to – as well as ambitions to subject other states to – weaponised interdependence (Farrell & Newman, 2019).

In this context, scholars and commentators often picture low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the Global South as battlegrounds for great power competition. Yet could “a return to geo-economics” (Lind, 2019) give the Global South new leverage as great powers race to secure access to critical natural resources and seek new economic partnerships?

By hedging between partnership contenders, these developing countries may gain new negotiating leverage for investments, aid, and political cooperation. Still, history demonstrates that possessing a wealth of resources is not synonymous with strategic agency and power. Recognizing this tension, this issue of STAIR invites contributions exploring our overarching question: Under which conditions can the Global South – including countries and regional blocs – assert strategic agency in a geoeconomic order?

We invite submissions of papers (5,000-10,000 words) and shorter essays (2,000-4,000 words)  engaging with any of the following themes:

1 - Conceptual Contributions

Much of the recent geoeconomics literature centres on great-power rivalry, particularly between the U.S. and China, while engaging less with the concept’s boundaries, novelty, or its analytical usefulness in the context of the Global South. What might a geoeconomic perspective rooted in the Global South and focused on its agency look like? If states have long used economic tools to pursue political ends – from mercantilism and colonial trade policies to Cold War economic statecraft – what makes geoeconomics a distinctive framework today for countries of the Global South? Are there conceptual differences that stem from the actors involved, the instruments available to them, the global conditions in which they operate, or something else?

2 - Strategies of the Global South amid Great-Power Rivalry

States in the Global South face a complex landscape in which multiple powers compete for influence. How do low- and middle-income countries navigate intensifying great-power competition in trade and investment? What strategies do they adopt in response to tariffs, infrastructure initiatives such as China's Belt and Road and the EU's Global Gateway, and shifting investment regimes? Do they hedge, diversify, or directly compete? How much agency do Global South states retain in shaping outcomes? To what extent do these dynamics create new opportunities for the Global South, and to what extent do they reproduce older dependencies? 

3 - Supply Chains

As demand for advanced computing power and green technologies grows, governments and corporations are scrambling to secure access to critical technology supply chains.   Many countries in the Global South hold significant leverage in this process, as they are endowed with raw materials and demographic resources that are essential to industrial competition. What opportunities and constraints do stakeholders in the Global South face amid the reconfiguration of critical supply chains? How are they responding to Western countries’ “derisking” strategies, including “friend-shoring,” export controls, and domestic subsidies (Fägersten 2023)? What are the implications of emerging resource nationalism, such as Indonesia’s “downstreaming” policy (Tahir 2025)? Do these dynamics vary across sectors or stages of the supply chain?

4 - Multilateral Organisations

While states drive geoeconomic competition, to what extent are Global South multilateral organisations like the African Union and Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) developing geoeconomic strategies of their own? Are there examples of Global South regional organisations emulating Western geoeconomic interventions, such as those of the EU (Chen 2024), by adapting them to local contexts? Or are they devising wholly original approaches?  How do internal factors – including cultural and political diversity – shape their abilities to coordinate and act collectively? Finally, how might Global South regional organisations leverage their collective influence in global financial institutions such as the World Bank or the IMF? 

5 - Transnational and subnational actors (public and non-public, provincial governments, civil society…)

In March 2025, Chinese chain Luckin Coffee signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia’s Bangga Regency for exclusive rights to the province’s coconuts. “Luckin Exclusive Coconut Island” forms part of a broader campaign by the Chinese government to encourage private companies to invest in Southeast Asia — complementing state-led initiatives such as the Belt and Road.   Such examples highlight the growing role of private and subnational actors in shaping geoeconomic dynamics (Hess and Aidoo 2016). How can analysing these actors – ranging from municipalities and regional governments to corporations and civil society – offer new perspectives on geoeconomic competition? What tensions emerge when local or corporate initiatives diverge from national priorities?

6 - International development

Development assistance has long constituted one of the core modes of engagement between the transatlantic core and low- and middle-income countries under the Liberal International Order. Yet in recent years, Western donors have shifted away from traditional development policies centred on poverty reduction and state capacity, toward strategies that serve geopolitical and geoeconomic aims, often in response to China’s expanding influence. Does the partial disengagement of traditional donors present new opportunities for LMICs? How might they leverage their natural and human resources to extract concessions from donors and secure productive and connective investment aimed at economic growth?