The mainstream narrative in the West posits that Donald Trump has upended the ‘rules-based international order’. However, a transition in the international order was already in full swing long before Trump came to office, driven by an increasingly multi-polar balance of power and a series of actions that revealed the hypocrisy of Western foreign policy — both developments that called into question the legitimacy of Western leadership in the world. In addition to transnational challenges such as climate change, the world now faces Trump’s iconoclasm and the conflicts he inherited (from Ukraine to Gaza) at the same time.

For 18 months, the Quincy Institute under the aegis of the Better Order Project convened more than 130 leading experts and practitioners from across the world to generate concrete recommendations for how to stabilize an international order that is transitioning away from unipolarity and Western leadership. Its landmark report was published in November 2024. Please join us for a discussion on how the world might construct a more durable and inclusive order amid today’s varied sources of chaos and change.