What is the format of the IV Kongres Polskiego Towarzystwa Studiów Międzynarodowych?

The event is structured as an academic conference, providing a forum for scholarly presentations and discussions.

IV Kongres Polskiego Towarzystwa Studiów Międzynarodowych

Name: IV Kongres Polskiego Towarzystwa Studiów Międzynarodowych
Start: 2026-11-05T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-11-06T00:00:00Z
Location: Gdańsk

Nov 5–6, 2026Gdańsk, PolandIn-person

Registration open

The IV Kongres Polskiego Towarzystwa Studiów Międzynarodowych is an academic conference hosted in Gdańsk, Poland. This event serves as a significant gathering for scholars and practitioners focused on international studies, providing a platform for the exchange of research and ideas within the field. Its location in a historically significant city in Central Europe underscores the region's growing importance in global discourse.

Committees & topics

Topics
Zmiana w globalnym systemie międzynarodowym w pierwszym ćwierćwieczu XXI wieku · Structural Changes in Contemporary International Relations · The International System · The International Community · The Global Balance of Power · New Ideas and Technologies in International Relations · State and Institutional Strategies in a Changing Order · Architectures of Security and Economic Cooperation

Why it matters

This congress is crucial for fostering intellectual discourse and advancing the understanding of international relations, particularly from a Central European perspective. Such events are vital for academics to present new research, engage in critical debate, and build networks that can lead to collaborative projects. The insights shared at the congress can influence policy discussions and public understanding of complex global issues.

For Model Diplomat, monitoring events like this congress is essential for identifying emerging trends and scholarly consensus in international studies. The discussions and papers presented often highlight areas of academic focus that may not yet be widely covered in mainstream policy circles, offering an early indicator of future geopolitical and socioeconomic shifts. Understanding these academic currents allows for a more nuanced and forward-looking analysis of global affairs.

How to prepare

Participants preparing for the IV Kongres Polskiego Towarzystwa Studiów Międzynarodowych should consider the broader context of international relations scholarship in POL and the wider European region. Familiarity with contemporary challenges facing Europe, such as regional security, economic integration, and evolving geopolitical alliances, will be beneficial. Engaging with the work of prominent Polish international relations scholars could also provide valuable context for the discussions.

For those presenting, a clear understanding of their research's contribution to the existing body of knowledge is paramount. Utilizing frameworks such as the Model Diplomat's Power-Interest Grid or Hidden Stakeholders can help in structuring arguments and identifying the various actors and influences at play in their chosen topics. Furthermore, considering the Engagement Strategies relevant to academic discourse will enhance the impact of their presentations and subsequent discussions.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Poland

Host nation and key contributor to Central European international relations discourse.

Role in topic

POL, as the host country, plays a central role in shaping the agenda and focus of the congress. Its geopolitical position at the crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe makes it a significant voice in discussions on regional security, European integration, and relations with major global powers. The congress provides a platform for Polish scholars to share their unique perspectives and research findings with an international audience.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Zmiana w globalnym systemie międzynarodowym w pierwszym ćwierćwieczu XXI wieku

The first quarter of the 21st century has witnessed a profound reconfiguration of the post-Cold War liberal international order. The unipolar moment that followed the Soviet collapse eroded through a succession of shocks: the 9/11 attacks and ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2008 global financial crisis, the rise of China as a peer economic competitor, Russia's revisionist turn culminating in the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the renewed Middle East conflict following October 2023. Each of these events exposed the limits of Western-led institutions and accelerated the diffusion of power toward Asia and a broader 'Global South.' The period has also been defined by the contestation of norms once treated as settled — territorial integrity, nuclear non-proliferation, free trade, and universal human rights. Multilateral bodies such as the UN Security Council and the WTO have struggled to mediate great-power rivalry, while new groupings (BRICS+, SCO, Quad, AUKUS) and instruments (sanctions regimes, export controls, industrial policy) have proliferated. The result is widely characterized as a transition from unipolarity toward a contested multipolarity or 'multiplex' order, in which economic interdependence coexists with geopolitical decoupling. Today, scholars debate whether the system is undergoing structural transformation or merely cyclical adjustment. The war in Ukraine, US–China strategic competition, and the weaponization of finance and technology suggest deeper change, while persistent dollar dominance and the resilience of core institutions point to continuity.

Key players

Structural Changes in Contemporary International Relations

Structural change in international relations refers to shifts in the distribution of capabilities, the architecture of institutions, and the underlying norms that govern state behavior. Since 2000, the most consequential structural shift has been the relative decline of the transatlantic share of global GDP and the corresponding rise of Asian economies, particularly China and India. This material rebalancing has been compounded by the digital revolution, demographic divergence between aging industrial democracies and youthful developing states, and the climate transition, which is reshaping energy geopolitics. At the institutional level, the post-1945 Bretton Woods/UN system has been supplemented — and in places challenged — by parallel structures: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the New Development Bank, regional trade agreements such as RCEP and CPTPP, and minilateral security arrangements. Norm contestation is visible in debates over sovereignty versus the Responsibility to Protect, data governance, and the use of unilateral coercive measures. Sanctions and export controls have become structural features of statecraft, blurring the line between economic and security policy. Debate centers on whether these changes constitute a genuine systemic transformation or an adaptive evolution. Realists emphasize polarity shifts; liberal institutionalists point to institutional layering; constructivists highlight contested identities and legitimacy.

Key players

The International System

The concept of the international system describes the patterned interactions of sovereign states and the structural conditions — polarity, anarchy, interdependence, institutions — that shape their behavior. The contemporary system traces its formal roots to the Westphalian settlement of 1648 and was reorganized after 1945 around the UN Charter, with bipolarity during the Cold War giving way to a brief American-led unipolarity in the 1990s. Each configuration produced distinctive patterns of alliance formation, conflict, and governance. The current system is widely described as one of contested or asymmetric multipolarity: the United States retains unmatched military reach and financial centrality, China rivals it economically and increasingly technologically, while regional powers wield growing influence in their neighborhoods. Globalization has tied states together through supply chains, capital flows, and digital networks even as great-power rivalry pushes toward selective decoupling. Non-state actors — multinational corporations, transnational networks, and platform companies — exert system-level influence that classical state-centric theory struggles to capture. Key contemporary questions include whether the system is becoming more conflict-prone as power transitions accelerate, whether existing institutions can absorb new claimants, and how technological change (AI, quantum, biotechnology) will redistribute capabilities among states.

Key players

The International Community

The 'international community' is a normative rather than purely empirical concept, invoked to denote a shared set of values, responsibilities, and institutions that bind states beyond narrow self-interest. The term gained prominence after the Cold War, especially around humanitarian intervention in the Balkans, the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002, and the 2005 World Summit's endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect. It implies that states form a society — in the English School sense — with common rules of coexistence and, increasingly, common purposes. The concept has come under sustained strain. Selective interventions (Kosovo, Libya), failures to act (Syria, Myanmar, Sudan), and competing interpretations of sovereignty have eroded confidence in any singular 'community.' Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the divergent responses to the Israel–Hamas war have laid bare deep fissures between Western states and much of the Global South over double standards, colonial legacies, and selective enforcement of international law. Voting patterns in the UN General Assembly increasingly reveal a fragmented normative landscape. Contemporary debate focuses on whether the international community remains a meaningful actor capable of collective action on climate change, pandemics, and atrocity prevention, or whether it has become rhetorical cover for the preferences of the most powerful.

Key players

The Global Balance of Power

Balance of power — the distribution of material and ideational capabilities among major states and the strategies they employ to prevent any single actor from achieving hegemony — remains a central organizing concept of international politics. The post-1991 unipolar distribution has gradually given way to a more dispersed arrangement. China's GDP rose from roughly a tenth of US output in 2000 to comparable scale in PPP terms by the mid-2020s, while its military modernization, particularly its naval and missile forces, has transformed the Indo-Pacific balance. Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered the most significant recalibration of European security since 1989: NATO enlarged to include Finland and Sweden, defense spending across the alliance rose sharply, and Germany announced a 'Zeitenwende' in security policy. In Asia, the strengthening of US alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia, alongside AUKUS and the Quad, reflects classical balancing against Chinese power. Simultaneously, middle powers such as India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil pursue hedging strategies, refusing binary alignment. The contemporary balance is uniquely complex because it spans military, economic, technological, and informational domains, each with different distributions of power. Whether this multidimensional balance produces stability or heightened risk of miscalculation is the central strategic question of the era.

Key players

New Ideas and Technologies in International Relations

Technological change has become a primary driver of geopolitical competition. Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, biotechnology, hypersonic systems, and space capabilities now sit at the heart of national security strategies. The United States' 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, sweeping export controls on advanced semiconductors to China, and the EU's Chips Act and AI Act exemplify the fusion of industrial policy, security, and technology governance. China's 'Made in China 2025' and its push for indigenous innovation reflect a parallel logic from the other direction. At the multilateral level, the 2024 Global Digital Compact, ongoing UN discussions on lethal autonomous weapons systems within the CCW framework, and debates at UNESCO and the ITU on AI ethics signal an attempt to develop governance frameworks for transformative technologies. Yet rule-making is fragmented across forums and increasingly bifurcated between US-led and China-led ecosystems. New ideas — strategic autonomy, technological sovereignty, de-risking, friend-shoring — have entered the diplomatic lexicon to capture this reality. Key unresolved questions concern the governance of dual-use AI, the militarization of outer space, biosecurity in the wake of COVID-19, and the implications of digital currencies for the international financial system.

Key players

State and Institutional Strategies in a Changing Order

States are responding to systemic uncertainty with a wider repertoire of strategies than the simple balancing/bandwagoning dichotomy suggests. Great powers pursue strategic competition combined with selective cooperation on climate, non-proliferation, and pandemic preparedness. Middle powers increasingly favor hedging, multi-alignment, and 'issue-based coalitions,' as visible in India's simultaneous membership in the Quad, BRICS, and SCO, or Turkey's parallel engagement with NATO, Russia, and Gulf states. Smaller states emphasize niche diplomacy, coalition-building, and rules-based multilateralism as protection against great-power coercion. Institutional strategies have likewise diversified. The EU has developed an extensive autonomous toolkit — the Anti-Coercion Instrument, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the Global Gateway, and a Strategic Compass — to act as a more cohesive geopolitical actor. NATO adopted a new Strategic Concept in 2022 identifying Russia as the most significant threat and China as a 'systemic challenge.' Meanwhile, BRICS expanded in 2024 to include new members and is exploring alternatives to dollar-based settlement, while ASEAN continues to assert centrality in Indo-Pacific architecture. The analytical challenge is to map how state strategies and institutional adaptations interact: whether they reinforce a fragmenting order or generate new patterns of cooperation across blocs.

Key players

Architectures of Security and Economic Cooperation

The post-1945 architecture of security and economic cooperation rested on a layered set of institutions: the UN system for collective security, NATO and US bilateral alliances for hard security, and the IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO, and OECD for economic governance. This architecture is now under simultaneous pressure from great-power rivalry, regional fragmentation, and the emergence of cross-cutting challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and cyber threats that fit poorly within existing institutional remits. Security architecture has bifurcated and thickened. NATO has expanded and reoriented toward collective defense, while in the Indo-Pacific a 'latticework' of arrangements — AUKUS, Quad, US–Japan–Korea, US–Japan–Philippines — has emerged in place of a single alliance. The OSCE has been largely paralyzed by the Russia–Ukraine war. On the economic side, the WTO's dispute settlement system has been hobbled since 2019, while regional trade agreements (CPTPP, RCEP, AfCFTA) and plurilateral initiatives (IPEF, Minerals Security Partnership) have proliferated. BRICS+ and the New Development Bank offer alternative financial channels. The central debate concerns whether these overlapping arrangements amount to a coherent if pluralistic 'multiplex' order or to dangerous institutional fragmentation that weakens collective responses to shared threats.

Key players