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Global Challenges
Issue no. 13 | May 2023
The Global Disinformation Order
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Articles for this issue
Global Challenges
Issue no. 13 | May 2023
The Global Disinformation Order

The present issue seeks to better apprehend the nature of this new era of digital disinformation and how it differs from prior eras marked by the dissemination of more traditional propaganda (notably the Cold War) or by the spread of American (or liberal) soft power through mass media and consumption. In so doing the issue seeks to address a series of questions such as: has traditional propaganda consisting in over-selling a model or ideology by means of manipulation and mass media been replaced by the generalisation of disinformation in the post-truth era characterized by systematic epistemic deconstruction and the outright discreditation of any truth claims? What is the role of states (as opposed to other actors) in this process and what tools and operational mechanisms are they mobilizing to pursue their global (dis-)information campaigns? What is the impact of the generalisation of alternative facts and disinformation campaigns on the international order? Who is to win and lose from it? What can be done, notably at the international level and the UN, to counter the noxious effects of global disinformation campaigns and to recreate trust in the global information order?

Articles for this issue

The Global Disinformation Order
  • I
     

    Narrative Warfare in the Digital Age

    Reading time: 6 min
  • 1
     

    Propaganda and Disinformation between East and West: A Long-Term Perspective

    Reading time: 5 min
  • 2
     

    The Politics of International Legal Justifications: On Truth, Lies and Bullshit

    Reading time: 5 min
  • 3
     

    Interpreting Disinformation

    Reading time: 6 min
  • 4
     

    Vulgar Vibes: The Atmospheres of the Global Disinformation Order

    Reading time: 5 min
  • 5
     

    The Propaganda War over Ukraine: Unanimity, on Both Sides?

    Reading time: 4 min
  • 6
     

    “Dezinformatsiya” and Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference

    Reading time: 6 min
  • 7
     

    The Politics of Information Manipulation in the 21st Century: A Case Study of the Islamic Republic of Iran

    Reading time: 5 min
  • 8
     

    The Islamic State’s Virtual Caliphate

    Reading time: 5 min
Other Issues
Issue no. 9 | March 2021
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The Moving Fault Lines of Inequality
Global Challenges
Issue no. 9 | March 2021
The Moving Fault Lines of Inequality

While poverty has been diminishing in absolute terms and relative income has been growing on a global scale for over two centuries, inequality – as measured by instruments such as the Gini coefficient – has been increasing steadily since the early 1980s. With the financial crisis of 2007, the growing digitalisation of the economy and the current pandemic, global inequality has further worsened, seeing the fortunes of the superrich attaining unprecedented levels and revenue concentrating in the top percentiles of societies.

Concurrently to the aggravation of the social fracture, additional fault lines have been opening or hardening along logics of race, gender, ethnicity and religion. Identarian revendications and logics of difference and exclusion have come to complement, compete with or supersede more traditional struggles for equality in a postmodern and neoliberal context that has normalised inequality, homogenised societies and done away with earlier grand narratives and collective agendas. 

The consequences of inequality(ies) are dramatic, as reflected in the polarisation and fragmentation of societies, worsening health and mortality indicators, political tensions and violence, a decline in democracy, and mistrust in state institutions. The objective of the current issue of Global Challenges is therefore – by reverting to the analytical tools of social science – to reflect on the causes behind the multifaceted growth of inequality(ies), anticipate their noxious fallouts and explore potential remedies.

Special Issue no. 2 | March 2023
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Urban Morphology & Violence
Global Challenges
Special Issue no. 2 | March 2023
Urban Morphology & Violence

The essays in this volume are the product of a new 'research practicum' course in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. They build on the debates on 'Urban Morphology and violence' to reflect on the associations between cities - their political orders and disorders - and outcomes ranging from occupation and resistance to marginalisation and containment. These texts foreshadow the possibility of centring - and challenging - the urban in our understanding of contemporary conflict, violence and peace. They are a first step in opening up a research agenda for a more textured analysis of spatial, geographical and temporal dynamics within the city in relation to violence, and, therefore, the mobilisation of spatial, temporal and visual modes of analysis. The promise is to make visible the varied roles of urban morphologies - adding to the debate on cities in and as sites of conflict.