Professor Oliver Richmond
Department of Politics/IR, University of Manchester
Diplomatist interviewed Professor Oliver Richmond, a leading scholar of peace and conflict studies from the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Manchester, widely known for his seminal work ‘The Grand Design’ and his contributions to the study of the international peace architecture. In this wide-ranging conversation, Professor Richmond reflects on the evolving nature of global order, the limitations of liberal peacebuilding, and the risks posed by an increasingly fragmented and multipolar world. He examines whether emerging Global South perspectives can reshape peace beyond Euro-Atlantic frameworks, interrogates the role of institutions such as the UN, BRICS, and the G20, and questions whether contemporary peace has shifted from conflict resolution to conflict management.
In The Grand Design, you explore how global order is continuously (re)constructed. If you were to sketch the “grand design” of peace emerging in the Global South today, how might it differ from the Euro-Atlantic blueprints that have dominated since 1945?
So far, we have seen victor’s (imperial- and state power–based) and liberal (democracy-, rights-, self-determination-, and trade-based) versions of peace, as in the West during the twentieth century (in 1918, 1945, and 1990), as well as Marxist and Global South interventions, particularly since the 1960s, which have pushed its character towards responding to everyday needs and rights in peace settlements after war. The post-1990s liberal peacebuilding framework associated with the UN, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law was the closest we have come to this form of a more “emancipatory peace” so far. These elements made up an international peace architecture (IPA)—a historic framework that kept the peace more substantially than ever before.
Every political and global order needs viable peacemaking tools to prevent violence from destroying it. This is a kind of “grand design,” but so far much of it has been accidental rather than intentional, and it is based upon a loose association between states and civil societies rather than a concrete framework. It is complex and reactive, meaning that it is fragile. The peace it supports follows suit, as we are currently experiencing.
The new peace architectures being imagined in the Global South would need to foreground the emancipatory claims of subaltern actors and networks for human security, rights, representation, and development. They would need to move beyond nationalism and authoritarianism towards versions of peace grounded in global justice (including historical, distributive, gender, racial, and environmental elements) at local, state, and international scales of analysis. They would unpack hierarchies and soften boundaries and stratifications. Relationality and mobility (the idea that we live in an interrelated, intergenerational, and fluid world), as well as transversalism (working against top-down hierarchies of power), are suggested, but in practice the nationalist state and territorial sovereignty across the Global South continue to dominate. Elite and authoritarian forms of power are, in fact, more common there than in the Global North.
At present, the indigenous, pastoralist, socialist, federalist, and other alternative epistemological versions of peace being imagined in Global South literatures have had little impact on policy, unfortunately. Global South elites and governments are following the same nationalist and populist track that Western countries followed in the interwar period, as some still do today. Multipolarity and nationalism were disastrous for peace then, because the systems they produced primarily settled disputes through violence rather than dialogue. Ultimately, their collapse led to an American victor’s peace after 1945 (or a Soviet one in some cases), following years of total war that destroyed the system itself. When the liberal peace emerged at the end of the Cold War, particularly via the UN, it became an important platform for civil society and social movements focused on rights and development across the world.
My recent book on the evolution of the international peace architecture illustrates that the IPA, over its long history, has always lagged behind rapidly evolving systems based on war and violence, which are connected to power, domination, and technological innovation. The IPA, by contrast, is connected to cultural, social, legal, and institutional innovation and therefore responds more slowly, though it is more ethical and creative. It points towards justice in its relationship with peace, yet it must also operate in a real world of violence and hierarchy, much of it reproduced by the state, the global political economy, and emerging technologies.
Reversing this historical dynamic—so that peacemaking evolves ahead of war and violence and points to justice rather than endorsing victory in war—is a major intellectual project. The West attempted something like this, in limited terms, after the major wars of the twentieth century. One hopes that countries such as India might now provide inspiration and support for the reform and improvement of the international peace architecture at a time when the West appears to have lost coherence. We should not forget that thinkers and activists such as Gandhi once offered a corrective to Western imperialism and its wars and continue to inspire peace movements and thinkers globally, many of whom have “written” from the subcontinent.
The reactive and complex nature of the IPA must be addressed to make it proactive and preventative, and to push peace closer to justice as understood from below by ordinary people, as Gandhi might have envisioned. Support from civil society, social movements, and leadership in the Global South would be vital for such a momentous project in this century—one that the post-1990 Liberal International Order attempted to address but only partially achieved. Intellectual, advocacy, and activist contributions from the Global South have already been fundamental to our understanding of peace and of its growing entanglement with justice, as understood by subaltern actors from below.
Overall, the current international peace architecture represents an attempt to respond to the aftermath of different forms of war while maintaining Western and Northern hegemony, yet also to support the construction of a social state and peace as a global public good. These goals are contradictory. The IPA combines both emancipatory and hegemonic frameworks, within which ideological contestation remains unresolved. Much of the IPA has been disabled since the War on Terror, the Syrian war, and now the Ukraine war. This means that, in a multipolar environment, peacemaking capacity is severely limited. Historically, such a lack of peacemaking capacity is a precursor to war.
It is true that the IPA is a reactive architecture that tends to evolve only after new dynamics of war and violence threaten the international system, as they do today. Yet such moments have historically allowed new layers of the architecture to be added to rectify shortcomings. Global South representation should therefore be closely connected to the current and future processes of renovation and innovation, incorporating global justice claims into post-conflict settlements in future layers of the IPA.
This does not suggest that elite politics, nationalism, authoritarianism, or multipolarity are compatible with the science and scholarship of effective peacemaking—unless they engage seriously with that scholarship. If they reject it, they become “counter-peace” forces, as seen in the roles played by the Russian presidency in Syria and Ukraine, as well as in attempts by U.S. presidents to broker superficial peace deals there and in Gaza. Such “peace-washing” fails to address root causes and injustice and, as history suggests, will likely collapse. Peacemaking requires global security, political, and economic alignment around a scientific framework oriented towards global justice. The wider the gap between this framework and actual practice, the less peace we will see.
With the diffusion of global power, is peace becoming fragmented—crafted in silos by regional powers—or more inclusive, drawing on a mosaic of traditions and civilizational values?
This is a very good and important question about fragmentation versus inclusion. We need far more of the latter. Fragmentation—such as the loss of UN authority or the collapse of the development system—is exceptionally dangerous. Another implication of the diffusion of global power into a multipolar order is the collapse of stalemated peace processes generated by the liberal international order (for example, in the Balkans). These already signaled deep problems of legitimacy and viability, but under multipolarity they risk degenerating into even greater instability.
Such models offer potential opportunities for more complex systems of inclusion, particularly for justice claims emerging from Global South societies rather than from their often unelected leaders. However, at present they appear to herald revisionism, in which the protections and checks and balances of the liberal peace—such as elections, human rights, free media, and the rule of law—are undermined. An emancipatory position, leadership, resources, and political will are required, but these are currently lacking. Even the EU appears directionless, much like the UN. The international order remains overly dependent on the US, China, and Russia. Global problems demand an order that transcends the old state system, imperial legacies, and regional fiefdoms.
We should also remember that dominant post–Cold War research methodologies and doctrines related to peacemaking converged around narrow goals. At best, this produced negative peace, stalemates, or victor’s peace in many conflict-affected contexts, even within the liberal framework. Any reform of international order should avoid entrenching such regressive approaches and instead move decisively towards peace with justice through new systems of global inclusion and cooperation.
Problem-solving approaches rooted in contradictory frameworks—liberal internationalism, global capitalism, realism, multipolarity, and geopolitical pragmatism—have generated unintended consequences. Recent reforms to the IPA have therefore been limited, reflecting geopolitical interests rather than critical methodologies grounded in ordinary people’s claims for peace, security, and justice. Peace cannot be reduced to victory or liberalism alone; justice and sustainability are now essential.
Since the 1990s, two trends have emerged. Within the liberal international order, non-Western political claims were simultaneously amplified and marginalized. At the same time, liberal peacemaking has been undermined by competing actors and institutions in an emerging multipolar world that lacks a meaningful peacemaking capacity. As a result, the former “liberal alignment” has broken down, while a “misaligned multipolar” order offers few tools responsive to critical peace scholarship.
I have yet to encounter clear empirical examples of a truly inclusive peace process drawing on a mosaic of traditions and civilizational values. Nonetheless, there are promising signs worldwide. Achieving such inclusion is essential for peace with justice, and this requires rejecting both multipolar revisionism and liberal provincialism. The IPA must develop new layers of peacemaking capacity. This may sound idealistic, but scholarship suggests there is little alternative, given the existential nature of contemporary warfare, its hybrid forms, escalation risks, and technological proliferation.
You have taught across Europe and Asia. How do IR conversations differ between the Global North and South?
Many universities in the Global South engage in IR debates similar to those in the Global North. However, greater insecurity and inequality generate a more visceral understanding of peace and war in the South. Recently, for example, PhD students in Colombia described to me the risks of conducting fieldwork near Cali in conflict-affected areas. There is also greater awareness of the personal dimensions of peacemaking.
In contrast, peacebuilding in the North has often been understood in bureaucratic terms, framed within liberal peace agendas aligned primarily with US and European interests. Encouragingly, Global South perspectives are increasingly shaping academic discourse, and new “plurilogues” have emerged, offering alternatives to polarized North–South frameworks—such as plurilateralism and pluriversality. These dialogues may give rise to hybrid peace frameworks that prioritize social rights over elite interests and violence.
Is the multilateral system evolving toward a more pluralist and less hierarchical architecture?
Multipolarity should not be equated with pluriversality without substantial effort. Inclusion must go beyond adding more state elites. While many scholars suggest multipolarity could produce a fairer system, I challenge this assumption. So far, multipolarity appears to reduce accountability to ordinary people’s justice claims, especially in conflict-affected societies.
The UN remains an essential platform, but funding constraints and security-driven agendas have weakened both it and regional organizations. We need a more effective multilateral or plurilateral system aligned with human security and expanded rights claims emerging from global civil society. Such a system may be multipolar, but it must be oriented toward peace with justice rather than authoritarian, securitized ideologies disguised as peace-washing, as seen in Gaza or Ukraine.
BRICS can act as both status-quo and critical peacebuilding actors. While challenging Euro-Atlantic dominance, they often engage with liberal peace norms to protect sovereignty, pursue trade, and advance national interests. However, non-violent dispute settlement must be strengthened.
Contemporary multipolarity has also fostered regressive authoritarian alliances, risking an Authoritarian International Order that equates peace with power and stability. History shows such models lead to major wars. Misalignment in norms and interests now characterizes international politics, pushing violence closer to the center. Liberal institutions once constrained this through law and norms; today those constraints are eroding.
UN peacekeeping and mediation are being marginalized, replaced by rival efforts from rising powers. Multipolarity has thus weakened peacemaking capacity, particularly in regions lacking collective security mechanisms. It is difficult to conclude that the world is moving toward a less hierarchical or more pluralist governance structure.
Is peace today more about managing coexistence than ending wars?
Some leaders may perceive it that way, but scholarship suggests otherwise. Managing coexistence without justice is unstable. The liberal order, despite its flaws, upheld non-violence as a political norm. Today’s misaligned multipolar order places violence closer to the center of politics, as seen in Ukraine.
Subaltern claims were marginalized under liberal internationalism, but multipolar fragmentation further constrains mobilization in regions dominated by authoritarian regimes. UN capacity has been reduced, and peacemaking has regressed. Contemporary approaches resemble conflict management rather than transformative peacebuilding, producing negative peace at best and instability at worst.
If you were to write a new chapter of The Grand Design set in 2030, with India as an anchor, where would you begin?
India’s traditions of non-violence, justice, and subaltern perspectives have deeply influenced peace scholarship. These traditions, shared globally, must counter nationalist and authoritarian diversions. India bears significant responsibility to reform the international peace architecture and support the UN through inclusive regional frameworks driven by subaltern justice claims.
However, recent political trends in India—mirroring those in the West—raise concerns about alignment with authoritarian blocs prioritising security and transactional interests. I hope India avoids this trajectory and instead leads efforts to reconnect peace with justice and sustainability. History shows societies have faced such crises before and prevailed. The reconstruction of the international peace architecture must be global, and India should be at its forefront.
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