SAIS Perspectives is pleased to launch its 2025-26 annual issue centered around the theme of ‘Resilience in a Fractured Future.’
The pathway to development and stability is increasingly fractured. Geopolitical rivalries, technological decoupling, climate disasters, and mass displacement are splintering the international order, worsening inequality, and overwhelming traditional policy frameworks.
Within a fractured system, however, resilience can emerge. Communities, ecosystems, and social movements are actively resisting, adapting, and forging new pathways to improve sustainability, access, and inclusion where traditional top-down governance has not. From mutual aid networks created during global crises to indigenous knowledge systems guiding climate adaptation, the shortcomings of traditional structures of governance are creating opportunities for solidarity and innovation.
Our 2025/26 Annual Theme engages the dichotomy of systemic breakdown and explores creative sustainable development solutions. Potential questions and prompts include but are not limited to:
How can the Global South navigate the green transition and achieve sustainable development when critical supply chains and technologies are concentrated in competing geopolitical blocs?
What does effective climate action look like in a world of shifting alliances, trade wars, and fractured multilateralism? Can new forms of cooperation emerge outside traditional diplomatic channels?
How do communities build resilience when facing simultaneous shocks of conflict, climate disaster, and economic instability?
How do unequal access to AI, disputes over data sovereignty, and competing models of internet governance deepen global inequality? Conversely, how might decentralized technologies create new pathways for equitable development?
What new policy frameworks can integrate climate action, social justice, and economic sustainability to bridge the divides of our fractured world?
This theme explores both peril and possibility. Submissions can focus on the dangers of deepening fractures, the risk of a future without change, or past destabilization. Equally welcome are stories of unexpected alliances, radical reimagining, and the creative potential that emerges when old systems break down. We want to see explorations of resilience that emerge from disruption! Amid global fracturing and rising fragility, how can we leverage innovation and inclusion to build a more sustainable, resilient future?