Professor Robert Patman is one of the University of Otago's Inaugural Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chairs and is a specialist in international relations. He is also an Honorary Professor of the NZ Defence Command and Staff College and makes regular contributions to the national and global media on international issues. He is the winner of the NZ Universities' 2024 Critic and Conscience of Society Award.

In this presentation, Professor Patman will discuss how the world, since the late 1980s, has experienced a prolonged and turbulent transition to a new international order, in which 9/11 was a significant landmark. It demonstrated that extraordinary national power is not invulnerable in an increasingly interconnected world, and served as a catalyst in shaping subsequent events eg counterterrorist policies. Other factors such as the global financial crisis of 2008/9, the rise of the Populist Radical Right, China's attainment of superpower status, and the erosion of an international rules-based order have contributed to the move toward a post-hegemonic world in which small and middle powers have to play a bigger international role.

Supported with funding from TDC Community Grant.