Raisina Files 2026 – Identities, Contests, and Concerts
Attribution: Samir Saran and Vinia Mukherjee, Eds., Identities, Contests, and Concerts, Observer Research Foundation, March 2026.
Editors’ Note
In an age of assertion, states rediscover their identity; where there is rivalry, they navigate contests; and amidst uncertainty, they must rediscover the skill and art of concert. The challenge before us today is not to erase differences but to orchestrate them: turning frictions into a negotiable framework, and competition into sound and effective cooperation. The old certainties of the post-Cold War era have frayed. Power is diffusing, alliances are shifting, and the architecture that once underpinned stability is strained by wicked rivalries, technological disruptions, and societal fragmentation. Nations are rediscovering sovereignty—whether over borders or bandwidth alike. Societies are renegotiating belonging, memory, and aspiration. The grammar of the global order is being rewritten in real-time.
This edition of Raisina Files is framed by a simple proposition: The world we are entering will not be defined by power alone, but by how identity shapes power, how contestations discipline ambitions, and how cooperation is reconstructed under stress. We present this notion in three sections.
The first section, The World, examines the theatres where contests are most visible—geopolitics, security frameworks, and the evolving geometry of power. From great-power rivalry to emerging-power agency, from deterrence to diplomacy, these essays explore how states navigate turbulence without surrendering their autonomy. They ask: Who sets the rules when rules themselves are contested? What forms of alignment endure when alignment is no longer ideological but transactional? And how do emerging actors convert flux into leverage?
The section opens with a piece by Dhruva Jaishankar, where he writes about the questions that United States (US) allies, partners, and competitors alike need to ask themselves of how much and to what degree they will accommodate, or hedge against, the US’s new approach to the world. “Navigating the multiple layers of US policy at this juncture remains important, in large part because the United States continues to wield tremendous international power.”
The second essay, by Stefania Benaglia, weaves for us Europe’s “moment of clarity”: “The question is no longer whether the EU must take greater responsibility for its own security; it is how Europe should do so, and at what political, economic, and societal cost.”
Europe is also the pivot of Rachel Rizzo’s article, which concerns itself with how the continent can reshape its defence relationship with India outside of formal alliances. She outlines a framework beyond “building legacy systems like tanks, ships, or fighter jets and building a massive export-import market.”
Marites Dañguilan Vitug takes us to the South China Sea, and makes a case for two plausible pathways by which Manila could leverage its ASEAN chairmanship to steer the grouping towards resolving territorial disputes with China: arbitration, and reframing the conversation on the dispute as a test of the international legal order—“a concern of existential proportions for all states in the region.”
The fifth essay, by Mahdi Ghuloom, is an exposition of the role of civil defence infrastructures in limiting the consequences of conflict and war. Still, he writes, as in the case of Israel, even such an effective defence model is not a substitute for credible deterrence.
Stormy-Annika Mildner then asks an oft-repeated question, “Should the WTO be written off?” She emphasises that while a return to the “old” WTO system is unrealistic, a rules-based trade order remains essential to make sure that smaller nations “are not sidelined in a global trading environment that is increasingly being dominated by power politics rather than rules.”
It is also “rules” that Arta Moeini convinces us to rethink—but not just those of trade—rather, of the entire paradigm with which we view the emerging world. It is a world, he writes, where we are not just rearranging global power, but reshaping political life “around deeper and older units of human association: civilisations. It signals the reassertion of cultural sovereignty, the revival of regional orders centred on spheres of interest, and the restoration of multiplicity as the natural condition of humanity.”
Itonde A. Kakoma closes this section with an indisputable argument, amidst the turbulence, for peace-making. “The challenge that confronts the international community is to define what a credible ‘Agenda for Peace’ entails in an era defined by fragmentation, polarisation, transactionalism, and war.”
The second section, The People, turns inward to the social contract. Power, after all, is meaningful only when it delivers welfare and well-being. In an era of disruptions—technological, economic, demographic—citizens demand dignity as much as growth. Trust in institutions, the resilience of communities, and equity in opportunity become strategic variables. These chapters probe whether states can remain competitive externally while remaining cohesive internally.
The first two essays take aim at the need for a “human-centric” shift to tech and AI. Christine Hine, in a piece that tells us stories about the promise of AI in smart healthcare, warns against a simplistic appreciation of where the faults of AI may lie. “The consequences of AI are not inherent within the technology, but occur through the value-laden choices that decide how and where AI should be deployed and by whom.”
Erin Watson then writes about how the digital shift has opened up opportunities for more women to take part in the economy. But does it also grant them dignity? Not automatically, she says; the need is for “governance choices that place women’s labour and social protection at the centre of the digital economy.”
Pavlina Pavlova sets her article in the backdrop of the societal benefits of technological advancement, and how digital transformation is a key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. But the costs are plenty—among them loss of privacy, lack of safety, and fraud and exploitation. Securing digital ecosystems thus becomes, in itself, a value worth fighting for.
Amrita Narlikar writes about values, too—of both individuals (what we live by), and institutions (what diverse actors bring to the negotiating table). These values are just one of the multiple layers of Saṁskāra, a concept of Indic origin that can serve as both a theoretical lens and a compass for policymakers.
We close this section with an article by Arezo Kohistany, which zooms in on the imperative for BRICS+ countries to meet their basic growth needs. One answer, she proposes, is in the form of a development financing institution that can fill in where the typical development banks fall short.
The third section, The Commons, expands the lens to our shared spaces—planetary, digital, maritime, and financial. Climate change, biodiversity loss, fragile supply chains, and sustainability transitions expose the paradox of our time: sovereignty may be a national assertion, but survival is a collective task. The commons have never really been abstract ideals; they are battlegrounds of negotiation and, today, must become laboratories of cooperation. The question is not whether interdependence exists but how it can be governed.
Sara Roversi stuns us with some figures: Between 1961 and 2020, the total real value of global agricultural production increased nearly fourfold, outpacing world population growth—but in 2024, 8.2 percent of humanity were undernourished. The question therefore, she says, is not whether the world can grow enough calories, “but whether our institutions can redesign those systems fast enough to keep them viable, fair, and within planetary limits.”
Sustainability is also what Anusha Kesarkar Gavankar writes about in her essay on green ports. How can ports help economies achieve growth that benefits many? After all, nearly 40 percent of the global population live within 100 km of a coastline, and so it is the people who are central to sustainable port development.
Niven Winchester then writes about another endeavour to redefine infrastructure through sustainability. In his piece, he describes the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as a regulatory tool to combat emissions leakage in global trade. In particular, he examines the potential impact on the countries of the Gulf region.
The last two essays transport us to the realm of our oceans—the vibrant ecosystems that feed billions of people, foster human development, generate economic growth and prosperity, secure energy supplies, and preserve ecological diversity. Liz Karan and Anindita Chakraborty remind us of the global scale and complexity of the challenges facing our oceans, and argue for continued trust in multilateral frameworks that can still give us pathways for international cooperation.
AndNancy Karigithu, in a piece that closes this volume,argues for targeted and sustained efforts to develop a more inclusive framework for sharing the benefits from ocean resources.
Together, these 18 essays that follow the three arcs of World, People, and Commons, reflect the tensions of our present day and what we can build for the future. Identities assert. Contests disrupt. Concerts must reconcile. The task before policymakers, scholars, and citizens alike is not to romanticise a vanished order nor retreat into insulated sovereignties. It is to craft frameworks where competition does not preclude cooperation, where welfare underwrites legitimacy, and where stewardship tempers ambition.
If the twentieth century was about constructing order, and the early-twenty-first tasked us to defend it, the coming decades will be about a massive reimagination. The future will not belong to those who deny contests, nor to those who weaponise identity without restraint. It will rightfully be claimed by those who can harmonise differences into durable arrangements—those who understand that stability is not inherited, but engineered.
This volume is an invitation to that engineering.