Jorge Heine is Interim Director of the Pardee Heart for the Research of the Longer-Vary Future and Analysis Professor on the Frederick S. Pardee Faculty of International Research, Boston College. He specializes within the worldwide politics of the International South and diplomatic research. A recipient of the 2023 Adil Najam Prize for Advancing the Public Understanding of International Affairs, he has served as Vice-President of the Worldwide Political Science Affiliation (IPSA), International Fellow on the Wilson Heart, Guggenheim Fellow, and Distinguished Fellow on the Heart for Worldwide Governance Innovation (CIGI). He has additionally held senior analysis and visiting fellow roles at establishments together with the China Heart for Globalization and UN ECLAC and was twice named amongst South Africa’s 100 most influential personalities by The Star in 1997 and 1998.
Heine has authored, co-authored, or edited 18 books, together with The Non-Aligned World (Polity, 2025), Latin American Overseas Insurance policies within the New World Order (Anthem, 2023, 2024), and The Oxford Handbook of Trendy Diplomacy (OUP, 2013, 2015), in addition to over 130 scholarly articles. He holds a PhD and MA in Political Science from Stanford College, a B.Phil. from York College (UK), and a regulation diploma from the College of Chile. A former Chilean Cupboard Minister and Ambassador to China, India, and South Africa, he has additionally held tutorial appointments at Wilfrid Laurier College and the colleges of Konstanz, Oxford, Paris, and Tsinghua.
The place do you see essentially the most thrilling debates occurring in your discipline?
As I see it, essentially the most thrilling debates in IR at this second are occurring within the rising discipline of International IR. The pioneering work of Amitav Acharya in latest books like The As soon as and Future World Order (2025) and Divergent Worlds (2025), in addition to in his earlier volumes, have lifted the self-discipline from the slim confines of the North Atlantic to the broader setting of the world in toto. This has significantly enriched the examine of IR, introduced new views into play, and allowed us to see and to know phenomena that we didn’t grasp beforehand. Acharya’s notion of multiplexity is an particularly helpful one, and rather more nuanced and differentiated than that of multipolarity that’s so broadly used. I additionally discover the work of Kishore Mahbubani on the rise of Asia and the debates round that particularly illuminating. The identical goes for the work of Malaysian political scientist Cheng-Chwee Kuik on hedging.
How has the best way you perceive the world modified over time, and what (or who) prompted essentially the most important shifts in your pondering?
Though I’m initially from Chile, I began my tutorial profession in Puerto Rico learning the Caribbean, an interesting a part of the world, whose magie antillaise nonetheless enthralls me. The challenges confronted by these former plantation societies as they made the transition from their earlier colonial situation to independence have been extraordinary, and I used to be fortunate to do fieldwork in Puerto Rico, Haiti and Grenada, amongst different locations, getting a first-hand impression of the Caribbean predicament. Having later lived in South Africa, India and China, I used to be struck by the commonalities of growing nations and the way tough it’s for them to ascertain productive, non-subordinate hyperlinks with the worldwide atmosphere.
A pure extension of my work on the Caribbean was the examine of Latin American IR and overseas insurance policies, which I did for some time in Chile. Later, I prolonged this work to the broader International South, the place I had the possibility to familiarize myself with African and Asian realities. Maybe essentially the most important shift in my pondering took place after I realized that opposite to what dependency theorists postulated within the Sixties (a lot of whom have been primarily based in Santiago after I did my regulation research on the College of Chile and thus formed the pondering of a lot of my technology), it was attainable to flee the ‘underdevelopment entice.’ The so-called ‘Asian Tigers’ did so within the latter a part of the twentieth century, and several other rising economies and rising powers are doing so now. Among the many programs I train at Boston College, maybe my favourite is North-South Relations (IR 395), whose title has a pleasant, old style ring. The transition from the Third World of yesteryear to the New South of at this time is a operating thread in it.
Alongside different students and practitioners, you could have been advocating for the resurgence of the Chilly Struggle-era idea of non-alignment as a lens for analyzing up to date energy dynamics and overseas coverage choices. What drives your perception within the relevance of this idea at this time, and the way do you see it shaping tutorial discourse and policymaking?
On account of rising tensions between america and China in the course of the first Trump administration (2017-2021), Latin America discovered itself underneath extreme stress from each Washington and Beijing to toe their respective traces. Main bodily and digital infrastructure initiatives have been cancelled due to these pressures. With my colleagues Carlos Fortin and Carlos Ominami, we concluded that, underneath such circumstances, which overlapped with essentially the most important financial downturn within the area in 120 years (in 2020), a brand new method was wanted to navigate this advanced worldwide atmosphere. The latter had some similarities with the Chilly Struggle but additionally important variations. We thus took a web page from the Non-Aligned Motion of the fifties and sixties and tailored it to the realities of the brand new century, labelling it Lively Non-Alignment (ANA). Our contribution proposes that, within the twenty first century, there’s a New South that has come into its personal. It will probably depend on what has been referred to as ‘collective monetary statecraft,’ in marked distinction to the diplomatie des cahiers des doleances practiced by the NAM in its heyday, amongst different issues, by requests for a New Worldwide Financial Order (NIEO).
The extant nice energy competitors between america and China provides growing nations a outstanding alternative: they’ll decide and select, on an issue-by-issue foundation, whether or not Washington or Beijing provides the very best circumstances for any venture, be it a port, a dam or telecom expertise. At the moment’s competitors between the U.S. and China is completely different from the Chilly Struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union due to the relative dimension and openness of the Chinese language economic system. This provides extra alternatives for growing nations in commerce, funding and monetary cooperation than the Soviet economic system ever did. By “enjoying the sphere” and hedging their bets, weaker states are higher off than by aligning themselves with China or the U.S. This permits them to take care of uncertainty whereas growing their leverage. Our edited quantity, Latin American Overseas Insurance policies within the New World Order: The Lively Non-Alignment Choice (Anthem Press), with chapters by the previous overseas ministers of six Latin American international locations, was broadly reviewed, and launched in New Delhi by Indian overseas minister, S.Jaishankar. Colombia and South Africa have proclaimed Lively Non-Alignment as their official overseas coverage doctrine, and Itamaraty, the Brazilian overseas ministry, additionally makes use of the method.
Your work typically hyperlinks lively non-alignment to Latin America’s function within the international order. How possible is for Latin American international locations to operationalize lively non-alignment whereas navigating the competing influences of the U.S., China, and Russia?
The Spanish version of our e book, with the title El No Alineamiento Activo y America Latina: Una doctrina para el nuevo siglo (Editorial Catalonia), was printed in November 2021 in Santiago and triggered a lot curiosity throughout the hemisphere, with launches in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and america. Nonetheless, curiosity within the e book and the notion of Lively Non-Alignment soared after the Russian invasion of Ukraine three months later, in February 2022. It was then that many international locations within the International South, most prominently India and South Africa, however many others as effectively, took a distinct stance from that of Western powers on the struggle in Ukraine, particularly on the unilateral sanctions utilized on Russia. Instantly, non-alignment was again with a vengeance, not simply in Latin America but additionally in Africa and Asia, and this e book supplied a guide of kinds for it. From 2022-2024, not solely the struggle in Ukraine but additionally the growth of the BRICS group at their Johannesburg summit in August 2023, and later the struggle in Gaza, led to an upsurge of the International South’s involvement in world affairs. South Africa took the lead in bringing a case towards Israel on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of violating the Conference Towards Genocide. Brazil, in flip, as chair of the United Nations Safety Council, launched a decision calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. United Nations Normal Meeting votes calling for a ceasefire in Gaza would garner 140 plus votes, largely from the International South, versus 50 or so towards it, largely from the International North. Overseas Coverage proclaimed 2023 the yr of the International South.
In some ways, Lively Non-Alignment is the pure overseas coverage of the International South, which led us to put in writing a follow-up companion quantity to our first e book on the topic. This monograph will probably be printed in April 2025 by Polity Press, titled The Non-Aligned World: Hanging Out in an Period of Nice Energy Competitors. This e book extends our argument from Latin America to the International South, together with examples and case research from Africa and Asia. That stated, it’s important to underscore that ANA shouldn’t be a motion however a doctrine, a sure method to overseas coverage that gives an motion information and a compass for navigating the turbulent waters of a world in turmoil. ANA arose from the urgency of developing with a response in Latin America, hit by a triple whammy: the COVID-19 pandemic, the following recession, and the pressures from the Trump administration. Because the second Trump administration (2025-2029) wreaks much more havoc within the current world order, and U.S.-China competitors reveals no signal of abating, ANA turns into much more related – not only for Latin America, however for the International South as an entire.
Tapping into your diplomatic profession, how have your ambassadorial experiences in China, India, and South Africa formed your views on non-alignment from the International South?
I’m what, in Washington D.C., is called an ‘in-and-outer,’ that’s, somebody who has alternated his skilled profession between academia and authorities service. I’ve spent two-thirds of my working life in universities and public coverage suppose tanks on three continents and one-third in authorities service. I’ve additionally been lucky in my ambassadorial appointments, each when it comes to my locations and their timing. They supplied me with a singular, front-row seat on historical past. I used to be posted to South Africa from 1994-1999, for many of the presidency of Nelson Mandela, and I used to be the primary ambassador to current credentials to him, additionally having the chance to work intently with him and with Archbishop Desmond Tutu within the creation of South Africa’s Fact and Reconciliation Fee.
As well as, I served in India from 2003 to 2007, in the course of the heady days when the Indian press coined the time period ‘International Indian Takeover.’ The sky gave the impression to be the restrict relating to what India, which was rising at 7-8 p.c a yr, may obtain. In these years, Chile made its first presidential go to to India, and I signed a bilateral commerce settlement, the primary of any Latin American nation with India. Later, I used to be posted in China from 2014 to 2017, throughout a lot of Xi Jinping’s first time period in workplace, with the Belt and Street Initiative (BRI) and the founding of the Asian Funding and Infrastructure Financial institution (AIIB) of their preliminary levels. Throughout my time in China, Beijing was a key diplomatic hub, with many summits and state visits, together with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who visited China twice throughout my tenure.
Having served in three of the 5 authentic BRICS international locations, I discovered there’s a entire new world in Africa and Asia. After forsaking their colonial shackles and centuries of humiliation and discrimination, international locations in these continents are creating new establishments and giving new which means to worldwide solidarity—as proven so eloquently by South Africa’s actions earlier than the ICJ on the struggle in Gaza. There may be an vitality and a future orientation very completely different from the burden of the previous and from the development to construct partitions and never bridges to the remainder of humanity that prevails in North Atlantic international locations at this time. Lively Non-Alignment thus resonates as the easiest way to deal with an ever extra unsure and unpredictable atmosphere.
Having served as ambassador to a few long-standing BRICS members, how do you view the group’s present growth course of in mild of Joseph S. Nye’s critique that BRICS is ‘neither consultant sufficient nor sufficiently united to steer others’?
I truly mentioned this with Joe Nye after I hosted him not too long ago on the Pardee Heart for a e book discuss on his memoirs, A Life within the American Century, which is a tremendous e book. Nye’s arguments towards the BRICS and their doubtless impression on world politics underestimate the diploma to which it constitutes a platform that has developed into a significant reference level for the International South exactly at a time when the West is each turning inwards and breaking apart. Placing apart my dialog with Joe Nye, nevertheless, Western analysts normally have tended to be very important of the BRICS. I disagree with them. First, critics stated that the BRICS was only a speaking store: when the group got here up with a financial institution, it was stated that the financial institution wouldn’t work; when the New Improvement Financial institution proved its mettle, it was stated that it was nonetheless smaller than the World Financial institution; when the BRICS had solely 5 members, it was stated that it was too small; now that it has ten with Indonesia on board, it’s stated that it’s too large, and will be unable to agree on something. And so it goes. On the argument that it’s not consultant, let’s remind ourselves that BRICS has international locations from 4 continents. It could be true that the BRICS international locations can’t agree on some issues; however they don’t seem to be in an alliance, they’re a platform, and maybe the very best the International South has obtainable proper now. It isn’t a platform of the International South (China and Russia will not be a part of it) however for the International South–in a method that the G7 is definitely not. By this I imply that the BRICS group places the event issues of Africa, Asia and Latin America entrance and heart, established a financial institution for these functions, and in any other case has proven its dedication to answer these issues.
Greater than a decade after co-editing the widely-cited Oxford Handbook of Trendy Diplomacy with Andrew F. Cooper and Ramesh Thakur, which challenges mentioned within the e book stay unresolved and want pressing consideration in mild of present occasions on the planet?
The Oxford Handbook of Trendy Diplomacy has been probably the most partaking tutorial initiatives I’ve participated in. Along with my co-editors, Andrew F. Cooper and Ramesh Thakur, it took us 4 years to compile this handbook. We efficiently gathered an distinctive group of contributors, together with outstanding figures like former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and Joe Nye, amongst others. Printed in 2013, the handbook is thought to be essentially the most complete and impressive diplomatic guide obtainable in any language. Its versatile framework — centering on the transition from what I seek advice from as ‘membership diplomacy’ to ‘community diplomacy’ — continues to function a priceless method to understanding the evolving nature of statecraft within the new century.
The handbook can also be Exhibit A of one other change, particularly that of taking a look at diplomatic research by the lenses of IR somewhat than these of historical past or worldwide regulation, as was the case up to now. Over the previous decade, the e book has led to a veritable increase in diplomatic research. Thus, in 2025, the Worldwide Research Affiliation (ISA) Diplomatic Research Part reached an all-time excessive of 498 members (a 16 p.c improve from the earlier yr and the best such improve of any of the 34 ISA sections and caucuses) and held 63 periods on the ISA conferences in Chicago in March 2025.
What did we miss within the handbook? We should always have included a chapter on the altering nature of diplomatic protocol, typically dismissed by outsiders as a considerably frivolous dimension of diplomacy. Nonetheless, that has acquired increasingly significance with the rise in summitry and in state visits, and logistics taking heart stage. Though nonetheless in its infancy then, a chapter on what was then generally known as e-diplomacy (now digital diplomacy) would have been advisable, however luckily that void has now been crammed by my good pal Corneliu Bjola’s Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy,printed in 2024.
Having transitioned between diplomacy and academia, how has your expertise formed your perspective on each fields, and what recommendation would you give to practitioners and students contemplating a profession shift between these domains?
From my youth, I’ve all the time been fascinated by world affairs and what it takes to make a distinction. Learning IR with the likes of T.V. Sathyamurthy at York College after which with Richard Fagen, Alexander L. George, Robert O. Keohane and Robert North at Stanford College gave me the instruments to research and make sense of worldwide politics.
Working on the Wilson Heart in Washington, DC, within the early eighties, led me to understand the significance of public coverage suppose tanks as conduits to carry collectively high-ranking officers and students. I’ve been related to numerous these unfamiliar beings we name suppose tanks on many continents ever since. They play a key function in crafting concepts and bringing them to the eye of policymakers. I used to be very lucky to use the insights gained from my research after I had the possibility to take action as a head of mission in societies present process fast change, like South Africa, India, and China. I used to be a greater public servant due to my tutorial coaching. This allowed me to see issues and act on them in methods I in any other case wouldn’t have.
Moreover, I’ve turn out to be a greater scholar as a consequence of my sensible expertise, which I can draw upon in each the classroom and my writing. Nonetheless, it’s important to acknowledge that the transition between academia and diplomacy shouldn’t be seamless. The talent units required in every discipline are fairly completely different, and except one is keen to attempt to study these expertise, I might not advocate calmly making that transition. Mid-career, one should even be ready to deal with uncertainty.
What’s crucial recommendation you could possibly give younger Worldwide Relations students?
End your dissertation and publish it. If English shouldn’t be your native language, do the needful to grasp it as if it have been. IR students have to suppose large. Don’t focus solely on writing articles for peer-reviewed journals learn by a handful of colleagues. Write books as effectively. Huge concepts require books, which can also be the best way to have interaction a broader public.
Additional Studying on E-Worldwide Relations
