By Catherine Kyenret Angai
Last month I attended the SOAS Anti-Corruption Evidence public event, Governance in a Fragmenting World, which explored what the breakdown of the international rules-based order means for democratic progress, anti-corruption and accountability reform.
The discussion acknowledged the role the international rules-based order has played in influencing approaches to governance, accountability, and development—underpinning partnerships, funding, and diplomatic support that helped sustain reform efforts in many countries.
But the discussion also recognised that this rules-based system was not perfect. Those who established and championed it never fully followed the rules themselves and, at best, often just paid lip service to them.
In that light, is today’s fragmentation simply exposing long-standing contradictions?
If so, what, really, if anything, has changed, for whom, and with what consequences? And, perhaps most importantly, what comes next?
What follows are my reflections on the discussion and the ideas that have stayed with me since.
Three shifts that stood out
1. The withdrawal of critical funding
The first obvious change is the withdrawal of critical funding from accountability organisations that relied on external support in contexts where domestic funding was deliberately constrained—a crisis catalysed by the United States’ dismantling of USAID and the UK’s drastic reductions in Overseas Development Assistance.
Keynote speaker Anna Bossman reflected on her experience as Commissioner of Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), with it’s unique triple mandate to protect and promote human rights, advance administrative justice, and investigate corruption.
She spoke candidly about investigating government elites—including the President himself—while navigating challenges around institutional independence, particularly appointments and funding, alongside a lack of political will and constraints on the Commission’s freedom to investigate crimes.
One observation particularly stayed with me. The chronic underfunding of institutions like CHRAJ should not always be understood as administrative oversight, but as a deliberate strategy to undermine their independence and capacity to act.
Against this backdrop, Bossman reflected on the importance of external support. International funding and diplomatic engagement helped sustain institutions like CHRAJ in contexts where domestic political conditions often constrained their work. More fundamentally, they gave institutions confidence that the international rules-based order mattered to external partners, and that supporting adherence to those rules formed part of their broader democratic commitments.
2. The loss of international leadership and partnership
Funding is only part of the story. Also significant is the loss of international leadership, the sense of partnership, and the hope that many domestic reformers once drew from them.
Bossman’s reflections on CHRAJ resonated with my own experience working with the Open Society Foundation’s West Africa Office to support free, fair, and credible elections across several election cycles.
Much of that work depended not only on Foundation funding but also on the support and leadership of other international partners committed to democratic elections. It included support for civil society advocacy through policy briefs, engagement with policy think tanks, and advocacy with government representatives able to exert pressure on domestic political elites to uphold democratic norms.
For many organisations working on governance and accountability, external partners represented more than financial support. They provided a combination of funding, leadership, diplomacy, and external pressure that reassured local actors they were part of a broader international commitment to democratic progress. It also reinforced the expectation that, where domestic systems failed, violations of election laws could attract diplomatic pressure, sanctions, or other consequences.
As those partnerships weaken, many local actors are now navigating a far less supportive environment.
3. New actors filling the vacuum
The discussion also highlighted a broader shift in how accountability itself is being recast.
The pressure points that once encouraged adherence to democratic rules have weakened not only because financial and diplomatic support has diminished, but because many of the superpowers that championed the rules-based order are increasingly acting in ways that openly contradict the very rules they once expected others to follow.
As those traditional sources of influence weaken, different entities and organisations are becoming increasingly important in the new international order, filling the vacuum left by these former powers. Technology companies and other non-state actors are exerting growing influence over development funding, support, and priorities.
What comes next?
The discussion offered different perspectives on how countries and reformers might respond to this changing landscape.
Anna Bossman noted that the instinctive response is to say countries should build stronger domestic systems and develop new forms of accountability. At the same time, she acknowledged the very real challenges involved in getting there.
Others advocated for building stronger domestic coalitions, greater pressure from citizens, and more local mobilisation and organising, framing this as a process of adaptation.
Jonathan Papoulidis offered resilience as a way to reframe the discussion. He suggested that what follows the rules-based order may be a resilience-based order characterised by strategic competition and rivalry.
Professor Mushtaq Khan offered a different way of thinking about the discussion. Rather than beginning by asking what should replace the rules-based order, he suggested first understanding what sustained the previous one.
He argued that the era of democracy and good governance was rooted in a particular phase of global capitalism—what he described as capitalism’s “open” phase. From this perspective, the debate is not simply about whether resilience should replace rules, but about the political and economic arrangements that will underpin the next international order, particularly for low- and middle-income countries that were never likely to catch up under the previous model.
One point I found particularly compelling was his observation that resilience is an outcome, not a strategy.
Khan’s work on political settlements argues that development outcomes are shaped by underlying distributions of power. His work on productive capabilities emphasises building the capacities that allow countries, businesses, and public institutions to produce, innovate, create jobs, and compete successfully.
Seen through this lens, resilience is not created simply through better governance reforms. Rather, it emerges from strengthening the kinds of organisations that can sustain economic transformation and have a stake in ensuring that rules are followed.
Questions for civil society
Applying this to the civil society sector with which I have been most closely connected raises a different set of reflections.
If resilience in this emerging international order requires a different way of thinking about governance and development—one that places greater emphasis on domestic organisations, coalitions, and productive capabilities—how are civil society actors rethinking their own role within this changing landscape?
Are they continuing to see their role primarily through advocacy, service delivery, and accountability, or are they also beginning to support the emergence of governance arrangements that strengthen productive capabilities alongside accountability?
More broadly, how is organised civil society reorganising its own institutional capacities in response to this changing international order?
