The beginning of a new year is traditionally a moment of reflection on the historical time in which we are immersed. In the current context, however, this exercise is particularly complex: international relations are in fact going through a phase of profound redefinition, characterized not by a single fault line, but by the overlapping of crises, incomplete transitions and systemic changes that call into question the consolidated interpretative categories of global politics.
The picture that emerges is that of an increasingly unstable international order: in different areas of the world, internal political processes and external geopolitical dynamics are intertwined, producing effects that are difficult to predict. International politics thus seems to be moving along a trajectory marked by the return of the logic of force, the centrality of state sovereignty and a renewed emphasis on the geopolitical dimension of power.
In this context, the ongoing armed conflicts continue to have structural effects on the international security order. They no longer represent exceptional or circumscribed events, but are part of long-term dynamics that redefine alliances, threat perceptions and strategic priorities. At the same time, unresolved political crises and uncertain institutional transitions contribute to fueling a global climate of instability, in which the distinction between the internal and international dimensions of political action is increasingly blurred.
Faced with this scenario, it becomes essential to question not only the traditional places of international politics, but also those "symbolic" and "institutional" spaces through which the global order is represented, contested and sometimes renegotiated. Modern sport represents one of these cases: since its affirmation between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it has been invested with the ambition of establishing a sphere of international interaction regulated by principles different from those of political and military competition. The Olympic ideal, with its universalistic claim, embodied one of the most enduring expressions of this aspiration.
However, the supposed neutrality of sport with respect to politics has progressively proved to be fragile. In the contemporary world, sport has become one of the most visible arenas through which the transformations of the international order are manifested. The controversies that run through global sports institutions, the tensions related to participation in international events and the strategic use of major sporting events as tools of symbolic projection and legitimacy reveal how the sporting space is now deeply intertwined with the dynamics of global power. Rather than a separate sphere, it is configured as a terrain in which conflicts, rivalries and aspirations of international society are reflected and condensed.
The next Winter Olympic Games that Italy is preparing to host are part of this perspective. In an era marked by uncertainty, fragmentation and conflict, a sporting event of global significance takes on a meaning that goes beyond the competitive dimension. It represents a symbolic space of meeting and visibility, in which actors from profoundly different political and cultural contexts confront each other - in a regulated form.
It is precisely to this intersection between sport and international politics that the second issue of Global Age is dedicated. Journal of Political Studies and International Thought, the journal promoted by ASERI.
At the beginning of this new year - while the international system continues to be crossed by deep tensions and still incomplete processes of redefinition - it remains essential to maintain an analytical look at the present. Understanding the places – material and symbolic – in which power is exercised and contested is a necessary condition for orienting oneself in a world marked by instability and change. In this perspective, sport does not represent a marginal area, but a relevant interpretative key to analyze the possibilities, limits and contradictions of international coexistence in the twenty-first century, helping to keep open - albeit in a contingent and not unambiguous form - the possibility of dialogue even in contexts marked by conflict.