Liberal Order Research Articles

Geopolitics and democracy: the western liberal order from foundation to fracture

Geopolitics and democracy: the western liberal order from foundation to fracture

U.S.–China Competition: A Power Transition Perspective

U.S.–China competition has been widely viewed as the most important feature of world politics that will shape the emerging international order. Whereas Washington increasingly sees Beijing as the sole great power with the intent and capabilities to dismantle the U.S.-led liberal order, Beijing views Washington’s military buildup and new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region as the latest U.S. attempt to contain and encircle China. This paper adopts a power transition perspective to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both powers, using six parameters to measure their relative national strength. In doing so, the authors try to update and modernize A.F.K. Organski’s theory in the 21st century, applying it to the most consequential relationship of our time.

Digital Actors and Digital Platforms in the System of International Relations: Between Complex Interdependence and Online Sovereignty

The article analyzes deep changes in international relations that are taking place in the context of the increasing role of digital actors and platforms in shaping the global agenda. The emergence of the Internet was a turning point in the development of the entire system of global communications. The Internet changed the way information is spread and public opinion is shaped, while digital platforms became a new factor of globalization. At the same time, as the authors demonstrate, the original nature of the Internet, which was viewed by the United States and the West as an integral part and technology of the liberal order, in the end started to reflect the increasing confrontation between states, and became a space for the spread of political conflicts, stereotypes and information wars. In addition, new digital oligopolies began to shape the digital space based on their corporate interests, prioritizing their market share rather than the quality of online discussions and the strengthening of the civic democratic culture. The weaponization and securitization of the Internet is a logical continuation of the crisis of the global liberal order. The complex interdependence, which was strengthened by digital actors and digital platforms, is increasingly being replaced by the idea of digital sovereignty. States aim to decouple from a single communicative space and to create norms protecting them and their citizens from the excessive influence of the Big Tech. The authors conclude that we are experiencing the sunset of the era of information openness. Depoliticization of the Internet is impossible without reducing international tension and reviving the spirit of rationalism in world politics. Only through getting back to reason can we return to the Internet the role of a creative, rather than destructive technology.

Populism and the liberal international order: An analysis of UN voting patterns

AbstractPopulism is often assumed to undermine the liberal world order, but this claim has never been tested systematically. In this study, we do so for the first time. Based on an understanding of populism as a “thin-centered ideology” entailing anti-elitism and people-centrism, we expect populist governments to have foreign policy preferences opposed to the core features of the US-led liberal international order. Our empirical analysis assesses government preferences on the liberal international order as expressed through UN General Assembly votes. Our findings support the expectation that populism has a strong and statistically significant negative impact on foreign policy preferences related to the core norms of the liberal international order. Moreover, we find that populists with a left-wing ideology and those in less democratic countries tend to be more opposed to the US-led liberal international order. However, populist governments do not reject the UNGA as such, as they are not more likely to be absent from UNGA votes than other states. Thereby, this study makes a contribution both to the burgeoning literature on the international implications of populism and to debates on the crisis of the liberal order.

Illiberal Populism as a Polarizing Factor of Regional Cooperation in Central Europe

Central European identity and regionality are very traditional and deeply rooted discourses. Over the past 35 years, a number of regional cooperation formats have emerged, among which the Visegrad Group has acquired a special position. This weakly institutionalised and thematically selective regional organisation has nevertheless established itself in the last 15 years as one of the visible actors of so-called populist regionalism. The (partial) transformation of the V4 towards populist foreign policy, national conservatism and Euroscepticism is the subject of our analysis. Using the concepts of populist regionalism and illiberal populism, it focuses on the formation of a monolithic discourse of the V4 as a group opposed to the international liberal order and the "Brussels agenda" in terms of values and public policies. We also examine the negative implications of this populist appropriation of the V4 for the region's position within the EU.

Geopolitical Shifts Amid War in Europe, and the Cooperation Between Portugal and the US | Mudanças Geopolíticas no Contexto da Guerra na Europa e a Cooperação entre Portugal e os EUA

The articles analyses the international order that emerged after the end of the Cold War and some of the challenges that it presently faces. In light of that, it also discusses several of the possibilities that lay ahead for a future order and engages in the ongoing debates. Indeed, the so-called international liberal order has been under challenge for some time. In all probability, that condition will not change in the near future and may even exacerbate. In fact, one of its more recent threats includes war in Europe, more specifically the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which further endangers its existence. Many, if not most, appear to believe that after the Russian invasion the world will never be the same again. Under these conditions, and independently of the type of ordering that we will see in the future, the article argues that given the historical and long-standing relationship between the US and Portugal the latter can play a significant role, as occurred during the Cold War, albeit this time with respect to energy.

Technocracy, populism, and the (de)legitimation of international organizations

Our understanding of the contestation of liberal international order relies on an intuitive dualism. Technocratic norms underpin the legitimation of international organizations (IOs) because IOs embody a functional and depoliticized mode of problem-solving based on expertise and non-majoritarianism. Populist norms challenge IO authority as IOs create constraints on the popular will of the “true people.” We empirically examine whether this duality extends to the actors engaging in IO (de)legitimation by leveraging a novel and unprecedentedly fine-grained database on IO (de)legitimation by national governments. We find that (de)legitimation patterns of governments with technocratic or populist tendencies are far more dynamic and diverse than a dualistic account suggests. In particular, we find complex patterns of (de)legitimation that suggest challenges to and defenses of IO authority are driven more by a strategic, as opposed to an ideological, logic. We outline implications for the literatures on the international liberal order, technocracy, and populism.

Altruism and self-interest in constitutional reform: the case of the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade

AbstractWas the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade a triumph of altruism over pecuniary self-interest? Analysis of qualitative data reveals the importance of self-interested motives underlying this ostensibly other-regarding reform. The abolitionists worked to alleviate the suffering of enslaved Africans, but their campaign faced a collective action problem that was solved by the supply of the private benefits of status, esteem, and possible religious salvation to the leading figures. Abolition was also consistent with the desire of many ordinary Britons to eradicate the remnants of feudal society and move to a more liberal order. The payment of compensation to slaveowners on abolition also made reform consistent with their interests, and the interests of the individuals and financial institutions that processed and invested the payments. This analysis coheres with aspects of Eric Williams’ thesis that abolition took place because it benefited Britain’s ruling elite, although more Britons gained from abolition than Williams supposed. It is concluded that constitutional reform to remove oppressive and exploitative institutions does not follow from a sudden outpouring of societal altruism but requires the supply of private benefits to constitutional entrepreneurs able to make change consistent with the interests of the wider population and powerful groups who would otherwise lose from liberalization.

Beyond Liberal Order: States, Societies, and Markets in the Global Indian Ocean

Beyond Liberal Order: States, Societies, and Markets in the Global Indian Ocean

A Third Way?

Abstract This article seeks to engage with the particular historical moment when, despite the cold war dichotomy of communism and capitalism, the short-lived (Southern) Republic of Vietnam under its first president, the Catholic, Ngô Đình Diệm (1901–1963) attempted to tread a third way. Diệm sought to introduce a Vietnamised form of French Catholic Emmanuel Mounier’s (1905–1950) political philosophy, Personalism, into the ideological framework of the new Republic, building upon an earlier exchange between Vietnamese and French Catholics. Ultimately this was unsuccessful and Personalism was unable to unify South Vietnam’s diverse society in opposition to the communist North, culminating in the ousting and assassination of Diệm in 1963. This moment offers a glimpse of a different path, suggesting that global capitalist liberal order might not be the only future. This article brings together various sources on Personalism and Vietnam to depict this historical moment.

“Me? I’m No Revolution. I’m No Heroine.” Reconfiguring the Dissident in Contemporary Polish Theater

The figure of the dissident has become one of the key symbols of political opposition to Communism in Poland, with former dissidents playing a significant role in shaping the post-socialist and liberal order. While highly visible political struggles in polarized Poland have been foregrounded in confronting the Communist and dissident past, the seemingly less spectacular and more modest attempts at rethinking and reinterpreting the figure of the dissident that has emerged in contemporary Polish theater have gone almost unnoticed. This article examines how two contemporary theatrical plays engage with the polarized political discourse in Poland by problematizing the complex and gendered experience of dissidence. The artistic and political significance of the plays is elucidated against the backdrop of conservative and right-wing tendencies in the contemporary public sphere and artistic world that redefine the broader context within which Polish cultural producers operate. Zooming in on how these performances generate new representations and meanings of the anti-Communist political opposition, the article shows how the plays offer an occasion for rethinking and reinterpreting the figure of the dissident and its troubled legacy. As they explore the fields of tension that open up between individual political commitment and the relational and collective experience of dissidence, the plays make visible how the figure of the dissident has become a tool in remaking a Communist and post-socialist past and shaping a polarized present.

Geopolitics and Democracy: The Western Liberal Order from Foundation to Fracture

Geopolitics and Democracy: The Western Liberal Order from Foundation to Fracture

A World of Many Walks? Zapatista World Ordering between Center and Margins

Abstract At the current moment of multiple global crises, including of the International Liberal Order, a search for new practices of world ordering seems to coexist with a deep skepticism regarding the possibilities of global solidarity and common struggles between centers and margins. Against this background, this paper focuses on the world ordering practices of the Mexican Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, a group that occupies a position between center(s) and margin(s). While they clearly self-identify as being on the political and economic margins—geographically remote, economically weak and under constant threat of military repression—their ideas occupied center stage in the search for alternative visions of world order at least for a certain moment. The paper will explore the potential pathologies that a recourse to Zapatism may entail, namely romanticization, hollowing-out and epistemic extractivism/opportunism. It then asks if and how these pathologies can be overcome in a search for common ground for both social movements and International Political Theory when trying to think differently about world ordering from the margins. In this exploration, special emphasis will be given to the pathways toward a desirable order that the Zapatistas conceptualize and practice, namely creating, narrating and walking.

Legion of Doom? China, Russia, Iran and North Korea

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are deepening their security cooperation and, as a result, pose a growing challenge to the United States and its allies. These countries see the United States and its allies as a threat, have aggressive aims, and believe that the Western liberal order detracts from their stability and hinders their regional objectives. Although the depth of their relations is not as robust as that enjoyed by their Western rivals, their growing cooperation is a significant development in the global balance of power and has major implications for the West. US and allied planners must recognise that they cannot focus on only one adversary, such as China, and that a crisis in one part of the world is increasingly less likely to stay isolated, as each power may receive weapons, economic support and other assistance from others during a crisis.

Fighting for Oxford and Cambridge: National Security and Imperial Ambition in the ‘Transition of Power’

ABSTRACT This article uses the rise of the doctrine of ‘national security’ in US statecraft and strategy to re-examine Brian McKercher’s work on the ‘transition of power’ from Britain to the United States. World War II marked the great watershed in American foreign relations, in particular the ability, and more specifically the willingness, of Americans to project power beyond the western hemisphere. Not coincidentally, the war also marked another crucial turning point in American war and diplomacy: the transition from concepts like ‘national self-defence’ and ‘the national interest’ to a strategic doctrine that blended the blunt necessity of defence with the capacious ambition of interests. This new doctrine of ‘national security’ conceived of self-defence in a new way, not just as the protection of territorial sovereignty but as the protection of values, morals, and political norms. This much more capacious idea of defence was designed to be the bastion of a new liberal order to safeguard Western civilisation. In this light, American internationalists conceived of US power as the rightful heir to the mandate of the British Empire, albeit in ways that privileged command of the global commons over direct control of foreign territory. This article investigates the construction of ‘national security’ and the nature of Anglo-American empire in a new light.

“Take your responsibility”: the politics of green sacrifice for just low-carbon transitions in rural Portugal

The EU has recently taken important climate action, notably through the launching of the European Green Deal. However, EU action has been criticized for its potential to generate a heavy increase in mining of ‘critical minerals’ necessary for renewables technologies, and so create green sacrifice zones both overseas and within Europe. We explore the politics of green sacrifice making through an analysis of green governance practices and opposition to them in a case of a lithium mining conflict in rural northern Portugal. We find that institutional rearrangements attempt to reconfigure lithium mining as a force for sustainability in ways that enable capital accumulation. Such reconfigurations clash with concerns about maintaining a meaningful life in localities where mining would take place, as well as alternative definitions of the logic of the circular economy and of what the proper scales of decision-making for marginalized territories should be. Government and corporate action attempt to resolve these clashes by promoting a discourse of ‘responsibility’, which assigns public institutions the role of convincing communities to accept ‘green’ mining; to corporations the role of exercising corporate social responsibility; and to affected populations the role of subjects whose political action should conform to their consumption habits and help deliver a distinctive ‘European way’ of being responsible in a warming world. We conclude that green sacrifice is essential for maintaining economic growth and a liberal order of governance, delivered through a biopolitics of inclusion that exists side-by-side with attempts at self-constitution. We highlight a contradiction between what such praxis tries to achieve and ways in which some critical constituencies seek to address democracy challenges of just transitions.

From Asymmetric Strategic Rivalry to Strategic Bargaining and Cooperation: Is There a Case for India–China Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific?

India and China both have a long history of engagement based on their asymmetric power capabilities, differences in threat perceptions and international status. Given these three aspects of asymmetry, this article argues that China and India must focus on cooperation that can come through bargaining and compromises and promote peace and stability in the region. The article argues that by cooperating with each other they can develop a strong alternative to the existing Western liberal order, in the particular context of the Indo Pacific.

The new world order and the Global South

Abstract The shift of power away from the West is often seen as a key element of the crisis of liberal international order. The reluctance by most non-Western powers to side with the West vis-à-vis Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has contributed to the notion that the emerging order will be shaped by a contested system of spheres of influence, geopolitical tensions, and a much smaller common denominator vis-à-vis the normative elements of global order. Yet views across the Global South vis-à-vis the liberal order are far more nuanced, and pointing to non-Western powers as a culprit for the crisis of global order would be simplistic. Indeed, many countries in the Global South tend to be less opposed to the values themselves that undergird liberal order but question the Western-centric ways in which the rules and norms are applied and the in-built hierarchies and inequalities of liberal order. The main challenge of existing structures of global governance thus does not seem to be non-Western countries’ rejection of the underlying rules, but the question of whether today’s system is capable of functioning in a genuinely multipolar order, where power and privilege are less concentrated than in the past. The recent ‘geopoliticization’ of the global economy and the emerging ‘tech war’ suggest this process of adaptation will be enormously difficult. At the same time, while specific subgroups are explicitly opposed to a rules-based order, there are few signs that the Global South—a concept of little analytical usefulness beyond denoting the non-West—would be interested or capable of articulating a genuinely novel or alternative approach sufficiently attractive to garner broad support.

Hegemonic struggles and the role of contemporary ‘organic intellectuals’: A different perspective for the analysis of discourses

The ‘populist moment’ and the growing number of non-liberal discourses indicate that we are in the presence of a counter-hegemonic phase against the established liberal order involving several sites of ideological production. However, the analysis of these counter-revolutions still focuses on agency, looking mainly at political parties or leaders. This article tries to reverse this picture suggesting to look first at discourses as such to understand the contestation of the dominant worldview. Thus, it proposes a methodological platform for studying (counter-)hegemonic discourses that abandons agent-centrism. To achieve this goal, it introduces the notion of ‘ organic intellectuals of a discourse-coalition’, linking two concepts developed respectively by Antonio Gramsci and Maarten Hajer. This formula allows focusing on all actors articulating and propagating the same demands and discourse, regardless of their affiliation. Using this approach, a discourse-coalition may include parties or politicians as well as journalists or influencers as long as they exert an intellectual function, that is, they are able to mould common sense. By developing this formula, the article is aimed at researchers that use Poststructuralist Discourse Theory in the study of hegemonic discourses as it provides a sound justification for the selection of a valid and representative discourse-coalition.

Liberal statecraft and the problems of world order

Abstract What is the future of the Western-led liberal international order? This paper makes four arguments. First, over the last two centuries, liberal democracies have pioneered a tradition of international order building, the essential impulse of which has been to create an environment—a sort of cooperative ecosystem—in which liberal states can manage interdependence, protect their values and interests, and aggregate capabilities to defend against threats and challenges to their global position and way of life. Second, liberal democracies have used institutions as tools and mechanisms to respond to dangers and opportunities in the global system, focused on the problems of anarchy, hierarchy, interdependence, liberal openness, and geopolitical vulnerability. Third, the most dramatic forms of liberal order building have occurred after major wars, when liberal democracies found themselves in war and geopolitical competition with rival and threatening illiberal great powers. Finally, liberal internationalism and the liberal project still have a future in that they offer cooperative solutions the core problems of twenty-first century world order.