Liberal Order Research Articles

Breaking (with) the System: Exodus as Resistance?

Anti-government extremism is frequently characterised by its violent potential such as harassment and violence against politicians, government officials, experts, and journalists. Although understandable from the perspective of radicalisation and terrorism scholars, another tendency within the fluid anti-government movements is sometimes overlooked: ‘internal migration’, in which parallel enclaves are created in order to escape the perceived repressive order of the system. It signals attempts to build ‘free zones’ within society on the base of a discourse denying the legitimacy of the political order. In this article the author will assess whether or not exodus as a distinctive, usually nonviolent form of anti-government politics should be understood as relatively harmless or as the forerunners of more confrontational practices, such as deliberately undermining the liberal order by fuelling anti-system sentiments or preparing for resistance in a later stage, that in the long term could have security implications. This article will propose an initial, tentative analytical model to answer these questions, and then the Dutch political party Forum for Democracy will be used as a case to demonstrate the argument and explore the strengths and limitations of the proposed model.

Nuclear Non-Threat in the Context of Russian Invasion of Ukraine

In the contemporary nuclear era, power relations between the Nuclear Weapon States and others become more troubled due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The use of strategic nuclear weapons is highly concerning, but the case’s reality would not allow this possibility. The power struggle dominant powers had experienced over the economic and military aspects combined with the Strategic Nuclear Weapons’ ability to mass murder. Even though international norms do not allow such usage, we can easily argue that any NWS willingly goes down that road in the face of interest. The war in Ukraine taught us that higher structures that possess nuclear weapons with better economies dominate other states that lack such a power. The way international relations work, there is not enough institute that guarantees the functioning of a liberal order.

Interview: Michael Mann and Helmut K. Anheier

In this interview, Helmut K. Anheier and Michael Mann first discuss Mann’s work on the sociology of power, especially the types and sources of power. They then focus on the rise and fall of empires and his analysis of wars, as well as current international tensions, especially US-China relations and a revisionist Russia. Throughout, they focus on longer-term economic and sociopolitical developments that may affect the future of the liberal order.

Introduction: public justification, legitimacy, and social trust

ABSTRACT This contribution introduces key concepts and themes from Kevin Vallier’s Trust in a Polarized Age that play a role in the discussion by the four commentators Diana Mutz, Pierre-Guillaume Méon, Chandran Kukathas, and Paul Weithman. The discussion explains how Vallier uses the rich empirical literature on social trust to illuminate normative notions of legitimacy and public justification in liberal orders.

Beyond hegemony, world order as domination: Iran’s Green Movement and the nuclear sanctions regimes

Contributing to neo-Gramscian IR and debates regarding world order, this article puts forward Gramsci’s domination as a framework for better understanding the dynamics of a so-called ‘western liberal order’. It shows how Gramsci can be used to explore the power relations of world order that moves beyond Eurocentrism by highlighting the agency of the ‘non-West’ or ‘Global South’. In so doing, it illustrates the contradictions of a liberal world order. To make its case, it examines the relationship between Iran’s Green Movement, and the EU, US and UN sanctions regimes imposed on Iran in response to its nuclear programme. It is argued that domination, rather than hegemony, allows for a better understanding of the power relations in this case.

Arturo Alessandri Palma y la teatralidad de lo politico durante su segundo gobierno: La estatua de Manuel Bulnes y el Barrio Civico (Santiago de Chile, 1937)

This article analyzes the inauguration of the equestrian statue of Manuel Bulnes, organized by the second government of Arturo Alessandri Palma, in the core of the Civic Quarter. Through a discursive and sociopolitical analysis, we propose that the ceremony around the event had an evident intention of political legitimization: both of his government, and of the liberal order established by the 1925 Constitution. Also, the arguments to place the monument in the Civic Quarter relate to a major project that aimed to bring the nation to public space and identify the chilean population with that imaginary. With regard to the construction of the official narrative surrounding the ceremony, we argue that the historian Guillermo Feliú Cruz was primarily responsible.

Complex indebtedness: justice and the crisis of liberal order

Abstract A prominent feature of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order is diverse calls for justice, including epistemic and historic justice. For a long time, that order understood itself in liberal terms and as capable of delivering justice accordingly. Asking a second-order question, about how questions of justice are framed in the international order, leads us to the conclusion that the liberal order's account of the connections that make the system hang together is partial, if not deeply flawed. Building on long-established and more recent traditions of scholarship aligned with the global South, we introduce a different account of international order and its core dynamics: complex indebtedness. Such an account enables not only a better appreciation of the justice claims currently being made in and against the liberal international order, it also more plausibly explains their origins, interconnections, and multiscalar and polymorphic character. By facing squarely the political parameters of indebtedness, we can make better sense of how to approach claims for justice in the present and future. The argument is illustrated with the examples of struggles for racial justice, white nationalism and South–South co-operation.

Global Determinants of Education Reform, 1960 to 2017

Since post-World War II and especially throughout the 1990s, the globalization of a liberal international order propelled a wave of education reforms around the world. However, recent challenges to the legitimacy of the liberal order may undercut the prevalence of education reform across countries. To reveal how global changes are influencing education, we draw on a newly constructed data set of 6,696 education reforms in 147 countries from 1960 to 2017. Using dynamic negative binomial panel regression models, we find declining levels of reform in recent decades. We also find evidence of changing dynamics of influence among prominent organizational actors: World Bank lending is less associated with education reform over time, whereas the influence of international nongovernmental organizations has grown. This suggests a shifting system of governance, where formal coercive pressures become less palatable and the normative influences of civil society grow stronger. Overall, our findings indicate that education reform arises as a macro-global process as much as a response to local needs and conditions.

THE GEOPOLITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE INDO-PACIFIC: INDIA’S STRATEGIC SIGNALLINGTHROUGH THE INDO-PACIFIC

This project is looking at the difficulties faced by India. India faces in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly because of China's growing power. It will focus on the QUAD, a group that works to keep key sea routes free from military or political control. India and China have a contentious relationship, with India concerned about China's growing military presence and aggressive behavior on their shared border. This has led India to take a more active role in the QUAD to counterbalance China's influence. The primary goals of the QUAD are to preserve global order, ensure freedom of navigation, and maintain a liberal trade system in the region. The project will investigate whether the liberal order can be maintained in the region with China's growing military power, as well as the challenges India faces in its role in the Indo-Pacific and whether India's focus is shifting from the Indian Ocean to the Indo-Pacific to confront China's rise. Theresearch method used will be deductive and qualitative, using both primary and secondary sources.

Left-Wing Radical Politics and Emergency Powers in Interwar Europe

This argument aims to provide an overview of the historical context and main factors shaping the relation between left-wing radical politics and emergency powers in interwar Europe. It also brings to the fore how left-wing radical movements fuelled, reacted to and were connected with the multiple crises of the time span between the two world wars. The main argument is that emergency powers had the potential and were turned into a vehicle for an authoritarian drive, as several cases of that time illustrate. The abuse of emergency powers led to a normalisation of political violence and worked as a corrosive force against the liberal order in several European countries during the interwar period.

The Impact of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Resort to the State of Siege in Interwar Romania (1918-1933)

Similarly to other European countries, Romania faced multiple and intertwined crises during the interwar period, including successive moments of social turmoil, the activity of its hostile neighbours, the emergence of various far-right groups contesting the liberal order, and the looming spectre of the revolution. Among these threats, the fears of revolution and the intense activity of the Comintern worked both as main causes and discursive tools when the state resorted to emergency powers, which took the form of the state of siege in interwar Romania. By drawing on the files created by the Romanian secret police of that time, I argue that the state-of-siege mechanisms targeted not only those “threats” the state institutions invoked as reasons to justify the resort to emergency powers, but much broader categories of citizens. Several leaders of the political opposition, such as Pantelimon Halippa, or intellectuals involved in defending the civil rights engaged in vivid debates on the risks lurking behind the abuse of emergency powers. Finally, the abusive use of the state of siege worked as a corrosive force against the liberal order of the 1923 Constitution and heavily contributed to the establishment of King Carol II’s dictatorship in 1938.

The economics of pandemics and the future course of populism

The relevant literature shows that populists come to power through various rhetorics by exploiting the incumbent orders and the problems they have caused. However, failures and disappointments in fulfilling their promises push them to employ increasingly authoritarian measures to silence society to stay in power by gradually changing the system, manipulating citizens through controlling media, and undermining fundamental institutions.By emphasizing the overall performance of populist governments during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, this article explores the future course of populist politics and governments after the pandemic. The paper concludes that although the pandemic has clearly shown the limits and capacity of many populist governments, the political and economic conjuncture in the post-pandemic era, coupled with the high tension of power transition, might bring new “opportunities” for the use of populists. With several defects and structural weaknesses of the existing liberal multilateral order, populism is here to stay with different implications for the multilateral liberal order and globalization.

Awaiting the demise of the liberal order: Historicising the crisis of liberalism

This review article analyses the merits and shortcomings of three recent works by Matthew Rose, Peter Turchin, and Krishnan Nayar about the crisis in Western liberal democracies and liberalism. By exploring the intellectual and economic causes of the crisis, these authors are trying to establish a historical model that would explain the current crisis through a comprehensive account of the development of Western societies. In doing so, they identify the detrimental role of the elites and the growing inequalities as the major factor that historically contributes to the demise of liberal values, endangering democratic rule of law. Therefore, the three books are a warning that the demise of the liberal order will bring about the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism. However, all three authors avoid discussing the nature of liberalism as the dominant ideology in the West. This article presents a criticism of such models, arguing that any discussion of the crisis of liberalism which avoids considerations about liberalism itself and liberal ideologies, necessarily fails to encapsulate the actual experience of the crisis. In addition, these models limit history?s usefulness in interpreting the causes of the crisis and preventing its consequences.

A Direita Radical Populista e a Elaboração Illiberal da Política Externa

Abstract What makes current radical right populists different from other historical radical right leaders of the 20th century? Are there more differences or similarities among populist radical right (PRR) in the Global South regarding how they perform foreign policy? How does the context – marked by contemporary globalization, regional interdependencies and power (geo)politics – influence their perceptions about their own capabilities and interests, but also about the international liberal order, its values and multilateral mechanisms? This forum addresses questions like these, offering theoretical, historical and contextual insights with concrete examples and case studies situated out of the Anglo-American spectrum. Different from traditional approaches to foreign policy analysis, the authors advance reflections about current phenomena such as illiberal foreign policymaking, anti-cosmopolitanism, religious nationalism and its transnational ties, and the re-personalization of sovereignty in the figure of the PRR. Therefore, it enriches the study of populism, radical right and foreign policymaking in IR, bringing to the debate the erosion of the liberal international order and the necessary questioning of Western-led globalization.

Faktori uspona italijanske radikalne desnice sa osvrtom na njene fašističke elemente

The topic of the paper is the Italian radical right, which won a landslide victory in last year's elections and formed the most right-wing government since World War Two. The aim of the paper is to determine the reasons for strengthening the Italian right's fascist wing through the analysis of its history and the circumstances of its activity and to show whether the fears of the European Union that fascism returned to one of its founding countries are justified. The main difference between the modern radical right and fascism is its acceptance of democracy and political pluralism. It is fundamentally different from classic fascist parties, it is characterized by populism and not elitism, nativism instead of racism, it is not autocratic but democratic. Up until the nineties, the term right was equated with fascism in Italian political discourse, so a true right did not even exist as a regular actor in political life. The conclusion of the paper is that Italy never truly broke with fascism, the process of defascification was not carried out in its entirety. The victory of the radical right, in which the youngest party, Fratelli d'Italia, which is the offspring of Mussolini's party, dominates is the result of the EU membership itself and the waves of crises it faces, the specificities of the Italian political system, the peculiarities of Italian fascism, a general weakening of liberal order with the transformation of the left and the right. The right did not win a two-thirds majority in the Parliament which is a prerequisite for the government of the right to alter the constitution without a referendum, and so the legal realization of radical policies is under control. There is minimal risk of the deterioration of relations with the European Union because, regardless of the current more moderate approach, Giorgia Meloni advocated the abandoning of the Eurozone and conceptually different structure of The Brussels regime. 6

From unipolarity to G-Zero and beyond: Political economy of the world without superpowers

The erosion of the unipolar system of international relations, accelerated as a result of the turbulent events of 2022, is returning experts in the field of international relations to discuss the phenomenon of the balance of power and its embodiment in various models. During the thirty-year period, following the end of the Cold War (1991–2021), the system of interstate relations went through periods when unipolar, bipolar and multipolar models were considered optimal. This article, based on the author’s address at the plenary session of the First Saint-Petersburg Congress of International Studies, proposes a political and economic interpretation of the consequences that the member states of the world community will face at a new stage in the transformation of the modern architecture of international relations in the 21st century through the mechanism of the balance of power. The trend of reducing state power in comparison with the growing economic power of market institutions and business structures in the modern era has been replaced by a reverse trend. It is characterized by the “return of the state” against the backdrop of a global system in crisis. The absence of a hegemonic state in the new system leads to the destruction of the foundations of the international liberal order, the formation of a decentralized system of alliances of states, an increase in the number and scale of economic conflicts, expressed both in the formation of regional trade blocks and in the expansion of the practice of applying economic sanctions as a substitute for armed conflicts of the past. A new era in the political and economic development of the planet, in which new actors will replace the superpowers of the past, should be characterized as a period of competitive interdependence. The coming years will show what will prevail — competition, extolled by representatives of the realistic school of the theory of international relations, i. e. inter-country/inter-bloc rivalry, or interdependence raised to the shield by the liberals.

India and order transition in the Indo-Pacific: resisting the Quad as a ‘security community’

Managing order transition in the Indo-Pacific is as much about negotiating the character of regional order as it is about mounting balance of power challenges or establishing countervailing institutional arrangements. For this reason, members of the Quad have expressed ambitions to deliver shared security on the basis of collective identity and values—though at times more in discourse than in practice. This article argues that India is actively contesting and, in some ways reconfiguring, the legitimating narratives of the Quad as an Indo-Pacific ‘security community’. Under the leadership of Narendra Modi, India has approached the socialising imperative of liberal identity cues selectively and ambivalently. More widely, India has declined to pursue an overt, collective strategy of Chinese containment and has propounded distinctive visions of regional security provision. India’s vision for liberal order in the Indo-Pacific stands apart from the ‘security community’ that the other Quad partners have enunciated in their foreign policy discourse, with consequences for the future of order transition in the Indo-Pacific.

TURKISH MILITARY TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS AND MILITARY INDUSTRY CAPABILITIES OF FORCE PROJECTION IN THE LIGHT OF GEOPOLITICAL GOALS

The study examines a specific segment of the Turkish military industry capabilities in the light of the country’s geopolitical aims. In the transformation of the international system, we can simultaneously see the change in the distribution of military capabilities. While U.S. hegemony and the Western liberal order are increasingly challenged, superpowers’ realism based on politicization of interests is gaining ground on the international political arena. As for Ankara’s place in the international system, Turkey is not a global power in terms of its relative power, but more like one of the regional powers while it wants to become a global player in the future. However, Turkey can be described as a major military producer and exporter in the international arena. Turkish-made military equipment, such as drones, is already being used in many parts of the world, which supports Ankara’s geopolitical interests and force projection capabilities.

The China Factor in Africa’s Path to Liberal Democracy

Abstract This article explores whether China’s political and economic relations with African countries constitute a factor in undermining Africa’s path to liberal democracy or not. It addresses the question of why democratic values like human rights could not be sustained in some African countries. Along this line, could China’s economic influence harm the democratisation of the African continent? The argument of this article is that differing perceptions of democracy coupled with China’s entry in Africa as an alternative to the West have provided a context for several African countries to elude the liberal democratic path. The article concludes that, in providing them with economic support, China has introduced concepts of an alternative model of government to several African countries that had initially embraced liberal democracy. China’s close relations with Africa thus have been a game-changer for the post-Cold War liberal order.

Manage migration to save liberal order

The growing irregular immigration and asylum pressure polarizes and paralyzes the political ecosystems in the USA and Europe. It empowers the new nationalists that seek to dismantle or withdraw from the liberal international institutions (EU, NATO, United Nations), which they perceive as undermining their capacity to assert national sovereignty. To save ‘liberal order,’ therefore, the established governments and political parties on both sides of the Atlantic need to bring back a perception of internal control over external events. They need a more explicit acknowledgment of their national interests that cannot always accommodate migrants’ interest in settling in more prosperous and safer countries. The article argues that migration management must be integrated into a notion of Western grand strategy focused on the preservation of internal cohesion and sovereignty, which preconditions consensus on maintaining ‘liberal order’ in the first place.