(No) Exit from liberalism?

Abstract

<jats:p> Post-Cold War expansion of liberal order rested on three legs: the implosion of major alternative ordering projects, the enjoyment by liberal democracies of a “patronage monopoly,” and the dominance of liberalizing transitional activist networks and movements. By 2019, all three of those legs have been turned upside down. China and Russia, among others, offer new ordering projects, countries enjoy “exit options” in the form of alternative patronage, and illiberal activist networks are in the ascendant. A closer look at the “why” and “how” makes clear that illiberal forces have appropriated and repurposed the toolkit used to expand liberal order, which suggests an apparent paradox. While some forms of liberal order—primarily on the political side—are in retreat, other forms of liberal order—especially in terms of institutional and multilateral arrangements—are being reinforced. We are, therefore, looking not at the end of liberal order, but at a third great transformation in it. </jats:p>

The Liberal International Ordering of crisis

“….creates the impression we are referring to a static entity, rather than mutating and shifting ways of ordering regions and domains of world politics'. 130 Once again, then, the Liberal International Order's crisis '. .…”

“…Though, Cooley and Nexon, for example, concede that there might be 'new ordering projects' underway led in particular by China and Russia, these at most are argued to offer only 'exits' from 'political liberalism', while economic and institutional liberalism remain predominant. 132 In the end we might come back to questions of what work crisis is doing in such debates, and how it orders the world in the process: not least in in terms of how the story of Liberal International Order is told in terms of crisis management, and the alternative conceptions of crisis that those narratives tend to either marginalise or exclude. Insofar as CLIO debates often tend to revolve around -and sometimes be resolved in terms of -the suitability of liberal institutions for managing the 'violent storms of modernity', 133 wider and fundamental questions and issues open up as to how modernity is being understood in such conceptions.…”

“…looking not at the end of liberal order, but at a third great transformation in it'; while Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann conclude that 'What we are currently witnessing, we suggest, may not be the impending crisis and collapse of the global order, but rather its ongoing transformation from within'. 111 Indeed, many accounts of the contemporary crisis of Liberal International Order, rather than posing a stark choice between 'unavoidable, harsh and non-negotiable alternatives', 112 suggest that, at the very least, out of crisis significant remnants of the Liberal International Order can, should, and will live on for the foreseeable future. Ikenberry characteristically contends that 'although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order -openness, rules, multilateral cooperation -are deeply rooted and likely to persist', and that by consequence a 'dramatic moment when the old order is overturned and rising states step forward to build a new one' is 'very unlikely'.…”

Driving liberal change? Global performance indices as a system of normative stratification in liberal international order

“…Currently dominant GPIs are predominantly backed by Western and liberal institutions (Kelley and Simmons, 2019), and thus largely reflect the normative priorities of the LIO, for example, open markets, democracy, individual human rights, rule of law, and transparency (see e.g. Cooley and Nexon, 2020 for a recent discussion). They influence liberal policy decisions about the allocation of foreign aid, investments, and sanctions.…”

“…Ours is thus a question of systemic significance in an era of mounting illiberal challenges (e.g. Adler-Nissen and Zarakol, 2021; Cooley and Nexon, 2020). Our systemic approach also differs from the structural critiques of GPIs as a form of knowledge and technology of global governance, discussed above.…”