OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL12 N2, TD1

Thematic dossier 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020)

December 2021

CONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION

OF THE LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL ORDER

LUIS TOMÉ

ltome@autonoma.pt

He is a Full Professor at Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (Portugal), Director of the Department

of International Relations, Director of the OBSERVARE-Observatory of External Relations research

unit and Coordinator of the Ph.D. in International Relations: Geopolitics and Geo-economics. He

is a Researcher in the areas of International Relations, Geopolitics and Security Studies,

specializing in the Euro-Atlantic, Euro Asian and Asia-Pacific regions. He is the author and co-

author of more than a dozen books and dozens of essays and articles published in national and

international specialist journals. He has supervised and supervises several dissertations and

theses, participating, as an examiner, in dozens of public examinations panels in national and

international universities. He is an elected member of the Scientific Council of Universidade

Autónoma de Lisboa and a guest lecturer at several higher education institutions, giving lectures

and conferences.

Abstract

What does “liberal order” mean? And should we distinguish between “world order” and

“international order”? On what basis did the liberal order emerge and what factors contribute

to its erosion? This article seeks to answer these questions in a text divided into four parts.

In the first, we explain the meaning of “order” in international relations, the difference

between “international” and “world” order and our notion of “liberal international order”. In

the second, we justify the paradox of considering that the liberal order was built on what

many call the “Westphalian system”, although we reject this designation and typification and

the initial attempt to build a liberal world order after World War I World, as well as its rapid

deconstruction. In the third part, we demonstrate the building and consolidation of a liberal

order after World War II, within the framework of a broader world order in the context of the

Cold War. And in the fourth, we show that this liberal order has been a “world” one since the

end of the Cold War, and that this process occurred amidst paradoxes and ambivalences that

contribute to its deconstruction.

Keywords

International Order, World Order, Liberalism, International Relations, History

How to cite this article

Tomé, Luis (2021). Construction and deconstruction of the Liberal International Order.

Janus.net, e-journal of international relations. VOL12 N2, TD1 - Thematic dossier 200 years

after the Revolution (1820-2020), December 2021. Consulted [online] in date of the last

visit, https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0121.6

Article received on em August 30, 2021 and accepted for publication on October 13, 2021

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Construction and deconstruction of the liberal international order

Luis Tomé

CONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION

OF THE LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL ORDER

LUIS TOMÉ

Introduction

Some of the most emblematic and intense debates in International Relations focus on

the characterization of the international order. Interestingly, the many distinct and

contrasting views converge in the perception of the erosion of the “liberal order”, both

among its advocates and among its opponents, ranging from «The End of the American

World Order» (Acharya, 2014) to «A New World Order Made in China» (Gazibo and

Chantal, 2011), «World Order 2.0» (Haass, 2017), «A Post-Western World» (Flockhart

et al., 2014), «The rise of the Rest» (Beeson, 2020: 17-27) or «The Return of Anarchy»

(Gaspar, 2019).

Whereas for some the liberal order «that never existed» has come to an end (Barnet,

2019; Ferguson and Zakaria, 2017), for others «the liberal order is vitiated» (Colgan and

Keohane, 2017), and others question «Why Liberal Internationalism Failed» (Mead,

2021) or if «Has China Won?» (Mahbubani, 2020). Some believe that the liberal order is

a kind of constitutional regime of international society and that, therefore, its continuity

does not depend on the strategic oscillations of the great powers, including the United

States (Ikenberry and Nexon, 2019). Others consider that the liberal order can only exist

in a unipolar system «where the leading State is a liberal democracy» (Mearsheimer,

2019: 7), and that «Trump may be the unwitting catalyst for a more equitable era…

energize a multipolar world» (Deo and Phatak, 2016). Some consider the US a benign

hegemon (Monteiro 2014, Ikenberry and Nexon, 2019, Mearsheimer, 2018), while others

condemn the US “hegemonism” and hope that «A period of collapse opens up possibilities

for the creation of a new world order; hopefully, a fairer, more stable, and peaceful order

than has been previously experienced.» (Karaganov and Suslov, 2019: 72). Some talk

about the emergence of a “second” Cold War or even that the US and China may be

«destined for war» (Allison, 2017), others believe that «There Will Not Be a New Cold

War» (Christensen, 2021, Nexon, 2021) or propose a new agreement of powers that

«Prevents Catastrophe and Promotes Stability in a Multipolar World» (Hass and Kupchan,

2021). And while for some the liberal international order «was destined to fail from the

start, as it contained the seeds of its own destruction», and it will inevitably be replaced

by a «realistic order» (Mearsheimer, 2019: 7-9), others maintain that it is possible to

Article translated by Carolina Peralta.

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Construction and deconstruction of the liberal international order

Luis Tomé

save the liberal order through a «new normative consensus» (Kupchan, 2014 and Hass,

2021) or by reforming it (Colgan and Keohane, 2017 and Kundnani, 2017).

In addition to these debates, there are conceptual confusions promoted by political

leaders. For example, French President Emmanuel Macron, in a speech at the UN General

Assembly, spoke of a profound crisis in the «ordre international libéral westphalien»,

transcribed as «Westphalian liberal world order» in the official English version (Macron,

2018)

. In other words, Macron not only refers to a “Westphalian liberal order” (thus

taking as one what for many are two distinct and opposite orders, the Westphalian and

the liberal) but also uses indistinctly “international” and “world” order just with variation

in the language he uses.

But what does “liberal order” mean? And should we distinguish “world order” and

“international order” or do they mean the same? On the other hand, on what basis did

the liberal order emerge and what factors contribute to its erosion and crisis? This article

seeks to answer these questions, exploring the construction of the liberal international

order and the various reasons that explain its deconstruction, also examining its

constituent elements and the dilemmas and contradictions that are inherent to it.

In line with our other works, we have adopted an “eclectic approach”

and “complexity

theories”

. Based on a descriptive-analytical model, and supported by specialized

literature and official documents and speeches, we present our arguments in a text

divided into four parts. In the first, we explain the meaning of “order” in international

relations, the difference between “international” and “world” order and our view of “liberal

international order”. In the second, we justify the paradox of considering that the liberal

order was built on what many call the “Westphalian system” although we reject this

designation and typification and, on the other hand, the initial attempt to build a liberal

world order after World War I, as well as its rapid deconstruction. In the third part, we

demonstrate the building and consolidation of a liberal order after World War II, within

the framework of a broader world order in the context of the Cold War. And in the fourth,

we show that this liberal order has become “worldwide” since the end of the Cold War,

but that this process occurred amidst paradoxes and ambivalences that contribute to its

deconstruction.

The complete sentence of E. Macron is as follows, in both languages: «Nous vivons aujourd’hui une crise

profonde de l’ordre international libéral westphalien que nous avons connu» / «We are currently

experiencing a deep crisis of the Westphalian liberal world order that we have known».

The eclectic approach assumes that none of the conventional IR research/paradigms/theories traditions, in

isolation and by itself, can encompass and explain the entire international reality that, by nature, is complex,

dynamic, unpredictable, adaptive and co-evolutionary. Thus, limiting the risk of a priori alienating aspects

that may be crucial, with pragmatism and prudence, the eclectic approach goes beyond the "natural

expectations" of these theories, combines different explanatory hypotheses and takes advantage of the

potential of complementarities. This aspect is even more relevant due to the opposing views and proposals

that often liberal, realist, constructivist, systemic, functionalist, structuralist, critical and other theories

confront themselves regarding the international order. For a more detailed explanation of our “eclectic

approach” see Tomé 2016.

From the theories of complexity, we have taken, above all, the assumption of "non-linearity", that the result

of behaviours and interactions is "naturally unpredictable" and the notion of "complex adaptive systems",

emphasizing the ideas of complexity, co-adaptation and co-evolution of actors and the system. Our most

developed explanation of the relevance and usefulness of complexity theories and the notion of "complex

adaptive systems" in the analysis of International Relations is found in Tomé and Açikalin 2019. For a

broader explanation of chaos and complexity theories and their use in several scientific areas, namely in

the social and human sciences, see, for example, Erçetin and Açikalin 2020.

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Luis Tomé

1. Order in international relations and liberal international order

To speak of “order” in international relations may seem contradictory, given the relatively

“anarchic” nature of the international system rooted in the sovereignty of States. This

apparent contradiction explains why many theorists avoid using the term. For example,

Raymond Aron refers only to “peace”, which is obviously not the same thing: for him,

international relations have only two forms, war and peace, understanding the latter as

«suspension, more or less lasting, of violent forms of rivalry between political units”,

unveiling “three types of peace: balance, hegemony and empire» (Aron, 1984: 158).

Hedley Bull, on the other hand, prefers to speak of an “international society”, conceived

as a «society of States [...] when a group of States, aware of certain common interests

and values, form a society insofar as they conceive for themselves limits in their mutual

relations by a common set of rules and participate in the activity of common institutions»

(Bull, 1977: 13). Due to their exclusively State-centric character, these views of realist

theorists are contested by liberal, constructivist, functionalist, structuralist, critical and

other theories. And, for example, in a radically different perspective, there are those that

outweigh the role and impact of non-State actors, capable not only of influencing the

decisions of States, but also the international system and even promoting a «global civil

society» (Keck and Sikkink, 1998).

The fact is that among realists, too, there are many who assume the concept of “order”

in IR, such as John J. Mearsheimer (2019: 9), who defines it simply as «an organized

group of international institutions that help to govern the interactions between member

States». In the same vein, Bart MJ Szewczyk (2019: 34) conceives “order” as «a set of

rules and norms to govern State and non-State behaviour, through international law

based on the United Nations Charter, multilateral treaties and political norms resulting

from State practice». However, while Szewczyk believes that the order's primary

objective is «to minimize violence and provide stability. The opposite of it was "disorder",

characterized by war, conflict and uncertainty» (ibid.), Mearsheimer (2019: 9, note 3)

considers that order «is not the opposite of disorder, a term that refers to chaos and

conflict».

Another issue concerns the use, often indistinctly, of the terminologies “international

order” and “world order” – in addition to the “global order” that some refer to (Hurrel,

2007; Lo, 2020). Its use and distinction is rarely explained by the authors (Bertrand,

2004), but it is relevant to us here. Hedley Bull makes this difference, considering that

«The world order is vaster» and «of which the interState system is only a part» (Bull,

1977: 21). He adds that «The world order is more fundamental and primordial than the

international order because the final units of society for all humanity are not States (or

nations, tribes, empires, classes or parties), but individual human beings [...]. The world

order is morally superior to the international order», since its values are those of all

humanity, and not just those that prevail in the society of States (ibid.). Along the same

lines, although with different assumptions, James N. Rosenau, one of the main

representatives of the liberal IR school, developed the “bifurcation” model between two

worlds in what he called the era of “post-international politics”: fundamentally,

“international" characterizes the order in the «State-centric world» among States

«limited by sovereignty», using "post-international", "world" or "global" to describe the

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order in the «multicentric world» of non-State actors «free of sovereignty» (Rosenau,

1990 and 1997).

In our opinion, distinguishing between “international” and “world” order, assuming that

the first refers to an order between sovereign States and the second to one that also

involves non-State actors, does not make sense. The difference is conceptually pertinent

and very useful, but on other grounds. We believe that "international order" characterizes

the prominent pattern of ideas, values, interests, rules, institutions, behaviours and

interactions between State and non-State actors, which can exist both on a regional and

global scale, and include only one part of the actors or most of them. When the

international order encompasses the world-space and the main actors, it becomes a

“world order”. In other words, the world order can include several and distinct

international orders, but an international order is only world or global if and when

extended to a planetary scale. The distinction is important because one of our arguments,

as we shall see later, is that the liberal international order did not become worldwide until

the end of the Cold War.

On the other hand, order is not synonymous with peace or stability or absence of

competition, just as it is not simply the opposite of disorder (chaos and conflict) nor a

concept that characterizes the balance of power in a region or in the world. But it is

associated with all of this, as order attenuates the anarchic character of the international

system and the use of violence, limits the dependence on power games and provides a

certain type of authority, regulation and stability in the coexistence of actors. An

international order can exist and be referenced in terms of the power structure, but it is

more than a simple reflection of that. The construction of the liberal order is linked to the

supremacy of the “West” and the hegemony of the United States, but “liberal” means a

specific set of values, norms and institutions, naturally distinct from those of other

international visions and orders. Therefore, it is important to explain the elements that

constitute it.

The liberal international order is usually characterized around two overriding ideas: on

the one hand, it is «open and rule-based», in contrast to the other «organized in rival

blocks or exclusive regional spheres» (Ikenberry, 2011b: xii), being «enshrined in

institutions such as the United Nations and norms such as multilateralism» (Ikenberry,

2011a: 56). On the other hand, there is the association between political liberalism and

economic liberalism, also referred to in the light of terms such as "democracy" and

"capitalism", which for some creates «an international order deeply dependent on the

internal nature of the units that comprise it» (Simão, 2019 : 42). Thus, the liberal

international order includes «open markets, international institutions, democratic

community of cooperative security, progressive change, collective problem solving,

shared sovereignty, and rule of law» (Ikenberry, 2011b: 6). Or it is «mainly based on

democracy, human rights, rule of law, market economies and fair trade» (Szewczyk,

2019: 34) and on the assumption that «only the liberal order considers the individual a

central actor with inalienable rights» (ibid.: 35). Others prefer to characterize liberal

order by thematically disaggregating its «three elements: the security order, the

economic order and the human rights order» (Kundnani, 2017: 4-8). The liberal order is

also often associated with theories such as “democratic peace”, “economic

interdependence” and Pax Americana.

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Regardless of the multiple ways of characterizing it and referring to the elements that

constitute it, we understand that the liberal international order is based on the promotion

of Liberal Democracy; in the open market economy and free trade; in a certain limitation

of the sovereignty of States and in the sharing of responsibilities, through the joint

creation of common rules, rule of law, multilateralism and collective action; in collective

security (security for all and on behalf of all); in the free navigation of the seas; in free

access to the “global commons” and the dissemination and protection of “global public

goods”; in recognizing the legitimacy of different international, State and non-State

actors; and in a conception of human rights that implies the safeguarding of individual

freedom, human dignity and respect for the inalienable rights of the individual.

Some of these elements may shape other international orders, but, taken together, they

define and distinguish what we consider a liberal international order. On the other hand,

the constitutive elements indicated were evolving and being adapted throughout the

construction of the liberal international order. However, it should be noted that not all of

these elements are recognized as part of the liberal order, either by its opponents or by

some of its defenders; its general characterization does not mean that the promoters of

the liberal order always respect all its precepts; and that there are tensions and

contradictions between constituent elements of the liberal order.

2. Previous orders and initial attempt to build a liberal international

order

Throughout History, there have been multiple and distinct international orders, usually

associated with imperial powers and divine authorities. These various international orders

were always limited in time and in space (with successive and coexisting orders in Europe,

the Middle East, Asia and also on the American Continent), even if some claimed to be

“universal”. However, we must recognize that the “West” has been the main inspirer and

anchor of certain international orders and also of the world order for much of the last few

centuries. Indeed, many of the ideas, doctrines and ideologies (liberalism, nationalism,

capitalism, socialism, democracy, nation-State, sovereignty, multilateralism,

institutionalism) that would mark distinct worldviews on the "international order"

emerged in Europe. They spread as a result of the domination and colonial expansion of

the European powers and, in the meantime, of the rise of the United States. Even so,

until the 19th century, substantial parts of the world and certain actors, such as the

Ottoman Empire, China or Japan were alien to these ideas, and international orders in

Europe, Asia, the Middle East and in the Americas remained largely disconnected from

each other. In other words, there were multiple regional international orders, but not a

“world order”.

The previous Anarchic, but not "Westphalian" order

On the other hand, the idea that the liberal international order arose in opposition to

and/or was built on the “Westphalian order” is very frequent. However, it is not

appropriate to associate the Treaties of Westphalia (Munich and Osnabrück) of 1648 with

an “international order” or even a new “international system”, normally described as the

“Westphalian system”. As Luís Moita (2012) clearly demonstrated, the Peace of

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Westphalia that ended the “Thirty Years War” in Europe did not represent the origin of

the territorialized national State, did not inaugurate the concept of sovereignty and did

not found the “modern” European system of Nation States. Without playing down the

importance of the Westphalian Treaties, the European order in the mid-17th century did

not correspond to a homogeneous State-centric system. A diffuse situation prevailed,

with very diverse and overlapping political formations coinciding (from empires to

principalities, including States, kingdoms and other territories organized under different

configurations and designations) with different degrees of autonomy and in which, in

essence, the State was "princely” and regimes were absolutist. Only later, in the course

of the 18th and 19th centuries, the dissemination and consolidation of national States in

the modern sense was seen, including the unified Italy (1870) and Germany (1871), the

American (1776) and French (1789) Revolutions and the Industrial Revolution being

decisive steps in this process. According to Moita (2012: 38)

the Nation-State, in the modern sense of the term, historically results from a

confluence of elements: on the one hand, the end of the Ancien Régime

dictated by the French Revolution, on the other, the emergence of industrial

capitalism. The first factor underlines the political-institutional dimension, the

second the socio-economic dimension of the process”, adding that “the origin

of the modern Nation-State must be articulated with the emergence of

industrial society and the phenomenon of nationalism (ibid.: 39).

After the Napoleonic Wars, the great European powers (essentially, "empires") made, at

the Congress of Vienna in 1815, an agreement in order to prevent war between them,

maintain stability in the Old Continent and preserve the reigning dynasties. However, the

“Vienna agreement” was short-lived and obviously never constituted a true world order

– suffice to remember, for example, that in the Americas, the international order evolved

distinctly between various independences and the prominence of the US, in the Middle

East and North Africa the order was essentially the "Ottoman" and in East Asia it was

that of the "Middle Empire". On the other hand, the Congress of Vienna of 1815 was just

one of several examples of multilateral diplomacy that, in Europe, throughout the 19th

and early 20th century, sought to regulate certain issues and stipulate rules of

coexistence

, to which they added the many bilateral treaties. Also throughout the 19th

century, taking advantage of the lead in the Industrial Revolution, the United Kingdom

fostered its economic-commercial and naval primacy, promoting an internationalized

economy and trade under the auspices of Pax Britannica. But neither multilateral

agreements nor British supremacy meant “world order” or even international stability,

just as they did not prevent new wars in Europe, the Americas and East Asia

. At the

same time, there were substantial transformations in power structures both in Europe

(for example, through the retreat of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the

unification of Italy and Germany), in the Americas (US hegemony) and in Asia (the

decline of China and the rise of Japan), highlighting the emergence of new great powers

Other outstanding examples are the 1878 San Stefano and Berlin Congresses (Balkan division) or the 1884-

85 Berlin Conference (division of Africa).

Such as the Crimean War of 1853-56, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, or the Balkan Wars of 1912-

13; between the US and Spain in 1898; or the “opium wars” against imperial China, the Sino-Japanese War

of 1894-95 or the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05.

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at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th century, namely Germany, the

United States and Japan, which not only impacted regional systems but, along with the

“old Great Powers”, consolidated a multipolar global power structure.

Paradoxically, although we reject the designation of the "Westphalian order" for the

reasons mentioned above, we recognize that the international system and regional

international orders which, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, were generally

characterized by the elements that are commonly attributed to such “Westphalian

system”. This corresponds to what J. Mearsheimer (2019: 12-13) calls “realistic order”,

formed by sovereign national States allegedly “equal” in rights and obligations, namely

non-interference in the “internal matters” of each other. In order to attenuate the

inherently anarchic character of the system, States have the duty to respect the

commitments made (Pacta Sunt Servanda) and the rules that they sovereignly and jointly

stipulate (International Law). If and when necessary, sovereign States resolve and

regulate certain international issues through multilateral coordination (congresses and

ad hoc conferences). Still in this system, a logic of free trade prevails (imposed by the

"Westerners", for example, on China and Japan), of colonial domains, areas of influence

and balance of power, the (dis)order in international relations residing precisely in games

and (un)balances between the great powers.

A first attempt, quickly deconstructed

As a corollary of this system and of the evolutions and transformations that occurred in

the late 19th/early 20th century, another great war took place involving European powers

that, however, spread and involved other important non-European powers. It was World

War I, which caused unprecedented devastation. The end of this Great War of 1914-18

was marked by the ambition to create a “new world order” to guarantee that a conflict

of this magnitude would not happen again. It was in this context that, among the winners,

the United States stood out, defining, for the first time, the guidelines of a "new world

order", also configuring the first real attempt to transpose the liberal vision to the

international order. In his address to the US Congress on 2 April 1917, where he called

for the declaration of war against Germany, President Wilson justified the US entry into

the conflict to «make the world safe for democracy» (Wilson, 1917). Less than a year

later, on 8 January 1918, in a new speech to the Congress, he spelled out his famous

"14 points", half of which dedicated to specific territorial issues between the belligerent

countries and the rest prescribing a vision for peace and the new world order, proposing,

in summary "peace without defeated or humiliated"; the end of secret agreements and

transparency in international relations; the "absolute” free navigation of the seas; free

trade; the reduction of armaments; «A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial

adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in

determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned

must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be

determined.»; and also «A general association of nations must be formed under specific

covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and

territorial integrity to great and small States alike» (Wilson, 1918).

President Wilson's idealism won him the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize and inspired what might

be called the “liberal international order”. However, initially, he convinced neither his

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allies nor the US Senate. The big European winners, specifically France and the United

Kingdom, shared the political and economic liberalism of the US, but not entirely

President Wilson's vision for international relations. Hence, Paris and London preferred

to impose a humiliating peace on the defeated, especially Germany, and used the

"principle of nationalities" only in the framework of the dismantling of the German,

Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires, without extending it to their colonial

possessions. On the other hand, the League of Nations was created in the terms proposed

by Wilson, but the American Senate did not ratify the US adhesion to it. In Washington,

the “isolationist” impetus prevailed, as opposed to “internationalism”.

The post-Great War order of 1914-18 is quite distinct from the international orders that

preceded it. This was due to the substantial changes in the power structure, and to the

creation of the innovative "liberal" and "Western" inspired League of Nations which, being

of a "global" nature (covering the entire world and participants from all continents),

should safeguard the free navigation of the seas and free trade, enforce the treaties and

guarantee peace and stability between sovereign States based on international law,

permanent multilateral diplomacy and collective security. It is along this line that other

important international conventions were also established, such as the 1925 Geneva

Protocol that prohibited the use of biological weapons, the first multilateral treaty

prohibiting the use of “weapons of mass destruction”. This means that a certain “world”

liberal order began to be built after the Great War.

However, the alienation and lack of commitment of the main liberal powers prevented it

from consolidating itself as a true international order. The fundamental elements of the

previous “anarchic” system continued to prevail, both globally and in the reconstructed

Middle East, Europe and Asia. In Europe, the new order may be termed the one of

“Versailles” by reference to the 1919 Peace Treaty imposed by the Allies on Germany,

with the victorious powers interested in keeping the results of the conflict and the

defeated and dismantled powers interested, above all, in recovering from the imposed

humiliations and conditions. Furthermore, for the new Republic of China, Japan or the

brand new Turkey, the liberal concept of the international order was relatively foreign.

The new “Soviet Russia”, which emerged in the context of the Great War, had a view of

politics, economy, society and, therefore, of international relations that was not only

different from, but hostile to, the liberal vision. However, the emergence of a certain type

of "offensive nationalisms", fascism and national socialism, contrary to liberal principles

- with emphasis on the "living space" of Nazi Germany and the Imperialist Japan's

“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” - would dismantle the liberal aspects of the

international system, regional orders and the fragile post-World War II “world order”,

causing an even more devastating Second World War. In short, the initial construction of

the liberal order in international relations first merged into the anarchic system and then

was undone by it.

3. The consolidation of a liberal, but not a world, international order

It was in the middle of WW II (1939-1945) that Western leaders again began the

reconstruction of a liberal order. Even before the US entered the conflict (which happened

in December 1941), its President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to the «four

freedoms» - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom

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from fear - that should exist «anywhere in the world» (Roosevelt, 1941), in a message

to the American Congress on 6 January 1941. That same year, President Roosevelt and

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill proclaimed the “Atlantic Charter”

, whose

principles would be incorporated in the “Declaration of the United Nations” of 1 January

1942, signed by the 26 allied countries, not just Western countries, but also, for example,

the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and South Africa. They were joined later by more than two

dozen others, from Brazil to Ethiopia or Turkey. The same principles would also be

included in the “United Nations Charter”, signed in San Francisco, on 26 June 1945, by

representatives of 50 countries, entering into force on 24 October of that same year.

On the other hand, at the end of World War II, the United States enjoyed an

unprecedented hegemony (in all domains, including the exclusive one of the atomic

weapon) drawing, for the second time in the 20th century, the guidelines of a “new world

order,” now in the hands of Democrat Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. And this time,

unlike 1918-19, the US became founding member of the UN and did not withdraw, only

reduced, its military apparatus from the European and Asian theatres, thus assuming

responsibility for the post-war world reorganization.

The new UN was not an exact replica of the defunct LN, but its aims and principles were

basically the same

. Although the Charter of the United Nations begins with the

expression «We the Peoples» (of liberal inspiration and recalling the Constitution of the

United States of 1787), its members were States that somehow self-limited their

sovereignty by respecting the Charter and international law, collective security, the right

of self-determination and human rights, while granting the organization, in particular its

Security Council, the authority and legitimacy to recognize new States, decide on matters

of war and peace and sanction the aggressors and violators of the established rules. This

was followed by the creation of a series of new bodies of the "UN family", including

commissions, programmes, funds and specialized agencies - from the International Court

of Justice to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Organization for

Food and Agriculture (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) – and new

international conventions, with emphasis on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

(also of Western and liberal inspiration) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948.

The “UN system” was established by balancing the sovereignty of States and the

Stating that the respective countries would not seek any territorial or other aggrandizement; territorial

changes should only take place in accordance with the wishes freely expressed by the affected peoples; the

right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they want to live and the restitution of

sovereign rights and independence to peoples who have been dispossessed of them by force; all States,

large or small, victorious or defeated, must have equal access to the world's trade and raw materials; to

promote, in the economic field, the broadest collaboration among all nations, with the aim of achieving, for

all, better working conditions, economic prosperity and social security; a peace that gives all nations the

means to live securely within their own borders, and people everywhere the guarantee of existences free

from fear and want; freedom of navigation in the seas and oceans; the renunciation of the use of force and

the disarmament of potential aggressors; and the establishment of a broader and more lasting general

security system. (Atlantic Charter 1941).

With its members determined to «to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war...to reaffirm faith

in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and

women and of nations large and small, and; to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the

obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and; to promote

social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom; And for these Ends, to practice tolerance and

live together in peace...; to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure,

by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in

the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social

advancement of all peoples,.» (United Nations Charter, 1945: Preamble).

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associated principle of non-interference in internal affairs, the supranationalism of the

Security Council and International Law, and the rights of peoples and individuals.

Does this mean that from the 1939-45 War a liberal world order emerged, resulting from

two hundred years of “liberal ascendancy” fused into the “Westphalian system”, as

defended by John Ikenberry (2011b: 2)? Only partially. Although Western and liberally

inspired, the design of the new UN was done by the US, the UK and also the USSR, the

“big three” who, along with those they invited, France and China, became Permanent

Members of the Security Council of the new Organization with the exclusive right of veto.

At the same time, the US and the USSR articulated and shared with each other, as allies

and in a context of war, the surrender conditions of Germany and Japan and, above all,

respective areas of influence in European and Asian theatres at the Summits in Yalta and

Potsdam, respectively, in February and July-August 1945, in which the United Kingdom

also participated. This “sharing” would lead, from 1946-47, to the Cold War between the

US and the Soviet Union that marked international relations until 1989-91.

The Cold War World Order

The global power structure established after World War II was not unipolar (as suggested

by the US hegemony) nor multipolar (as indicated by the constitution of the UNSC with

its five Permanent Members), but rather “bipolar” by the emergence of two superpowers.

The US and the USSR shared opposing ideologies, Liberalism and Marxism-Leninism, but

«both were enlightened ideologies that sought to expand into universal civilization»

(Gray, 2007: 30). Then, they became involved in a strategic, economic and ideological

dispute that began in Europe and quickly spread to all regions of the world, determining

systems of alliances, economic alignments, conflicts, rules, institutions, behaviours and

interactions between most State and non-State actors. Much more than the UN and

International Law, it was nuclear weapons (which the USSR also possessed since 1949)

and deterrence through "mutual guaranteed destruction" that forced Americans and

Soviets to coexist in the Cold War and the world to live under this “balance of terror”.

Each of the superpowers had “areas of influence” in the world and in the various regions,

leading and organizing their “bloc” according to their respective interests, visions and

institutions. This bipolar confrontation directly resulted in countless conflicts, civil wars,

coups d'état, guerrilla and subversive movements, “proxy wars”, “crises” and

international wars.

At the same time, although always in competition, the US and the USSR were able to

cooperate and articulate when their interests converged. For example, both favoured the

right of self-determination and decolonization by European countries, just as they

condemned certain neo-colonial stances (as in the Suez Crisis of 1956). It was possible

to develop the “UN system”, recognize countless new independent States and even

launch UN “peace missions” (when none exercised its right of veto in the UNSC). The

articulation between the Eastern and Western “blocs” was equally crucial for the signature

of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, Peace Accords such as the 1954

Geneva one, the “replacement” of the Republic of China/Taiwan by the People's Republic

of China at the UN (and then as a Permanent Member of its Security Council) in 1971, or

the Helsinki Accords attained at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

(CSCE) in 1975. And whereas it is true that the level of economic and commercial

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interdependence between the two sides was minimal and did not justify the development

of common rules and institutions in this area, they managed to create or support the

development of new norms and, at times, institutions, regarding arms control, the non-

militarization of certain spaces or the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, at bilateral

and multilateral levels, as attested by the Antarctic Treaty System, the Moon Agreement,

the Outer Space Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaties, the Strategic Arms

Limitations Talks (SALT) 1 and 2 and the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START), the

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Convention for the Suppression of

Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, the Biological Weapons Convention,

the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the

Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International Atomic

Energy Agency (IAEA) or the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Therefore, the world order that prevailed between 1946-47 and 1989-91 was essentially

that of the Cold War, merged with the “UN system” which, despite everything, developed

and extended to many new States resulting from the decolonization processes which the

organization supported mainly through its General Assembly (see O'Sullivan 2005).

Within the scope and coexisting with this world order, two other international orders were

established corresponding to the "camps" led by each of the superpowers: on the one

hand, the "West", "Capitalist", "Liberal", "Democratic" or "Free world"; on the other, the

“Communist”, “Eastern Bloc”, “Soviet” or the “Popular Democracies”. These two

international orders were dynamic and underwent changes: examples include the Sino-

Soviet split that tore up the “communist camp”, triggered a new “cold war” between the

USSR and the PRC and introduced a triangular dynamics Washington-Moscow-Beijing.

On the other hand, these orders were not defined in a regional logic, but in ideological,

strategic and economic blocs with their respective multilateral conventions and

institutions (see Crump and Godard, 2018). A third international order that has been

trying to be promoted can still be included, embodied in the spirit of the Bandung Asian-

African Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well as in the Chinese doctrine of

the “three worlds”, in the adoption by the UNGA of the concept of “permanent sovereignty

over natural resources”

or the idea of a “New World Economic Order”

. Basically, the

world order in the decades after World War II was a complex combination of several

international orders, the liberal being just one of them.

It was from the 1950s that the concept of "permanent sovereignty" of States (with an economic content,

distinct from the usual purely political view) began to emerge within the UNGA, with the adoption of a

resolution in 1952 on the "Right of to Freely Exploit Natural Resources and Wealth”. The following decade

saw a change in the terminology adopted by UN resolutions, referring to "permanent sovereignty over

resources". A milestone in this evolution was the adoption by the UNGA, on 14 December 1962, of

Resolution 1. 803 (XVII) on "Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources", developed in subsequent

resolutions in 1966 and 1973. In essence, these resolutions support the efforts of developing countries (or

"third world") for effective control over the natural resources in their territories, recognizing that each State

had the right to determine the amount of compensation and the method of payment, and that possible

disputes should be resolved according to the national legislation of each State.

Resolutions 3201 and 3202 of May 1974 adopted by the UNGA, encompassing the "Declaration on the

Establishment of a New International Economic Order" and the "Action Programme for the Establishment of

a New International Economic Order", which was followed by the "Letter of Economic Rights and Duties of

States” (Resolution 3.281) of December of that year.

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The liberal international order in the "West"

That liberal international order is rooted in political and economic liberalism and in the

four freedoms enunciated by President Roosevelt in 1941, based on “liberal democracy”

(as distinct from communist “people's democracy”) and on equally distinctive precepts

regarding economic organization and social or human rights, embodying its own rules

and institutions beyond the “UN-Universe” and opposed to the “Soviet order”. For

example, in Europe, European democracies early created the Western European Union

(WEU) in 1948 and the Council of Europe in 1949, at the same time that the US created

on the American Continent, based in Washington, the Organization of the American

States (OAS) in 1948.

Given the constraints associated with the ideal of "collective security" inscribed in the

UN, the US established with Canada and Western European countries, since 1949, the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a multilateral mechanism for "collective

defence", in order to contain the expansion of the Soviet Union and communism and «to

safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on

the principles of democracy, individual liberty and rule of law» (NATO, 1949). However,

not all NATO founders were “liberal democracies”, like Portugal with its Estado Novo

(“New State”), which attests the weight of geostrategic considerations linked to the Cold

War. The same geostrategic objectives and imperatives presided over the generality of

the US Alliance System in other regions and which included both bilateral alliances (with

the Philippines, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea, Republic of China/Taiwan or Thailand),

trilateral alliances (such as ANZUS between Australia, New Zealand and the US) and

multilateral ones, from the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Pact) to

the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO/Manila Pact) and the Central Treaty

Organization (CENTO or the Baghdad Pact). Not all of these alliances were successful,

some were even dismantled (such as SEATO and CENTO, in the 1970s), and not all allies

were liberal democracies, having only the “advantage” of being anti-communist. But the

fact is that many of them were crucial to consolidating and/or expanding liberal

democracy and maintaining peace between democracies, with the Pax Americana being

the mainstay of the liberal international order.

The economic pillar is rooted in the “Bretton Woods system”, a set of agreements reached

at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in the city of Bretton

Woods, in the US State of New Hampshire, in July 1944, with the presence of delegations

from 44 countries. It defined the basis for the monetary management of international

trade, with the value of other currencies being associated with the US dollar and

continuing to have its value linked to that of gold. In Bretton Woods, it was also agreed

to create the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - responsible for maintaining an

emergency fund to help countries that had unaffordable trade deficits - and the

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) to support the

reconstruction of countries. IBRD would be integrated into the World Bank which, like the

IMF, was formally established in 1945. Two years later, in 1947, they were joined by the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in order to boost international trade by

reducing customs barriers. In the same year, the US launched the “Marshall Plan”

designed to aid Europe's economic recovery and eliminate conditions that would favour

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the expansion of communism (see Leffler 1988) and, in 1950, it established the

Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Control (CoCom) for the embargo of

goods, technologies and weapons to the countries of the Committee on Mutual Economic

Assistance (COMECOM) led by the USSR (Mastanduno 1992). It was based on these

principles and under the “American hat” that certain regional organizations were also

established and developed, with emphasis on the European Coal and Steel Community

(ECSC) in 1951 and on the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the

European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. Other institutions would be created, such

as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 1961, in

order to stimulate economic progress and international trade.

In general, the countries of this liberal economic order have experienced significant

economic and social development, particularly North America, Western Europe, Japan,

Australia, New Zealand and the “New Industrialized Countries” of East Asia. However,

completely satisfactory answers were never found for the redistribution of wealth,

generating exclusion and inequalities both within countries and between them, while

keeping many other peoples and States, namely from the "third world", largely excluded

from this development (see Keohane 1984 and Krasner 1999). On the other hand, the

erosion of the Bretton Woods system led President Richard Nixon, in 1971, to determine

that the US dollar would no longer be associated with gold, putting an end to the historic

gold standard and inaugurating a new phase of “floating exchanges”. Soon after, the

1973 oil crisis highlighted the vulnerabilities associated with economic interdependencies

and insufficient regulation of internationalized markets. This type of distortions and

insufficiencies would lead to revisions and re-adaptations of the liberal economic order,

through reforms and new rules in the IMF, GATT and the OECD, the creation of new

intergovernmental cooperation and regulation frameworks - such as the G7, whose first

summit took place in 1975 - or even new mechanisms for dialogue between the private

sector and political leaders, of which perhaps the best example is the World Economic

Forum/Davos Forum, launched in 1971.

The existing freedoms and rights in liberal democracies attracted more and more peoples

and individuals “external” to the liberal order, including many "dissidents" from the

"Eastern Bloc". Likewise, the economic development brought about by the liberal model

attracted many peoples and even leaders of opposite models. This was the case of Deng

Xiaoping who, from 1978 onwards, abandoning Maoist orthodoxy and with great

pragmatism, launched deep reforms in the People's Republic of China in the sense of

“creating socialism with Chinese characteristics with the means of capitalism”. A few

years later, in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev had the hierarchies of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union (CPSU) approve his Perestroika. The difference is that the Chinese

reforms have never questioned the leading role of the China’s Communist Party (CCP)

and are at the base of China's modernization and resurgence to this day, while

Gorbachev's Perestroika did not prevent, in a few years, the end of the “Soviet empire”

and the collapse of the Soviet Communist Party and the USSR itself. The Soviet implosion

ended the Cold War world order, favouring the expansion of the liberal international

order.

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4. From worldization to deconstruction of the liberal order

The world order changed suddenly, marked by significant events: in 1989, the “Berlin

wall”, the greatest symbol of the division of Europe and the world in the Cold War,

collapsed; in 1990, the UNSC authorized the use of force to expel Iraq from Kuwait by a

broad US-led international coalition; in 1991, COMECOM and the Warsaw Pact were

officially dissolved and the USSR gave way to 15 New Independent States, one of them

the Russian Federation. The Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China normalized

their relations in 1989, the year when the “Tiananmen tragedy” took place. It is important

to recall these last events to underline that the “double Cold War” ended, with two main

winners, the US and China, and that with the brutal repression of democratic yearnings

in China, the CCP regime went against the trend of political liberalization of the time.

The worldization of the liberal international order

The US stood alone in the superpower category, in a power structure that became

unipolar. And for the third time in the 20th century, it traced the guidelines of a “new

world order”, with Republican President George Bush proclaiming, at the UNGA, the vision

of a new partnership of nations… based on consultation, cooperation, and

collective action, especially through international and regional organizations…

the rule of law…a partnership whose goals are to increase democracy,

increase prosperity, increase the peace, and reduce arms…. Calls for

democracy and human rights are being reborn everywhere… (Bush. 1990a).

The following year, in the aftermath of the victory in the Gulf War, the same President

assured that «in our quest for a new world order… the United States has no intention of

striving for a “Pax Americana”… we seek a “Pax Universalis” built upon shared

responsibilities and aspirations.» (Bush, 1991). The successive White House tenants have

enthusiastically assumed the role of superpower: «There is no substitute for American

leadership», said Bush (1990b); or «Indispensable Nation», as the Secretary of State of

the Clinton Administration, Madeleine Albright (1998) and President Barak Obama (2014)

preferred to say. And the fact is, under the leadership of the US supported by its

“Western” allies and partners, the liberal order expanded and became worldwide.

The end of the Cold War unleashed new waves of democratization across the globe,

seeming to confirm Fukuyama's (1989) thesis that there was no other viable political

organization alternative. In fact, the 1990 “Charter of Paris”, signed by almost all

European countries and also by the United States, Canada and the USSR, established

«democracy as the only system of government of our nations»

. The vast majority of

former communist regimes, from Eastern Europe to Mongolia and to the new Russia,

embraced liberal democracy, as did countless former autocratic anti-communist regimes

Also stating that: «Democratic government is based on the will of the people, expressed regularly through

free and fair elections. Democracy has as its foundation respect for the human person and the rule of law.

Democracy is the best safeguard of freedom of expression, tolerance of all groups of society, and equality

of opportunity for each person» (Charter of Paris 1990).

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and other authoritarianisms. According to Freedom House (2017), 34% of countries were

“democracies” in 1986. This percentage went up to 41% in 1996 and to 47% in 2006.

The new international context also allowed to put an end to certain previously existing

situations, such as the end of the segregationist regime of “apartheid” in South Africa or

the end of the occupation of East Timor by Indonesia and the exercise of Timorese self-

determination.

At the same time, the liberal/Western conception of Human Rights has become

“universal”, favouring numerous human rights campaigns and the defence of minorities,

religious freedom and women's rights, often targeting autocratic governments and

leaders. They also became the main targets of notions such as “human security”, which

gained prominence since the mid-1990s based on the defence of “human dignity” and

the formula “freedom from fear and freedom from want”. The new primacy of human

rights is also associated with other controversial principles such as the “right of

humanitarian interference” (invoked by NATO in the intervention in Kosovo in 1999) or

the “Responsibility to Protect”, adopted at the UN World Summit, in 2005. And precisely

to reinforce human rights in the world and with specific competence in this domain, the

UNGA created, in 2006, the Human Rights Council, heir of the extinct Commission on

Human Rights. On the other hand, new international conventions and “global pacts” have

emerged aiming at greater protection of the rights of children, women, people with

disabilities or migrants and refugees. The international persecution of human rights

violators has gained impact, leading some to say that «Human Rights Prosecutions Are

Changing World Politics» (Sikkink, 2011). International criminal justice was further

developed (Teles and Kowalski, 2017) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) was

established in 2002. The International Court of Justice, the UN jurisdictional body, and

the Permanent Court of Arbitration and other courts gained “new life”. Inevitably, many

of these developments meant the erosion of traditional State sovereignty, a

distinguishing feature of earlier international orders.

In the field of security, the Pax Americana expanded. The US maintained its alliance

system inherited from the Cold War, established new bilateral and multilateral strategic

partnerships (such as the “Quad” with Japan, Australia and India since 2007) and NATO

expanded, almost doubling the number members, mostly former Eastern European

opponents. Furthermore, the US maintained its global strategic omnipresence and

continued to have the role of “regional balancer” in Europe, the Middle East and Asia-

Pacific. And it intervened militarily, not only in the leadership of UN missions (Gulf War

or Somalia), but also in NATO (Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Libya) and certain

"coalitions of will" (Haiti, Iraq and Syria), as well as invaded and occupied Afghanistan in

“self-defence” in the wake of 9/11. In addition, there are many special operations,

surgical bombing, multiple military and “free navigation of the seas” exercises or even

the relentless pursuit of its enemies, from Milosevic to Saddam Hussein, Ossama Bin

Laden, Muammar Gaddafi or Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi – by sometimes exercising a kind of

“right of anti-terrorist interference”.

On the other hand, the end of the Cold War immediately favoured various peace

processes, from Cambodia to Angola, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Mozambique.

The number of UN “peace missions” has increased considerably, expanding the number

of peacekeepers and participating countries, and diversifying the nature and typology of

these missions, from conflict prevention to post-war stabilization and reconstruction (see

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UN Peacekeeping). “Collective security” had a new impetus, reinforced by the missions

carried out by various regional organizations - NATO, EU, OSCE, AU, ECOWAS, OAS -

and by ad hoc international coalitions, including in the fight against terrorism or maritime

piracy (SIPRI Multilateral Peace Operations Database). Meanwhile, the CSCE gave rise to

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1994, the year when

the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Asia-Pacific was also established. South Africa, Libya

and the former Soviet Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear

programmes, and it was also possible to establish the “nuclear deal” with Iran in 2015

In the economic domain, interdependencies increased and “economic globalization”

abruptly accelerated. There was a strengthening and expansion of the IMF, the World

Bank and the OECD, and the World Economic Forum/Davos Forum started to invite

businessmen and political leaders from former communist regimes and from the new

“emerging economies”. And countless new agreements and free trade zones, new

institutions and new multilateral mechanisms were established: such as the G20 which,

since 1999, brings together the largest economies in the world and, above all, the

creation, in 1995, of the World Trade Organization, replacing the former GATT. According

to Ikenberry (2011a: 62), the latter is «the most formal and developed institution of the

liberal international order». In the spirit of “free trade”, but also as a counterweight to

China's growing economic influence, the US has promoted new “mega-regional”

frameworks with its traditional partners, specifically the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

agreed between 12 countries

in 2015 and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment

Partnership Agreement (TTIP) with the EU, negotiated since 2013.

At the same time, international and regional organizations proliferated, in all domains

and regions of the world. The UN has expanded both to pre-existing States (such as the

two Koreas in 1991) and to new independent States, from ex-Soviet and ex-Yugoslav to

East Timor or South Sudan, and currently has almost four times as many members than

when it was founded, while the “UN system” was reformed and expanded. The Council

of Europe extended to former adversaries and the former European Communities gave

way to the European Union (EU), which deepened and also enlarged to many new

members, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, including ex-Soviet ones. The former

Organization of African Unity was replaced by the new African Union (AU), covering the

majority of countries on the African Continent, as well as the Association of Southeast

Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has expanded to practically all countries in that region

(with the exception being East Timor) and deepened as a “Community”. On the other

hand, numerous new regional, sub-regional, pan-regional and inter-regional

organizations have been created, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC),

the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Commonwealth of Independent

States (CIS), Mercosur and the Southern African Development Community

(ECOWAS/SADC). Indeed, “regionalism” is the other side of “globalization”, understood

as the intensification of all types of flows and the reduction of spatial and temporal

distances on a global scale. The multiplication of institutions was accompanied by the

adhesion of more States to international conventions and by a countless number of new

Formally, the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action-JCPOA) established between the five Permanent Members

of the UNSC plus Germany (5+1) with Iran in 2015.

Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, US, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

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international and regional agreements on a wide range of matters, including some that

gained prominence on the global agenda

In order to “globalize” the liberal order, the United States and its allies sought to involve

in key institutions, among many others, Russia and China. The Russian Federation was

soon recognized as a replacement for the deceased USSR as Permanent Member of the

UNSC in 1991, also joining the IMF and World Bank in 1992, the G7 in 1997 (which

became the “G8” until 2014) and to the WTO, in 2012. In the meantime, Russia became

a formal partner of NATO

and concluded with the US several agreements on the

reduction and control of strategic arms

.The PRC has been a member of the UNSC since

1971 and of the IMF and World Bank since 1980, when it took the place previously

occupied by the Republic of China/Taiwan in these institutions. And despite the tensions

caused by the Tiananmen tragedy, it was quickly integrated into APEC in 1991 and, more

importantly, into the WTO in 2001. The US, China and Russia were also involved in

multiple other multilateral mechanisms, such as the “Six-party Talks”

on North Korea's

Nuclear and Missile Programme, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, G20

and the ARF.

Paradoxes and ambivalences of a globalized liberal order in deconstruction

One of the most salient aspects of the post-Cold War world order was the proliferation

and increased relevance of non-State actors, such as international and regional

organizations, multinational companies, civic associations and transnational activists,

terrorist groups, organized crime networks, NGOs, or hackers. However, the international

order is what the main actors make of it and, therefore, the great powers continue to be

its main architects.

This is just one of the many ambivalences of the globalized liberal order, and some of

which paradoxically contribute to its deconstruction. For example, the wave of

democratization has not stopped the survival of many authoritarianisms around the

world, including some officially “socialist” regimes. There were, however, some

“setbacks”, including in Russia since Vladimir Putin's rise to power in 1999. Paradoxically,

instead of economic liberalism contributing to political liberalism, economic hyper-

globalization seemed to subvert democracy (Rodrik, 2011 and Halper, 2012), given that

economic success has become a factor in the “legitimation” of certain autocracies,

especially the PRChina. On the other hand, massive human rights violations continue to

occur, and international institutions and conventions show that they have a limited

impact on the behaviour of States and are unable to effectively and efficiently regulate

some crucial issues.

Examples include the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005) and

the “Global Strategy Against Terrorism” (2006), the Kyoto Protocol (1995) and the Paris Agreement on

Climate Change (2015) or the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime (2001) and UNGA Resolution 74/197

(2019) on Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainable Development.

The Russian Federation joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991 - a forum for dialogue replaced

in 1997 by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council - and the Partnership for Peace Programme in 1994,

formalizing the bilateral relationship with the “Founding Act”, in 1997 and the NATO-Russia Council, since

2002.

Treaty on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF), START 1 and START 2, Moscow Treaty on Reduction of

Strategic Offensive Weapons (SORT) and New START.

Also with the participation of both Koreas and Japan.

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In the economic field, despite a very significant reduction in poverty in the world and the

improvement in the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people, certain “crises”

were not prevented in numerous countries and regions, such as the one in 1997-98 in

Southeast Asia. Emphasis must be placed on the economic and financial crisis that began

in the US in 2007-08 and quickly became global. Paradoxically, “hyper-globalization” has

taken away influence from both sides of the North Atlantic and instead contributed to the

centrality of China and Asia-Pacific in the world economy and trade

. And economic

growth is at the base of the increase in China's “comprehensive national power”, with

consequences in all domains, from military capabilities to science and technology and

political-diplomatic influence.

The progress of collective security and the Pax Americana did not prevent the Rwandan

genocide or other failures in Somalia, Haiti, DR of Congo or Sudan. Numerous territorial,

border and exclusive economic zone disputes remained unresolved. There are still

hotspots such as Palestine, Kashmir, Taiwan, South and East China Seas or the Korean

Peninsula. New conflicts broke out, from Georgia to Syria, from the Sahel region to

Ukraine and Yemen. The “Arab Spring” resulted in turbulent “chaos” that instigated

further instability, insecurity and violence. Transnational organized crime networks

proliferated and powerful new terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS emerged.

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan (both in 1998) and North Korea (in 2006) became nuclear.

At the same time, after a first decade of global reduction in military budgets, world

military expenditure rose again, surpassing those of the Cold War period

. And the "arms

races" returned, particularly in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, with substantial changes

in the ranking of the largest defence budgets, with an emphasis on the rise of China

US hegemony has not eliminated the aspirations of other powers, like China, Russia,

India, Japan, EU, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Iran. In fact, the end of

the US-USSR bipolarity was seen by various powers as the possibility of succeeding in a

“multipolar” system, whereby the “hegemonism” and “unilateralism” of the US were

increasingly contested. Meanwhile, the “unipolar moment” (Krauthammer 1990/91) or

the “unipolar interregnum” (Gaspar, 2019: 123-172) gave way to a “uni-multi-polar”

structure (Tomé, 2003 and 2004) and, later on, becoming “uni-bi-multi-polar” (Tomé,

2016, 2018 and 2021), where the increasingly incomplete American supremacy coexists

with several other power poles, global and regional, from which the resurgent China

In 1990, the “advanced economies” represented a share of world GDP in purchasing power parities (PPP)

of 63.25%, while that of “emerging economies” was 36.75%; the situation was completely reversed and,

in 2021, this share of advanced economies dropped to 44.43% and that of emerging economies rose to

55.57% (IMF 2021). At the same time, North America's share of world GDP in PPP in 1990 was 26.53%,

Western Europe was 26.13% and Asia-Pacific was 27.52%; in 2021, the shares of North America and

Western Europe had fallen to 19.29% and 15.18%, respectively, while those of Asia-Pacific soared to

45.14% (ibid.). China was indeed the great winner of globalization, becoming central in the world economy

and trade: its share of world GDP in PPP soared from 4.03% in 1990 to 18.78% in 2021, while in the same

period, the US and EU shares decreased, respectively, from 21.64% to 15.97% and from 23.60% to 14.74%

(ibid.). The PRC tends to become the world's largest economy also in nominal terms within a few years,

being already the world's largest exporter and importer and the largest trading partner of the US, EU27,

ASEAN10 and more than 100 countries throughout the world (WTO statistics).

In 1990, the world spent globally 1,372 Billion USD, an amount, at constant prices, was surpassed from

2004, reaching 1,960 Billion USD in 2020 (SIPRI 2021).

While always remaining prominent in the top of this ranking, the US began to see its share reduce; the

European powers were dropping positions and losing shares; while maintaining nuclear parity with the US,

Russia saw the gap widen with the US and, meanwhile, was overtaken by China and, in some years, also

by India and Saudi Arabia; and China rose to the second place in this ranking, gradually approaching the

US and increasingly distancing itself from the other powers (see SIPRI 2021).

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stands out. Furthermore, the view on the “international order” and, in particular, on the

putative universal benefits of the liberal order were never shared by many outside the

“West” nor by all Westerners.

China has been the main beneficiary of the post-Cold War world order, but the CCP

regime has never ceased to criticize the “hegemonism” of the United States, to demand

“multipolarity” and to vociferate against the interference of Western countries in its

affairs internal (China, 2019a and 2019b). In reality, the Beijing regime does not hide a

«distinction between three elements of the “U.S.-led world order”: “the American value

system”, “the U.S. military alignment system”; and “the international institutions

including the UN system» (Fu Ying 2016). So when Chinese leaders talk about

“supporting the international order” they are referring to a “rules-based order”, but not

a system based on Western values or Pax Americana. In one way and another, this is

what Beijing repeats to exhaustion, including through the voice of the President of the

PRC and Secretary General of the CCP:

we should stay committed to international law and international rules instead

of seeking one’s own supremacy… China will continue to promote a new type

of international relations… Let us all join hands and let multilateralism light

our way toward a community with a shared future for mankind. (Xi Jinping,

2021).

The truth is that the Chinese regime violates many of the rules, including those it formally

subscribes to: for example, despite being a party to the United Nations Convention on

the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Beijing has failed to comply with the Court of Arbitration’s

decision on the South China Sea, which, in 2016, ruled that «China’s claims to historic

rights, or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction, with respect to the maritime areas of the

South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the ‘nine-dash line’ are contrary

to the Convention [UNCLOS] and without lawful effect» (PCA, 2016: 473, X.B.2). It also

continued to militarize and reinforce its positions in the South China Sea, trying to

establish a kind of mare nostrum or mare clausum. Indeed, the CCP appears committed

to restoring China's centrality, expanding its sphere of influence and taking a leading role

in reforming the global governance system:

China moving closer to center stage… new era of great power diplomacy with

Chinese characteristics… take an active part in leading the reform of the global

governance system… a leading position in terms of economic and

technological strength, defense capabilities, and composite national

strength… crossed the threshold into a New Era (Xi Jinping, 2017).

This is largely the meaning of the “Chinese dream” and the “New Era” of a more self-

confident and increasingly assertive China in its claims, especially since the rise of Xi

Jinping to the leadership of the CCP and the PRC in 2012 (Shambaugh, 2020; Markey,

2020). However, its growing economic power has made China an extraordinary

alternative partner to the “West”, undermining the efforts of Europeans and Americans

to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

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For its part, Russia considers itself the main victim of the end of the Cold War, having

long been opposed to the enlargement of NATO and the expansion of the influence of

Western “extra-regional actors” (US, NATO and EU) in the post-Soviet space, understood

as a threat, interference in its “near neighbourhood” and a re-edition of the «infamous

policy of containment» (Putin, 2014). The Russian President even considers that «the

collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster» (Putin, 2005), for two

fundamental reasons: on the one hand, because Russia has lost much of what is “its”

;

on the other, because it caused an imbalance of power in the world that the US took

advantage of to force its unilateralism and the West to impose its values and interests,

triggering chaos and instability

Like Beijing, Moscow defends multipolarity, willing to use all means to safeguard its

interests and strategic objectives. This included, for example, developing strategic

partnerships with China and India; invading Georgia and unilaterally recognizing the

independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008; annexing Ukrainian Crimea in 2014

and “divide” what remains of Ukraine by controlling separatism in the Donbas region; or

intervening militarily in Syria since 2015 in support of Bashar al-Assad's regime. Russia

is not the Soviet Union, but Putin acts as if it were (Tomé 2018/19), insisting on a return

to an agreement between great powers and sharing of influence zones similar to the

1945 Yalta and Potsdam conferences. In addition, the Russian President now considers

that «the liberal idea has become obsolete» (Putin, 2019).

The views of China and Russia on the world order are not entirely coincident, but this

does not affect their strategic articulation, which has intensified since Russia’s annexation

of Crimea (Lukin, 2018; Gaspar, 2019; Tomé, 2018 and 2019; Sutter, 2019; Lo, 2020;

Markey, 2020; Stent, 2020). Not because they are members of an "autocratic

international", but because they consider it to serve their respective geopolitical, strategic

and economic purposes - including containing US supremacy, dividing the West and the

democratic powers, and suppressing liberal political influences on international

organizations and conventions and on the world order. Both share the assumption that

great powers have certain “natural rights”, including regional spheres of influence; they

have a traditional notion of security and sovereignty, instrumentally absolutizing the

principle of “non-interference in internal affairs”; and they agree on ideas like the

“sovereign internet”. At the same time, Moscow and Beijing have supported certain

autocratic regimes, such as North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Belarus, Myanmar

and several African leaders – with political support and halting sanctions on the UNSC

(using its right of veto), breaking international sanctions and blockades, selling them

arms and doing business.

This deconstruction of the liberal order also involves international organizations. Moscow

and Beijing promote, each in its own way, a kind of “embedded revisionism” in the

«After the collapse of the USSR, Russia, which was known as the Soviet Union or Soviet Russia abroad, lost

23.8 percent of its national territory, 48.5 percent of its population, 41 of the gdp, 39.4 percent of its

industrial potential (nearly half of our potential, I would underscore), as well as 44.6 percent of its military

capability due to the division of the Soviet Armed Forces among the former Soviet republics» (Putin 2018).

«What is happening in today’s world... is a tentative to introduce precisely this concept into international

affairs, the concept of a unipolar world… first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national

borders in every way» (Putin 2007); «After the dissolution of bipolarity on the planet, we no longer have

stability… instead of democracy and freedom, there was chaos, outbreaks in violence and a series of

upheavals» (Putin 2014).

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institutions that they integrate together with the Western powers, from the UN to the

WTO. On the other hand, they institutionalize “parallel realities”. Indeed, China and

Russia are among the main great powers and “intermediate powers” that have launched

new institutions and new mechanisms for bilateral, trilateral and multilateral dialogue

and cooperation, creating what Barma, Ratner and Weber (2007) called «a world without

the West». Examples of this include the Strategic Triangle Russia, India and China, since

2003

, or the trilateral dialogue China-Japan-South Korea, since 2008; groups of

countries such as IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa, created in 2003), BRICS (Brazil,

Russia, India and China) in 2006

or MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey

and Australia, since 2013); and institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation

Organization (SCO), since 2001. The list also includes the New Development Bank (NDB)

created by the BRICS in 2014 and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB),

established by 57 founding countries in 2015. Russia also created the Eurasian Economic

Community-Eurasian Economic Union (the first was created in 2000, and was replaced

by the second in 2014) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO ) in 2002.

In the case of China, the “Sino-centric order” also involves the many bilateral agreements

on free trade and investment, the granting of credits and loans, the “Beijing consensus”

alternative to the “Washington consensus” (see Ramo, 2004 and Halper, 2012) and of

course the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or “New Silk Road” launched by President Xi

Jinping in 2013 (Leandro and Duarte, 2020). In addition to these, there are other

frameworks such as the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, the China

International Import Expo, Hongqiao International Economic Forum, China-Africa

Cooperation Forum, China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, China Forum and Community

of Latin American and Caribbean States, Boao Forum for Asia, Conference on Dialogue

of Asian Civilizations, World Internet Conference, Macau Forum of China with Portuguese-

speaking Countries or the mechanism China + 17 Central and Eastern European countries

and Greece.

Several Western governments have also contributed to the deconstruction of the

globalized liberal order. From the outset, the US and its allies showed their willingness

to “break the rules” of the security order, with emphasis on NATO's military interventions

against Serbia, in 1999 and the Anglo-American one against Saddam's Iraq, in 2003 -

although none involved the annexation of territory - or certain abuses in the "Global War

on Terrorism", undermining the moral authority of the "West" as a defender of "a rule-

based order". Furthermore, the US withdrew hastily from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011

and 2021, respectively, favouring the rise of ISIS (see Tomé, 2015) and the return of

the Taliban to power in Kabul. Also in other interventions, such as in Haiti, Somalia, Libya

or Syria, the results were not democracy and rule of law, “abandoning”, in fact, their

local democratic allies. On the other hand, the US has not ratified certain international

conventions to which most countries adhere (such as the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction

of greenhouse gases or the International Labour Organization Convention on Forced

Labour), as it has never joined the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

This date refers to the first meeting of RIC Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of a UNGA session in New

York, following a proposal by former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in the late 1990s.

The Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China first met as BRIC in September 2006 on the sidelines

of a UNGA meeting in New York. The first BRIC Summit took place in June 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

South Africa joined the group from 2011, the acronym becoming "BRICS".

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(UNCLOS). The US and several of its allies and partners have also failed to join the ICC

and often seem to instrumentalize the right to humanitarian interference, the principle

of responsibility to protect, “human security” and certain “color revolutions” not to

promote democracy, rule of law and human rights, but rather to project their interests

and influence. Furthermore, Americans and Europeans have preferred to promote

collective security through NATO, the EU and “coalitions of will” missions rather than

providing more peacekeepers for UN missions. All these aspects illustrate that there can

be tension between “liberalism” and “order”, or as Geor Sorensen (2006) Stated,

between “restriction liberalism and imposition liberalism”.

Likewise, the "West", the main architect of the liberal economic order and the rules and

institutions associated with it, is primarily responsible for the insufficient regulation of

the world economy and trade or for the comparative disadvantages of the "West" itself

in the era of hyper-globalization. And it was in the US that, in 2007-08, the economic-

financial crisis that spread the world began. On the other hand, all too often, the US and

its Western partners play down democracy, rule of law and human rights in favour of

economic interests, as exemplified by China's entry into the WTO in 2001. This also

illustrates the tensions between the pillars of the liberal order. In reality, Americans and

Europeans tend to identify their values and interests with those of the “international

community” and, in order to make the world order more liberal, they have been

undermining and distorting the foundations of that order.

Two other factors add to the deconstruction of the liberal order: the polarization of the

“West” and the retreat of Democracy. Both transatlantic and intra-European divergences

and divisions have been growing since the turn of the century, regarding the recognition

of Kosovo's independence, the American doctrine of “preventive war”, intervention in

Iraq, the sovereign debt crisis, management the migration crisis, Brexit process, tensions

with Turkey and disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean, “burden sharing”, the situation

in Palestine, relations with Russia and China or the management of the pandemic crisis.

On the other hand, authoritarianism, nationalism, protectionism and populism grew in

the “West” - sometimes violating fundamentals of political liberalism, such as rule of law,

press freedom and the separation of powers; tampering with “universal values” to

safeguard the rights of minorities, migrants and refugees; and attacking multilateralism

and international institutions. The reality is that Democracy is indeed in retreat: for

example, Freedom House's latest “Freedom in the World” (2021) marks the 15th

consecutive year of decline in global freedom, and the last “Democracy Index” by The

Economist Intelligence Unit (2021) shows the worst result ever since the Index was first

published in 2006.

These aspects were aggravated during the Presidency of Donald Trump, whose “America

First” was the antithesis of the liberal order. Trump's stance is based on the idea that

liberal internationalism is detrimental to the US global position and that it only favours

its enemies and adversaries. Accordingly, he has broken many of the rules and

institutions to take an ostensibly nationalist and confrontational position in a “competitive

world” (see The White House, 2017), and not just against China. Trump took a

nationalist, populist and protectionist stance that did not place democracy and human

rights among the priorities of American foreign policy. It was also antagonistic to free

trade and international institutions and conventions. For example, with Trump, the US

undid NAFTA (recreating it as the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA)

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and withdrew from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Nuclear Agreement with

Iran, the INF Treaty, the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, the International Court of

Justice, the Global Compact on Migration and Refugees, the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT),

the Open Skies Treaty and the World Health Organization (WHO).

At the same time, in addition to the “trade war” with China, Trump's protectionism

targeted the US traditional allies and partners, including new tariffs imposed on Japan

and the European Union and the US withdrawal from the TPP and TTIP negotiations.

Trump also attacked central institutions like the UN and the WTO, and as a result of his

choices, the US allies and partners were often on the opposite side of the US (and on the

same side of China and Russia). In addition, its allies and partners maintained the line of

"free trade" and deepened their ties among them - as reflected in the maintenance of

the TPP, reconverted into a Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific

Partnership (CPTPP or TPP11) and established the EU-Japan Strategic Partnership

Agreement, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement and the EU-Japan area of

safe data flow) – and also with China: on 15 November 2020, the 10 ASEAN countries,

Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand jointly signed with China the Regional

Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and, on 30 December 2020, the EU and

China reached an agreement in principle on the Comprehensive Agreement on

Investment (CAI).

On the other hand, the Trump Administration abdicated from leading the world in a global

crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which, added to the disastrous domestic

management of the pandemic, once again called into question the position of the US in

the international order. And as if that wasn't enough, Trump accentuated divisions in US

society and politics and challenged American democracy itself, trying to stop his defeat

and the victory of Joe Biden-Kamala Harris by inventing “frauds” and encouraging the

attack on the Capitol.

The Biden Administration is seeking to reverse much of Trump's legacy and restore the

traditional foundations of American foreign policy based on the slogan “America is Back”.

Maintaining and even aggravating the competitive and confrontational tone towards

China and Russia as well (Tomé, 2021), Biden intends to «lead and sustain a stable and

open international system, underwritten by strong democratic alliances, partnerships,

multilateral institutions, and rules» (The White House, 2021: 9). In this sense, for

example, he brought the US back to the Paris Agreement and the WHO, shows himself

available to recover the “nuclear agreement” with Iran, renewed the US commitment to

NATO and the UN, extended the New START Treaty with Russia for five years, promoted

the first Summit between Heads of State and Government of the Quad, organized a

“World Summit of Leaders on Climate” (with the participation of Xi Jinping and Putin),

encouraged invitations to Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa to participate in

the G7 Summit and convened, for December 2021, a “summit for democracy” bringing

together political leaders and civil society. Biden has indeed sought to regain a certain

liberal order, but he has not removed certain Trump-era tariffs or returned the US to the

TPP or TTIP.

The issue is that neither the US nor the “West” have the power, centrality and cohesion

to determine the course of the world order. As the Biden Administration also

acknowledges, The distribution of power across the world is changing… China is the only

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competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and

technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international

system» (The White House, 2021: 7-8). So, another of its objectives, perhaps the main

one, is «To promote a favourable distribution of power» (ibid: 9). In order to maintain

supremacy and leadership in the world, the US may have to sacrifice certain premises of

the liberal order. In fact, Biden admits the reconstruction of the world order with others,

namely China, in a mixture of competition and cooperation: «We cannot and must not

return to the reflexive opposition and rigid blocs of the Cold War», adding that

we cannot focus only on the competition among countries that threaten to

divide the world, or only on global challenges that threaten to sink us all

together if we fail to cooperate. We must do both… Competition must not lock

out cooperation on issues that affect us all (Biden 2021).

For their part, US allies and partners will be more interested in cultivating a certain

“order” involving China, Russia or Iran than simply accepting all of Washington's dictates

or insisting on an “exclusively” liberal order. Hence, by inability and by choice, the “West”

affirms, above all, that «We are committed to the rules-based international order»

(NATO, 2021), which does not necessarily mean a liberal order. In fact, on top of the

deconstructed liberal world order, a new world order “based on rules” is already being

built, but with “new rules”, many of them “Chinese style”.

Final Remarks

It is justified to affirm the existence of “order” in international relations, as is justified by

referring to a “liberal international order”, but this does not necessarily mean the same

as “world order”. International order does not equate to power structure either, although

it reflects the values, interests and power of its main units. The construction of the liberal

order is associated with US hegemony and the Western worldview, but it is characterized

by a set of constitutive elements distinct from those of other international orders, based

on political and economic liberalism and inalienable human rights, and embodied in

certain rules and international institutions.

The first attempt to build a liberal order came after World War I, in order to prevent the

terrible consequences of the traditional anarchic system. However, it was quickly

deconstructed by the lack of commitment of the main democratic powers and undone by

the great anti-liberal powers. In the midst of World War II, the reconstruction of the

liberal order began, but it would come to be established only in the “Free World” and in

the broader framework of the Cold War. It was only when it ended that the liberal order

became "worldwide", which is verifiable in terms of ideas and values and also in new

waves of democratization, in the broadening and deepening of organizations that came

from the Western liberal order and in the proliferation of new multilateral institutions,

expansion of the Pax Americana, multiplication of international rules and conventions,

reinforcement of collective security and acceleration of economic “globalization”.

However, the many paradoxes and ambivalences of the globalized liberal order led to its

deconstruction. Economic hyper-globalization seemed to subvert democracy and

“legitimize” certain autocracies, while at the same time removing influence from the

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“West” and favouring the growth of China's all-encompassing national power. China and

Russia are two of the main opponents of the liberal order, which they confuse with the

“hegemonism” of the US and the “arrogance” of the West: threatening their neighbours,

exporting authoritarianism, absolutizing the principle of “non-interference in internal

affairs”, binding themselves to a limited number of international rules that in no way

harm their sovereignty, shaping existing international institutions and conventions to

their interests and creating, in parallel, new institutions and mechanisms. For its part,

whether in an attempt to make the world order more liberal or to maintain its primacy,

the US and its European allies have shown their willingness to “break the rules”, which

illustrates that there can be tension between “liberalism” and “order” and between the

liberal pillars of security, the economy and human rights. Added to this is the polarization

of the “West”, the retreat of Democracy and the impacts of the Trump Presidency. The

Biden Administration has reintroduced normality into US foreign policy, but that means

another way of trying to maintain American primacy and leadership in the international

system and not that the world order can go back to what it once was.

As always, the international order depends on what the main actors make of it.

Apparently, the liberal order is in an irreversible deconstruction, with the world order

being recreated in an intense simultaneous dynamic of competition and cooperation,

fundamentally between the US and China, but not only. What this means for sure, and

what will remain liberal in the new world order, is still too early to see.

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Allison, Graham (2017). Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucidides’s

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Aron, Raymond (1984). Paix et guerre entre les nations (8e ed). Paris: Calmann-Lévy.

Barma, Naazneen; Ratner, Ely and Weber, Steven (2007). “A World Without the West” in The

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