Liberalism in Crisis: A Collapsing World Order

The four books reviewed here all share the perspective that the liberal world order, created and maintained by American power after the Second World War, is presently under considerable strain. The institutions which support it, whether in Europe or the United States, are currently in disarray. The liberal world order is defined through its promotion of the tenets of liberal internationalism, commonly understood as the desire for global free trade, the adoption of liberal economic policies and promoting the spread of liberal democracy. Liberalism, as a mechanism of organising global politics, has, these authors argue, weakened considerably, resulting in creeping instability and geopolitical uncertainty. The ramifications of this crisis for liberalism differ depending on the author. However, comprehending why the post-war Western liberal order is eroding and offering solutions to arrest its decline are common themes shared amongst the otherwise diverse arguments and analyses presented by each author.

Sorensen’s A Liberal Order in Crisis offers the most direct and comprehensive engagement with these issues. For him, the present difficulties faced by Western powers have as much to do with tensions between differing conceptions of liberalism as with current global dynamics. Sorensen argues that post-war liberalism has oscillated between imposition and restraint, each with conflicting ideas of how international order should best be managed. After outlining the foundations of each variant of liberalism and tracing the shifts between them in the decades following the Second World War, Sorensen claims that neither imposition nor restraint provides the answer to the challenges faced by liberalism today. Liberalism today is paralysed, and the emergence of a ‘patchwork order’, in which liberalism is no longer predominant, is on the horizon (pp. 140, 166).

Bisley, in Great Powers in the Changing International Order, develops the concept of great power managerialism to examine the role that great powers played in the success of the Congress of Vienna, the failure of the League of Nations and the (partial) success of the United Nations (UN). Bisley reproduces the argument common to international relations that great powers have a key role to play in maintaining international stability. For Bisley, whose analysis only goes back as far as the early 19th century, great powers have always been Western states. Echoing Sorensen, Bisley argues that under current global circumstances, great powers, that is, the West, are no longer capable of maintaining international order (p. 86). Bisley differs from Sorensen as he argues that diverging interests, rather than a crisis within liberalism, are the root cause for the present instability (p. 146). Yet the outcome posited by Bisley, the gradual decline of the post-war liberal order, matches Sorensen’s.

Encouraging the spread of liberal democracies is one of the hallmarks of the liberal internationalism which underpinned the post-war order. The New Protectorates, edited by Mayall and de Oliveira, analyses a trend that first emerged in the 1990s of liberal states directly intervening within non-liberal states with the explicit goal of creating new liberal societies. Although a variety of different perspectives and cases are discussed, the majority opinion of the authors within this collection is that these sustained interactions were a failure. Liberalism did not take root in any meaningful way in the countries that were subjected to these attempts at social engineering. The period analysed, from the 1990s up until the last major intervention in Afghanistan, chronicles the rise of a far more assertive form of liberalism with the end of the Cold War. The analysis presented provides a useful contrast to the arguments made by Sorensen and Bisley, demonstrating how liberalism operated in the period prior to its current malaise. If liberalism at the height of its powers was unable to successfully extend itself, then the prospects for the spread of liberalism in the present are not good.

While Sorensen and Bisley see a liberal world order in decline and the edited collection by Mayall and de Oliveira is largely a retrospective on liberalism in better times, The Sovereignty Solution by Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco argues that a liberal world order under the aegis of the United States still has a future, provided that the United States is willing to act in a decisive and highly aggressive manner. What is proposed here is a hard offensive realist argument. Echoing the doctrine of the Bush years, Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco argue that the United States must have no qualms about utilising its full range of forces (p. 51), and should seek to make examples of other states which defy its directives (p. 55). Effectively, they argue that illiberal methods must be employed in order to defend liberalism.

The books reviewed here, then, seek to grapple with the present global uncertainty, sparked by the weakness of the liberal world order, in different ways. While the authors all point to distinctive factors and offer conflicting solutions to the dilemmas facing the current global order, they all agree that its present configuration, a Western-dominated one founded upon liberal principles, is encountering considerable strain, with its future in doubt. Bisley and Sorensen both directly confront the issue of order maintenance and dissolution and present sweeping theoretical arguments, while Mayall and de Oliveira, and Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco, deal with particular facets of the current liberal international order. As the discussions in Mayall and de Oliveira, and Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco are largely a reaction to the issues more fully elaborated upon in Bisley and Sorensen, the analysis presented by Bisley and Sorensen will be explored first.

Bisley and Sorensen agree that the present world order is no longer sustainable and that a change in the current configuration of power is inevitable. How each author comprehends world order and the factors which they point to as undermining our contemporary one are different, however. For Sorensen, it is an internal crisis of liberalism which is the cause, while for Bisley it is the impact of globalisation. Sorensen presents a somewhat cursory analysis of liberalism, arguing that, in terms of international politics, liberalism can be understood in terms of either imposition or restraint (pp. 1–2, 43). These different perspectives of liberal world order are mapped onto different conceptions of liberty, with a liberal order of imposition being based upon the idea that liberal values are universally applicable and a liberalism of restraint adopting a pluralist outlook, with the respect of different values as central to liberty and hence liberalism. It is the oscillation between these different conceptions of liberty which, for Sorensen, is the central tension within liberalism (p. 28), and hence for understanding global order. Sorensen argues that the classic security dilemma, understood as a balance-of-power competition, is largely no longer applicable (p. 15). Instead, weak and failed states, and their potential for sowing disorder, are the major security dilemma which now faces liberal democracies (p. 91). Yet liberal states are unable to overcome the challenge posed by weak and failed states, because the two forms of liberalism available, imposition and restraint, are no longer effective. Adopting restraint means accepting the present order, which is untenable, while a strategy of imposition will be received as imperialism (p. 67). Thus the liberal world order is plagued by paralysis (pp. 86–7).

Central to the argument presented by Sorensen is that the promotion of liberty internationally is the primary concern for liberal states. This argument is based upon the classic democratic peace argument, which holds that the promotion of liberty internationally and the formation of new democratic states result in a more stable world order. While this position recognises that geopolitical concerns exist, they are not viewed as the driving factor for international order. However, it is difficult to posit that two of the most recent and extensive attempts to supposedly promote liberty, in Afghanistan and Iraq, were not primarily driven by geopolitical calculations rather than a higher sense of moral purpose. Indeed, the willingness by liberal states to abandon most major pretences of democracy in both countries in favour of establishing compliant regimes demonstrates that the promotion of freedom and individual rights was never of primary concern.

The drive for intervention within weak states today is undermined by Western states’ imperial past. Yet Sorensen argues that modern interventions hold little in common with past imperial ones (p. 103). The positive view taken by Sorensen towards top-down external social engineering, with calls to discipline the elites of weak states and forcibly reshape their interests (p. 113), derives, in large part I believe, from the author’s understanding of decolonisation struggles. In his view, it was not the domestic struggles of the populations which resulted in decolonisation, but rather the creation of a new norm of independence (pp. 93, 96, 99). This norm did not arise from upheaval in the colonies, but was somehow created by Western states themselves after the Second World War. Thus, in one swoop, the subjectivity of colonised peoples is removed, and the West is again placed as the sole bearer of world history. It is the frustration expressed throughout A Liberal Order in Crisis, concerning the inability of the West to fully shape the destinies of decolonised states, which leads to the conclusion that liberalism, as a basis for underpinning world order, is impotent (p. 140). Given the inability of the West to exert the same amount of influence in the regions it once dominated, the slide towards a patchwork order, in which an international order configured upon liberal principles is just one amongst several competing orders, is what the future holds (p. 166).

Bisley reaches a similar conclusion, but points to a different set of factors as responsible for destabilising world order. For Bisley, the idea that great powers have the ability to structure world order, referred to as great power unilateralism, is an outdated concept, better suited to 19th-century European politics than contemporary global politics. How international relations are presently comprehended is largely based upon the experience of 18th- and 19th-century European statecraft. The practices of states in this period have, incorrectly, been deemed to be universal (p. 24). Rather than the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, commonly referred to as the formative moment for the international state system, Bisley places priority upon the 1815 Congress of Vienna. It was here that the concept of great powers, and the responsibilities and duties which they accrued as a result of their position, were first elaborated (pp. 31–2). In return for exercising their power in a responsible manner by accepting the territorial shape of the present order and agreeing to work together to maintain the general structure of the current international system, great powers were granted a range of benefits. Honour and prestige were bestowed upon them as they were recognised as members of an elite group whose actions determined the structure of the entire international system. The equal treatment norm, through which all states were recognised as being formally equal, was suspended for great powers.

The embracing of, or failure to accept, great power managerialism forms the basis for Bisley’s case studies of the League of Nations and the UN. Each institution is deemed to have failed to live up to its potential. While recognising the important role that great powers played, the League, influenced by liberal idealism, refused to grant them any special privileges within its institutional framework. Placing equal treatment as one of the founding principles of the League, by requiring unanimity from all its members for any action to be taken, fatally weakened it (p. 55). If the League failed for refusing to recognise the special role that great powers played in maintaining international order, the UN erred by moving too far in the other direction, enshrining the status of great powers at the heart of the organisation with the Security Council. The veto power that was granted to the permanent members of the Security Council was done so on the basis that they would work together collectively to regulate the international order, as the Congress of Vienna had done (p. 73). The Cold War, however, quickly put an end to any sense of unanimity amongst the Security Council members. Yet even if the Security Council had functioned as intended, it is doubtful that the UN would have been as successful as its founders had hoped. This is because, by attempting to correct the errors of the League of Nations through drawing inspiration from the Congress of Vienna, the UN sought to replicate 19th-century great power politics in the 20th century (p. 83). The post-Second-World-War world, however, was a very different place from 19th-century Europe. Practising a form of politics that was prevalent more than a century ago would therefore result in diminishing returns.

The analysis of the League and the UN conducted by Bisley is certainly not a unique one, but the crux of its argument lies in the assertion that great power managerialism, the concept developed in the first half of the book, and which has informed world politics for two centuries, is no longer effective. The conditions of geopolitical flux and the multiplying crises which confront contemporary states today make world politics effectively unmanageable (p. 86). The culprit is globalisation. The spread of a complex network of transnational linkages renders great powers increasingly anachronistic (p. 93). In contrast, then, to the position advanced in A Liberal Order in Crisis, where the ideological weakness of liberalism was offered as the reason for the instability of global politics, Great Powers in the Changing International Order points to more structural factors, of which norms and ideology are a part (p. 88), but by no means the determining factor.

The most problematic portion of Bisley’s argument occurs in his discussion of America’s role as a great power. Bisley’s declaration that the United States should not be considered an empire (p. 128) is likely to appear jarring to many – especially when the blatant imperialism of the Bush years is still fresh in the memory, Afghanistan continues to be occupied by American forces, and drone strikes occur with regularity around the world. In trying to define American power as embodying the role of great power managerialism, Bisley is at pains to differentiate great power managerialism from hegemony. However, in doing so, he actually succeeds in conflating great power managerialism with the practice of a hegemon. Bisley argues that because the United States is not entirely predominant and does not get its way all of the time, it cannot possibly be a hegemon (p. 130). Yet a hegemon does not seek to fulfil all of its policy objectives, but rather to structure the world based upon its principles. If the creation of a post-war system of global governance, the replication of American-style institutions and laws around the world, the dollar serving as a global reserve currency, and hundreds of military bases across the globe do not qualify the United States as a hegemon, then what does? Further, Bisley’s assertion that the United States often sacrificed its own national interests for the greater good of the international order, thus fulfilling its role as a great power, is exactly what a hegemon is supposed to do (p. 132).

Regardless of the conflation of terminology that Bisley employs, he presents a detailed analysis of why an international order based upon the principles of 19th-century European statecraft is no longer viable. This, combined with the unwillingness of emerging powers to shoulder some of the burden of global governance (p. 163), leads to the conclusion that the world will become an increasingly unstable place as solutions to a range of persistent problems are not found. Bisley therefore echoes Sorensen, with both finding the prospects for a cohesive world order increasingly poor.

While the present liberal world order may be under severe stress, The New Protectorates, an edited collection by Mayall and de Oliveira, examines a particular phenomenon of liberal world-order-building that occurred in earnest at the end of the Cold War, when the West still believed that it could reshape the world in its image. Central to this process was the establishment of a number of protectorates, territories which came under direct tutelage by multilateral, but primarily Western, powers, with the goal of transforming the society in question into a liberal-democratic one (p. 1). The collection of articles presented here explores a range of Western-led interventions in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and non-Western responses to these interventions, particularly of China and India. Mayall and de Oliveira’s aim is to grasp the strategic aspects of international governance and liberal state-building in the immediate post-Cold War period (p. 3). Oddly enough, despite in large part defining Western interactions with the world, no grand strategy concerning intervention and the establishment and governance of protectorates ever existed. It was instead an entirely ad hoc response to drastically altered geopolitical conditions in the 1990s (pp. 5, 9, 11). The majority of the chapters in The New Protectorates are highly critical, viewing the establishment of these new protectorates as part of a new neo-imperial project (p. 36). Yet some articles are programmatic, supporting the idea of peace-building but critiquing various aspects of its approach. The chapters in the first half of The New Protectorates are concerned with either performing a historical analysis, relating current interventions to those of the classical period of European imperialism in the 19th century or examining the background behind a particular state’s policy towards intervention. The second half focuses upon the actual governing of these protectorates, with the peace-building architecture of the UN, the establishment of police forces and the relationship between civil and military functions being only some of the areas that come under review.

Despite the different foci and perspectives presented, all the authors in The New Protectorates agree on the complexity and difficulty of governing these new spaces. Malleable and untested forms of governance were put into place that were often unresponsive to local conditions and exacerbated, rather than reduced, conflict. Although a range of case studies are examined, in Western Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, it is difficult to point to any unqualified successes. The reasons for these failures are multifaceted. Often, as Berdal and Keen point out in their chapter, the understanding of the local conflict by the intervening actors is superficial, with a failure to grasp the economic dynamics that underlie the violence present (p. 237). This contrasts with the experience of the post-war reconstruction of Germany and Japan, where planning occurred years in advance and an intensive survey of all aspects of both societies was undertaken (p. 242). While the memory of these reconstructions served as the foundation for the belief that their success could be replicated in other conditions, these were unique scenarios. The intensity of outside involvement, recent experiences with democracy and broadly shared cultural values separate these examples from contemporary interventions.

The New Protectorates presents as complete a survey as a single volume can do on this vast area of study. While it examines historical as well as ongoing humanitarian interventions, it in a sense serves as a prerequisite to the discussions which occur in Great Powers in a Changing International Order and A Liberal Order in Crisis. If liberalism at the height of its powers, when it was largely unchallenged in either an ideological or a material sense, was unable to formulate a coherent international agenda to advance its principles, then the prospect of it doing so in far more uncertain circumstances does not inspire one with confidence. While all three volumes discussed above bemoan the failures of contemporary liberalism, only Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco in The Sovereignty Solution offer a proposal to rectify these issues, although their prescriptions, if acted upon, would result in a drastically altered international landscape.

Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco, all members of the American Naval Postgraduate School, offer a hard offensive realist argument for dealing with the security challenges presently facing the United States. Written as a series of policy prescriptions, they propose a redefining of American foreign policy. In their view, security must be first depoliticised (p. 33). When an attack upon American interests has occurred, the response must be unequivocal; it will not be tolerated. The solution proposed is one that returns the concept of sovereignty to its foundations. Governments are responsible for everything which occurs within their borders. If an attack occurs upon the United States, the country from which that attack was launched has voided its own sovereignty in the eyes of the United States. A range of responses can then ensue, depending on how cooperative the state in question is to American demands (pp. 48–51). If the country agrees to destroy the terrorist organisation, then the United States will offer as much assistance as is required. If the country refuses to accede to American wishes, it is made an example of by being pummelled into submission (p. 51). This includes the targeting of non-combatant communities if they harbour those who wish to do the United States harm (p. 71).

The question of war crimes aside, what is offered by Simons, McGraw and Lauchengco is a far more muscular and aggressive American militarism. Yet this is coupled with a new variant of American isolationism, as calls are made for the United States to cut all foreign aid (p. 81). Also proposed is the development of ‘ethnographic sensors’, which seems to amount to more spying internally within the United States (p. 34) and abroad through American embassies (p. 102), although the actual content of these sensors and how they would function are left unexplained. In its strident calls for the use of American power to crush those who have harmed its interests and the belief that it is possible to contain non-state actors within a narrow framework of interests (p. 56), The Sovereignty Solution is out of sync with the other three volumes considered here, and indeed with much of the literature on international relations presently being produced. While it seeks to offer a set of policies for decision-makers to follow, it strangely lacks any budgetary proposals for putting them into practice. Further, the alienating impact of following the recommendations offered, with the United States embracing a unilateral stance on security issues, and the subsequent effect of this upon its allies remain unconsidered. Finally, the widespread censure that would greet the United States should it pursue these policies, with the violation of international law and norms that would result, is not examined. What is left, then, is a rather distorted analysis of the present state of international affairs that greatly overstates the strength of American power by arguing that it can single-handedly respond to all the challenges which face it.

All the volumes reviewed here share the perspective that the world is entering a period of uncertainty. The ability of certain states to impinge upon the international environment will be curtailed, while that of other states will grow. The liberal order which has been predominant since the end of the Second World War in its present form is finished, but the contours of an emerging world order remain unclear. Perhaps wisely, none of the volumes reviewed here offer any substantial predictions for what a reconfigured global order will look like. A Liberal Order in Crisis: Great Powers in the Changing International Order and The New Protectorates, despite some faults, all offer valuable contributions to the growing literature on a degenerated liberal world order and the reasons behind the transformations presently occurring in international politics. Although not explicitly framed as such, each volume could sit comfortably within the burgeoning literature which is presently emerging around the reformation of a multipolar world order. The Sovereignty Solution, however, seeks to extend and retain the unipolar moment which the United States has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War. In doing so, it offers a particular set of policy responses to new geopolitical developments that this author hopes are not followed, as they would result in a greatly destabilised and more dangerous world.