Description
This paper examines the causes and potential consequences of the current crisis of the Liberal International Order (LIO) through an English School conceptual framework proposed by Buzan (2004). It first analyses the normative claims made by liberal scholars and policymakers within the Western core of that LIO on the beneficial workings of liberally defined primary institutions in International Society; in particular, it examines these institutions’ expected interactions and their intended effects. These normative claims are subsequently critically assessed through an empirical mapping of these primary institutions since the end of the Cold War, and their relative grounding in the binding forces of belief, calculation, and coercion. It is argued that much of the crisis of the Liberal World Order is based on a disjuncture between liberal normative claims and empirical realities: the internally contradictory workings of these institutions, their unexpected effects in the inter-human domain, and changing material conditions have led to a weakening of the binding forces of belief and calculation (especially within the Western core), while shifts in the global distribution of power have made the upholding of the liberal order based on coercion less feasible. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the relative likelihood and consequences of a matrix of four possible future scenarios based on the survival or disintegration of the Western liberal core, and the maintenance or rejection of the cosmopolitan, universalist normativity that has characterized its approach to international society to date.
