Description
As debates over the liberal global order’s crisis intensify, scholarly attention has shifted to whether a coherent alternative is emerging. Much of the literature assumes that the erosion of Western dominance requires not only a ‘push’ away from the existing order but also a corresponding ‘pull’ toward a viable counter-order (e.g. Allan, Vučetić, and Hopf 2020). This paper challenges that assumption by examining how geopolitical orientations are produced in liminal contexts, where the ‘East’ appears less as a coherent counter-bloc than as a fragmented assemblage or simply ‘not-the-West.’ We propose that repulsion functions as an independent ordering mechanism: actors orient geopolitically not toward a coherent alternative, but away from the existing order, producing alignments without shared normative or institutional commitments. Focusing on Serbia as a paradigmatic case, the paper asks whether elites and publics are envisioning a new international order or a durable non-order sustained by repulsion. Combining survey and focus-group data with critical discourse analysis, the paper argues that anti-Western sentiment drives alignment even where alternative visions remain vague and underdeveloped. It further probes the mechanism’s scope through multilevel analysis of Eurobarometer data, suggesting that repulsion may function as a broader ordering principle during prolonged interregnum.