Policy Essay | Liberal International Order Project | 2017 | No.17 What is the Liberal International Order? By Hans Kundnani In the last five years or so, U.S. and European foreign policy think tanks have become increasingly preoccupied with threats to the set of norms, rules, and institutions known as the liberal international order, especially from “revisionist” rising powers and above all authoritarian powers like China and Russia. But even more recently it has also become increasingly apparent that support for the liberal international order Although Western analysts and policymakers in Europe and the United States is declining as well. often to refer to the “liberal international order,” the This has become particularly clear since the British phrase is far from self-explanatory. In particular, it is vote to the leave the European Union last June and the not obvious in what sense the liberal international U.S. presidential election last November — not least order is “liberal.” The lack of precision about what is because the United Kingdom and the United States meant by the liberal international order is a problem are two of the countries historically most associated with liberalism and were generally thought to be most because it obscures the complexities of the concept committed to it. and inhibits self-criticism by Western policymakers, especially Atlanticists and “pro-Europeans” who seek However, although the phrase “liberal international to defend the liberal international order. order” is widely used, it is far from self-explanatory. The liberal international order has evolved Theorists of the liberal international order understand since its creation after World War II and has different it as an “open and rule-based international order” that is “enshrined in institutions such as the United elements — some of which are in tension with each Nations and norms such as multilateralism.”1 But this other. It is also perceived quite differently outside still leaves big questions unanswered (in what sense the geographic West than within it. Western analysts it is “open” and what are the “rules”?) that tend to be and policymakers need not just to defend the liberal glossed over. One particular ambiguity is around the international order but also to think about how to sense that the liberal international order is “liberal.” reform it — and perhaps even reverse elements of the Does this refer to political liberalism (in opposition evolution of it since the end of the Cold War — in order to authoritarianism)? Or economic liberalism (in to save it. opposition to economic nationalism or mercantilism)? Or liberalism in the sense that international relations theorists use it (in opposition to realism and other theories of international relations)? 1 G. John Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order.” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2011, pp. 56-68, here p. 56. Policy Essay The easy answer is that it refers to all three — because how to reform it — and perhaps even reverse some they go hand in hand. But the relationship between elements of the evolution of it since the end of the the three senses of liberalism is not as straightforward Cold War — in order to save it.4 as this implies. Though the history of each of these strands of liberalism is closely related, and they may have gone together seamlessly in the minds of thinkers Evolution of Liberal International Order in Victorian Britain, it is not clear that it is always and everywhere the case — as recent debates about As John Ikenberry has shown, the current international authoritarian capitalism and the “Beijing Consensus” order is actually a kind of fusion of two distinct order- illustrate.2 Moreover, there may also be tensions building projects: firstly the modern state system, a between the three senses of liberalism. For example, project dating back to the Peace of Westphalia in Dani Rodrik argues that “hyperglobalization” is 1648; and secondly the liberal order, which over the undermining democracy — in other words, that the last two centuries was led by the United Kingdom and particular form of economic liberalism the West has the United States and which in the twentieth century pursued and promoted was aided by the “liberal ascendancy” — that is, rise during the last thirty years There was of liberal democratic states.5 The Westphalian order or so is undermining no document was based on the concept of the sovereignty of states. political liberalism.3 “ that laid out The “liberal vision” of Western democracies, on the the basis for other hand, included “open markets, international This essay explores the institutions, cooperative security democratic tensions within the concept a specifically community, progressive change, collective problem of the liberal international liberal solving, shared sovereignty, [and] the rule of law.”6 order. It argues that the international lack of precision about order that In other words, what we think of as the “liberalism” what is meant by the was agreed of the current international system is based on an liberal international order by all the older foundation of “order” — what might be called is a problem because it a “realist” rather than a “liberal” international order. obscures the tensions world’s The post-World War II liberal international order within the concept and powers.” did not simply replace the previous order but rather inhibits self-criticism by developed on top of it. Thus, Ikenberry suggests, Western policymakers, especially Atlanticists and the liberal international order can be thought of in “pro-Europeans,” who as a result tend to become terms of a geological metaphor of layers or “strata”: uncritical defenders of the status quo. The liberal the Westphalian system is a kind of “bedrock” on international order has evolved since its creation after top of which various forms of order have developed World War II and has different elements. Western that have become gradually more liberal over time.7 analysts and policymakers need not just to defend Moreover, within the liberal international order there the liberal international order but also to think about is a tension between “liberalism” and “order,” which can be seen most clearly by examining the evolution of the liberal international order since the end of World War II. 2 The phrase “Beijing Consensus” was originally used by Joshua Cooper Ramo in a report published in 2004. See Joshua Cooper Ramo, “The Beijing Consensus, Foreign 4 For a similar argument about the need to reform the liberal international order in to Policy Centre,” May 2004. See also Stefan Halper, The Beijing Consensus: How China’s save it, see Jeff D. Colgan and Robert E. Keohane, “The liberal order is rigged.” Foreign Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-first Century. New York: Basic Book, Affairs, May/June 2017. 2012. Halper writes that states outside the West are “learning to combine market 5 G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the economics with traditional autocratic or semiautocratic politics in a process that American World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011, here p. 1. signals an intellectual rejection of the Western economic model.” 6 Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, p. 2. 3 See Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. New York: Norton, 2011. 7 Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, p. xii. G|M|F April 2017 2 Policy Essay Western analysts These institutions: they aspired to be global but were sometimes see the documents dominated by Western powers and to some extent Atlantic Charter — a “ reflected Western economic interests. joint declaration between based on President Franklin D. liberal After the end of the Cold War, the liberal international Roosevelt and Prime principles order evolved further. In some respects, it is Western Minister Winston were signed democracies rather than authoritarian, non-Western, Churchill signed in August only by or rising powers that have been the “revisionist” 1941 — as the founding Western powers during this period. In particular, they drove document of the liberal the creation of the International Criminal Court international order.8 The powers.” (ICC) (though the United States has not joined it) and principles set out in the developed the ideas of a “responsibility to protect” charter included peace and security (including the (R2P), which was adopted by the United Nations in right to self-defense and the preservation of the 2005, and of “humanitarian intervention.”10 These territorial status quo), self-governance (self-rule, innovations have qualified the sovereignty of states in open societies, the rule of law), economic prosperity important and controversial ways. If state sovereignty (economic advancement, improved labor standards, is an essential element of the liberal international social welfare), and free trade and the preservation of order (and some would argue that it is its essence), the global commons. The Atlantic Charter drew on sovereigntist powers such as China and Russia have the “four freedoms” — freedom of speech, freedom a point when they argue that it is they rather than of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from Western powers that are defending the principles fear — that Roosevelt had outlined in his State of the of the liberal international order — albeit the 1945 Union Address earlier in 1941.9 It in turn informed version of it. 11 the U.S. commitment to the postwar recovery and security of Europe through the Marshall Plan and the Seen against the background of this evolution, current North Atlantic Treaty. arguments between the West and authoritarian powers such as China and Russia are not so much However, these documents based on liberal principles about the liberal international order itself but about were signed only by Western powers. There was no different versions of it and in particular about the way document that laid out the basis for a specifically Western powers have sought to change it since the end liberal international order that was agreed by all the of the Cold War.