Failure of the Liberal World Order

The inception of the liberal international order, a policy or system under the auspices of Western nations following World War II, decisively marked the beginning of an order that has largely overseen global affairs for the last 70 years. Based on values of democracy, free trade, and a rules-based system monitored by multilateral organizations, the purpose of this world order was to avoid another cataclysmic world war between nations, which was thought to be preventable by spreading liberal values and economic interdependence—or so it was propagated. In the meantime, the last few years have signaled that the liberal international order may face sizable challenges, leading to the question of its durability and sustainability. Populist parties in different Western nations and regionalist movements have brought about a crisis of liberal democracy, while powers in the East are eating away at the hegemony that the U.S. has sustained. Scholars such as John J. Mearsheimer claim that from its foundation, the liberal order has been a perfect example of hypocrisy—as it was designed on noble ideas of liberty and justice but faced the never-ending conflict of understanding liberal values in a nation-state context. Aside from that, different alternatives exist in environments such as the Islamic world and a coalition of Eastern nations like Russia, China, and India since the conditions are ideal for the diversity of opinions, which adds to more complicated means of thinking about global governance in terms of a universal approach. Comprising a multidimensional research essay, this work analyzes several factors that underpin the phenomenon of the liberal international order's deterioration, including political philosophy, International Relations theory, domestic politics, and the rising power balance. This essay argues that the liberal international order is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable due to its hypocrisy, conflictual foundations, and the rise of multipolar power dynamics that render its Western-centric ideals obsolete. Drawing on political philosophy, international relations theory, domestic politics, and shifting global power balances, it spotlights the liberal order's deterioration and makes a case for why new paradigms are needed to address an increasingly complex world.

An “international order” supposes a specific design of the governance system with all its regulations, rules, and Norms, that define the relations between states in the global system. As John J. Mearsheimer explains, “The kinds of international orders that lead to liberal orders arise only rarely and come about primarily when one state becomes much more powerful than any potential rival” (8). Liberal international order came into existence as a post WW II result of the collective endeavors and successful efforts of the United States and its western allies who were in vanguard at the world stage. The formulation of the liberal order by G. John Ikenberry is four-in-one consisting of “security, economic, and human rights orders” to prevent the war from recurring through “openness, rules and multilateralism” (Ethics and International Affairs). This grand strategy had three ambitions. The first one was to install liberal democratic values and profit from interdependence as forces of stabilizing peace. This idea was in contrast with traditional nationalist orders which caused both world wars. Black Antony underlines how this conflict could only happen in the West's exceptionalism because it was different from “Islamic views of international order” based on the universalism of the ummah (worldwide Muslim community) and international struggle. Black Antony makes a distinction here between the Islamic and Western conceptions of the order as he notes the Islamic worldview as a universal one not bound to any racial considerations but not beyond the two parallel factors: (1) the liberal world order master planning of democracy and (2) hyper-globalization led to a speedy backlash at the national level in some developed countries on account of the facts like : (a) job losses, (b) wage decline and (c) high inequality (Mearsheimer 18). Simultaneously, strong flexibility is tied up with such new BRICS countries as a plurality of interests and social concepts that becomes one of the main concerns for Western hegemonic dominance and a proposal of “Southern World Order” (Schirm 56).

The aftermath of World War II marking the rise of liberal democracy, includes the collective effort of the United States and its allied Western nations to construct and maintain a new liberal international order the sole purpose of which is to prevent global catastrophic conflicts. As the predominant world power, the United States had those means at hand “when one state becomes much more powerful than any potential rival” (Mearsheimer 8) that were required to determine how the new order should be like. The liberal democracies endeavored to instill values of multilateralism that promotes “openness, rules and multilateralism” through organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank and eventually WTO (Ikenberry, Ethics and International Affairs). Favorable capitalist economic relations, free trade, and connected markets were promoted as a deterrent to any country breaching the peace as “economic interdependence” would be among the nations. This was the foundation of the security order cemented through alliances like NATO who contained the perceived threats like the Soviet Union to the sphere of Western liberal democracies. According to Ikenberry, “The idea of the liberal international order is quite amorphous and there are multiple meanings depending on the field” (The End of Liberal Order? 8). The complex system, despite “being the weak from the beginning”, has secured for the United States and its allies a conduct “in the atmosphere of Cold War”, as the prevailing trends were in accordance with their national interests and ideological values in the early Cold War era (Mearsheimer 7).

The liberal international order's universalist aspirations were fundamentally undermined by its inability to reconcile fundamentally different worldviews and normative frameworks, especially the Islamic conception of global affairs. As Antony Black elucidates, Islamic traditions offer a distinct “Islamic View of International Order” rooted in the principles of the ummah - the supranational community of Muslims - as well as doctrines like jihad (struggle) that created an inherent “tension between Islamic Universalism and Particularism” (129). This clashed directly with the Western liberal order's model of a world comprised of sovereign nation-states. The U.S. failures in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, where forces faced protracted insurgencies rather than rapid democratization, exposed the shortcomings of attempting to universally impose a liberal democratic system. The idea that 'liberalism' can be 'imposed' is itself contradictory, as liberalism is fundamentally about individual freedoms and rights that cannot be forced upon a populace. As John Dunn argues in his book Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future, “To impose liberalism is a contradiction in terms, since its constitutive ideals of individual rights and self-direction resist being imposed upon those who do not already embrace them” (92). Attempting to universally enforce liberal values undermines the very essence of liberalism as a philosophy valuing personal autonomy and consent of the governed. Moreover, Mearsheimer argues against the arrogance of the privileged in seeking to spread “the liberal order's orientation towards an influential role of international institutions” backfired disastrously (8). The ensuing quagmires not only depleted American hard power capabilities, but symbolized a loss of credibility that heavily tarnished the perceived legitimacy of the liberal order's rhetoric of exporting its values through force.

The stunning Russian defiance of the U.S.-led system in Ukraine has emerged as perhaps the most overt ideological and geopolitical challenge to the prevailing liberal order. Schirm contends the invasion has “shone new light on the conflict between” the liberal democratic political West and the “Southern World Order” conception espoused by revisionists like the BRICS countries (56). Russia overtly rejected liberal order principles like the inviolability of national sovereignty and territorial integrity - norms enshrined in institutions like the U.N. Ukraine represented a pivotal front in the battle between the liberal democratic vision seeking to absorb the former Soviet republic, versus the BRICS coalition aiming to establish an alternative pole to counterbalance Western dominance. The war's protraction reflects the systemic crisis facing the U.S. liberal hegemony, as traditional engines of economic and military superiority have proven insufficient to swiftly resolve the conflict on its preferred terms. As Ikenberry ponders, the increasing “strains” of such geopolitical ruptures may render the liberal order's rules-based framework simply “amorphous” and ineffectual in a multipolar world sacrificing its very “meanings” and core precepts (The End of Liberal Order? 8). For the Western nations still clinging to the fading liberal hegemon, its unraveling portends deeper structural shocks and uncertainties in their global leadership and security postures.

Another defiant actor under the liberal order is the case of resilient Hamas party in Palestine, in which the failure of West to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict showed its immense weakness in contemporary period. As argued by Noura Erakat in her book Justice for Some: Law and Question of Palestine, “the liberal order of borders and sovereignty mostly maintained the Enlightenment rationalism and the capitalist relations of subjugation” (5). Numerous examples come to mind with regard to the daily encroachment on Palestinian life, where natural aspiration for liberty and sovereignty is perceived with the occupation in mind. Therefore, the contradiction between human rights, freedom, and self-governance on one side, and its selective application on the other, cannot be avoided. Erakat puts forward the claim that the international organizations such as the UN and international laws which are basically the official rules and standards made by various countries, have failed to bring justice. In addition, they have not been successful in the task of preventing Israel from continuing its severe subjugation of the Palestinians. This exposing the fact how soft power of the liberal order's supposed rules-based framework is becoming ineffective in resolving the interests of strong Western states. Impediment for an equitable settlement circled the doubts of the Palestinians along with the Global South about the Liberal order which imagined of itself as all-inclusive.

Whilst the liberal international order is indeed full of problems, the scholars bringing up the idea of endurance remind that the very basic principles the order was build on are the ones that will enable it to hold its ground and evolve. Ikenberry himself is the strongest supporter for eventually requirements of the removal of the liberal world order, but he says that the order is sturdy enough to gradually come to terms with the upcoming powers and integrate them into the current system. He underscores the centrality of these values as the fundamental principles underpinning the liberal order stating that democracy, open-mindedness, rules, and multilateralism still hold the sway over nations both the advancing and the developed ones. Michael Doyle in his book The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect, highlights how the liberal order's emphasis on human rights and humanitarian intervention, despite its flaws, has become an entrenched norm: “The international community has built up a normative edifice over the past sixty years that makes the claim that human rights matter and that grave violations of human rights matter greatly to international order...This institutionalized moral agenda was constructed in significant part by liberal states invoking liberal principles.” (Doyle 92) He argues that while the application has been inconsistent, the liberal order has progressively codified humanitarian values like the “responsibility to protect” in institutions like the UN. This normative framework provides a basis to evolve the liberal order, rather than entirely discarding it. So, despite the liberal order's hypocrisy and challenges from rising powers, its underlying liberal values of human rights, democracy and multilateralism still maintain influence that can shape its future trajectory.

Ikenberry indicates that standing in the way of some emerging states settling down with the existing order because of their urge for control or unfair transition from unipolar to multipolar world is enormously underrated. Such modus operandi is illustrated by the 'concert of powers' approach where giants like China and Russia become 'integrated' members of the liberal economic system of the world and transnationally-driven norms based on International Law, not by destruction of the entire system - as seen by (“Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive”). As manifestations of shifts in power relationships emerge, the sources evince that the liberal order is capable of shaping itself in a manner to suit the changing times in form of the SWO and the LIO, they are not the mutually incompatible binaries (Schirm 56). This confirms that there are several loopholes to the strictly unfavorable view of the collapse of the order as a whole. In everything that there seem to be strains, conditions that exist, countermeasures are rounded up and then it gets reformed to become more liberally worded - probably through being polished and became more sparkling (“Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive”). The titanic efforts made by the liberal order to avert great power conflict and engender interconnected markets may seem to the revisionist forces too trenched in to be callously tossed away. But the crucial argument of this research is that liberal international order, which has long run the global world since the mid-20th century, is now facing the synergy of challenges across the political, economic and security domains that in the long term threaten to destabilize this world order and even may cause its collapse. Among various contingencies, while Ikenberry assumes evolutionary change primarily whereas Mearsheimer argues of a sort of apocalypse, they concur in the basic contradictions that cannot be just ignored or used as mere bungling.

As the cracks in the liberal international order become increasingly apparent, various actors are promoting alternative visions that could fill the void left by its potential demise. One of the most coherent challenges comes from the BRICS coalition of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. As Schirm describes, these rising powers have cultivated “a plurality of interests and social ideas” that directly contrast with Western liberal democratic principles, embodied in their push for a “Southern World Order” (56). This framework would likely decenter the U.S. and its allies, redistributing authority and legitimacy to major non-Western nation-states while rejecting perceived liberal universalism. A BRICS-led “Southern World Order” would mark a seismic shift away from the Western-dominated liberal international system. Such an alternative paradigm, as described by Pádraig Carmody in “The Rise of the BRICS and the New Scramble for Africa” (Brown Journal of World Affairs, vol. 19, no. 2, 2013), would decenter the U.S. and its allies as the primary drivers of global governance, diluting their ability to act as unipolar arbiters. It would emphasize the primacy of national sovereignty and non-interference over liberal interventionism. Development would be re-conceptualized through a plurality of pathways beyond Western neoliberal capitalism. Most significantly, it redistributes economic and political power to the rising non-Western BRICS nations, aiming to reform institutions to increase the voice of developing countries in defining international norms and rules. In essence, rather than promoting liberal democratic values as universal, a Southern World Order would reflect a more multipolar balance respecting state autonomy and self-determined development models outside the U.S.-led liberal framework.

Another longstanding counterweight stems from the Islamic world, whose traditional principles offer “Islamic Views of International Order” rooted in very different philosophical groundings (Black 129). Traditional Islamic conceptions of political legitimacy and authority pose a significant ideological challenge to the liberal international order. As Asma Afsaruddin explains in Contemporary Issues in Islam, “The idea of the Qur'anic ummah, or transnational community of believers, stands in tension with the modern state-centric international system based on territorial sovereignty.” (Afsaruddin 124) This notion of the ummah transcending national boundaries directly contradicts the Westphalian principles of absolute state sovereignty that underpin the liberal world order. Afsaruddin further notes that “In the Islamic tradition, ultimate authority is vested in the revealed text and prophetic model, not in the expressed will of the people.” (127) This view of divine rather than popular sovereignty fundamentally clashes with liberal democratic ideals of self-governance through elected representation. Such Islamic political theory “poses an alternative to the widely accepted contemporary model of the nation-state.”(129) Visions of a unified Muslim ummah bound by Sharia law present a coherent civilizational challenge to the secular, pluralistic rules-based international system promoted by Western liberal powers after WWII.

As these alternatives from the BRICS and Islamic worlds indicate, many powerful nations and civilizations simply do not ascribe to core tenets of liberal internationalism. This growing diffusion of power and norms away from the U.S.-led Western hierarchy animates major structural stresses. Whether existing paradigms can flexibly adapt and integrate these forces, or entirely new systems will emerge remains to be seen. But the mounting demand for legitimate alternatives to liberal hegemony appears clear.

The liberal order's idea of ideological means of democracy and universal values has re-awoken the contrary stances from the West's populists whose basis for their national relevance is asserted against the idea and advocates for a civilizational tradition like the “Islamic Views” of the ummah concept (Black 129). Such economical hyperglobalist model of the West led to unending problems that rooted the supporters to ensure economical fairness, which is essential for the development of democracy globally (Mearsheimer 18). And those attitudes are the most dangerous of them all. They are the idiosyncrasies of the USA and once the WWII ended, hegemony after war was immediately showed, which was more accepted by these developing countries that are looking for an alternative to the “Southern World Order” for faster development (Schirm 56). Be it advancement in the framework of a comprehensive reform or the designing of an entirely new and paradigm government; the results of research categorically indicate that present liberal international architecture slowly becomes unequipped to govern rise of multipolarity. Analyzing the vast range of the agent factors behind this transformation became an important exercise to political analysts and policymakers in order to create a sustainable international system that could be useful in the third millennium.

To conclude, the data and the evidence given by the various sources validates the assumptions that the liberal international order is on the brink of dissolution. Though opinions differ on whether it will evolve and persist or eventually collapse, all authors recognize fundamental conflicts to have manifested between the order's liberal democratic values and its governing institutions on the one side, and the facts of resurgence of nationalism, of non-Western power centers, and of shifting configurations of global power on the other side.

In his analysis, Mearsheimer poses the most dystopian assertion – that the contending values and tensions between the state sovereignty and the liberal ideals which were “weak right from the beginning and cruelly must fail” are to be blamed for the liberal order's downfall (7, 18). On the other hand, even a bit cooler voices like Ikenberry will admit that the present system is a crisis that needs to be repaired dramatically and, feeling sympathetically towards the liberal international order, he says that this system will probably survive, but with smaller features. From the Islamic world to the order advocated by BRICS countries, these paradigms are directly opposed to the U.S. initiated one, constituting challenges that it was not able to successfully deal with (Black 129, Schirm 56).

Whether it is through cultural evolution or sudden change, the issue of devising a “green” model of integrated governance for the new pluralistic global order is now one among the top key strategic challenges of the 21st century. The aspiration to, if not harmonize, at least balance the legitimate philosophical values with those dictated by the multipolar world that we inhabit, may prove a generational tea party akin to the task of building the liberal international order from the ashes of the World War II. The magnitude and the backdrop of this essential enterprise echoes at the internationally recognized the highest levels of political decision makers to the national political issues interaction of all societies.

Works Cited

Afsaruddin, Asma. Contemporary Issues in Islam, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Link

Dunn, J. Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future. Cambridge University Press, 1979. ResearchGate PDF

Doyle, Michael W. The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect. Yale University Press, 2015. JSTOR

Mearsheimer, John J. “Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order.” MIT Press, 2019. Read Online

Schirm, Stefan A. “Alternative world orders? Russia’s Ukraine War and the domestic politics of the BRICS.” The International Spectator, vol. 58, no. 3, 2023, pp. 55–73. DOI

Black, Antony. “Islamic Views of International Order.” Rivista Di Storia Della Filosofia, vol. 52, no. 1, 1997, pp. 129–140. JSTOR

Ikenberry, G. John. “The End of Liberal International Order?” OUP Academic, 2018. Link

Ikenberry, G. John. “Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive.” Ethics & International Affairs, 2018. Cambridge Core