Peace in an authoritarian international order versus peace in the liberal international order

Abstract Peace praxis reconstituted itself after the Cold War into liberal peacebuilding aimed at maintaining the liberal international order (LIO). This evolution was supposed to represent a comprehensive synergy of the scholarship and practices that had emerged since the formation of the state system itself. Due to its flirtation with neo-liberalism and militarism, as well as various epistemological anachronisms, Cold War and post-Cold War liberalism has been difficult to defend. Since the end of the brief ‘liberal’ phase of the post-Cold War order, the focus has been on how to fit ‘resilient’ local or community agency—which the structure of global capital and digital technology advances—into international counter-insurgency and stabilization regimes. This problem-solving epistemology and methodological framework has pitted a failing LIO against a burgeoning set of peace blockages and counter-peace strategies, observable in ontological terms as well as in strategic and tactical practices, which have led to the re-emergence of an authoritarian international order (AIO). This article theoretically examines and compares peacemaking under both the LIO and the AIO. It demonstrates that their mutual and differing weaknesses have undermined the critical and emancipatory potential of peacemaking.