The Upsurge, Overreach and Unravelling of the ‘Liberal International Order’

The idea of a ‘Liberal International Order’ has a long and controversial history. Until 1989, it was a fiercely contested project, but during the ‘unipolar moment’ of the 1990s, it underwent an unprecedented upsurge and appeared to achieve hegemonic status. This article offers a retrospective analysis, viewing the ensuing cycle as a discursive metanarrative, and covering the ensuing overreach and its more recent unravelling. It concludes with an overview of alternative conceptions of liberal order, and some brief reflections on how a revised Liberal International Order (LIO) might regain some of the ground it has lost, and what that would involve.