Crisis of the Liberal International Order: Resilience, Adaptation, or Collapse?

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Since the end of World War II, democratic nation-states have created a remarkably successful system of liberal international institutions to facilitate cooperation. The democratic states at the core of this “Liberal International Order” (LIO) enjoy historically high living standards, and their international institutions are credited with reducing poverty, spreading democracy and promoting human rights. Despite these successes, scholars and practitioners agree that the LIO is in crisis. Populist-nationalist backlash in established democracies and the rise of authoritarian powers with more state-centered economies are expected to challenge, undermine, and eventually destabilize LIO’s norms, principles and institutions. Nevertheless, systematic analyses of mounting challenges’ effects on the LIO are few and far between. Gathering a conceptually coherent but methodologically and empirically diverse set of papers, this panel seeks to advance research on how and to what extent challenges affect the LIO. Can challengers jeopardize the order and its institutions, or can the LIO and its defenders wither the storm by adapting to new circumstance and mobilizing sources of resilience? Papers address this question with respect to the liberal legitimation of international organizations (IOs) (Lenz and Schmidtke), IOs’ reactions to delegitimation attempts (Squatrito and Gippert), US’ reactions to autocratic cooperation (Gray et al.), citizens’ legitimacy perceptions of international human rights courts (Stein) and the contestation of IOs (Tallberg et al.).

Sub Unit

• Division 60: International Relations Theory

Cosponsor

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Chair

• Tobias Lenz Leuphana University Lüneburg

Discussant

• Tyler Pratt University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• Decline of the LIO? Sources of Resilience in the Face of Mounting Challenges - Tobias Lenz, Leuphana University Lüneburg; Henning Schmidtke, European University Institute

• An Eye for an Eye? International Organization Response to Delegitimation - Theresa J Squatrito, London School of Economics; Birte Gippert, University of Liverpool

• Autocratic Cooperation and Threat Perceptions in US Foreign Policy - Julia Gray, University of Pennsylvania; Raymond Hicks, Columbia University; Matthew Connelly

• The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Courts: Evidence from Latin America - Jana von Stein, The Australian National University

• Contestation of International Organizations: Patterns, Drivers, and Consequences - Jonas Tallberg, Stockholm University; Stefanie Walter, University of Zurich; Michael Zuern, WZB Berlin Social Science Center