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Liberal order is not embodied in a fixed set of principles or practices. Instead, aspects of the liberal vision have made appearances in various combinations and changing ways over the last century. This chapter argues that it is possible to identify three versions of liberal order. The first is associated with the ideas of Woodrow Wilson; the second is the liberal internationalism of the post-1945 decades; and the third version is a sort of post-hegemonic liberal internationalism that has only partially appeared and whose full shape and logic is still uncertain. The chapter develops a set of dimensions that allow for identifying different logics of liberal order and identify variables that will shape the movement from liberal internationalism 2.0 to 3.0.

The current liberal order is fading and has failed to deliver on some of its most fundamental promises. Yet, rather than taking flight from liberal order, this book suggests that liberal orders in the past always have been historically constituted and institutionally contested. Although liberal order's current crisis is not disputed, it suggests that the crisis has partly been constituted by the specific account of liberal order offered by ‘new liberalism’, which in its quest for a scientific method has shorn liberalism — and with it liberal order — of its critical and normative potential. The observation places liberal order's alleged crisis in a new light, where attention to liberal values and ordering practices invite consideration of those aspects of liberal order that are resilient and enduring.

This chapter focuses on the integrative force of resilient liberal practices. It acknowledges that liberal order is in crisis, but asserts that liberal internationalism's permanent crisis is a source of renewal and transformation in liberal order. A definition of liberal internationalism is put forward that carefully avoids constructing reified notions of liberal internationalism associated with American power. The chapter points to the need to focus on social practices to see the potential of liberal order's adaptation and renewal, and suggests that, although the decline of American power indeed may be seen from a narrow perspective to threaten liberal order, from a wider and deeper conceptual historical perspective, liberal practices may be why the order has not yet been replaced.

One of the distinctive features of the idea of an Anglosphere has been a particular view of world order, based on liberal principles of free movement of goods, capital and people, representative government, and the rule of law, which requires a powerful state or coalition of states to uphold and enforce them. This chapter charts the roots as well as the limits of this conception in the period of British ascendancy in the nineteenth century, and how significant elements of the political class in both Britain and the United States in the twentieth century came to see the desirability of cooperation between the English-speaking nations to preserve that order against challengers. This cooperation was most clearly realised in the Second World War. The post-war construction of a new liberal world order was achieved under the leadership of the United States, with Britain playing a largely supportive but secondary role. Cooperation between Britain and the US flourished during the Cold War, particularly in the military and intelligence fields, and this became the institutional core of the ‘special relationship’. The period since the end of the Cold War has seen new challenges emerge both externally and internally to the Anglo-American worldview.

This chapter examines Woodrow Wilson's comprehensive program for world order that came to constitute the foundation of liberal democratic internationalism, also known as Wilsonianism. Wilson's policy, designed “to make the world safe for democracy,” was not a radical departure from traditional American national security policy. His proposals to restructure world politics on the basis of a liberal world order were consistent with basic propositions of past American foreign policy. The chapter first considers the theory and practice underlying Wilsonianism before discussing the dilemma of Wilson's policy in Europe. It also explores the virtues of Wilsonianism for the postwar world, such as its acknowledgment of the fundamental political importance of nationalism. Finally, it emphasizes the resurgence of Wilsonianism in American foreign policy in the aftermath of World War II.

This chapter examines Franklin D. Roosevelt's liberal democratic internationalism and his efforts to assure American national security by constructing a stable world order based on the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which the United States sought to globalize in the aftermath of the Axis defeat in World War II. It first considers how FDR infused American liberalism with a healthy dose of realism about the appropriateness of democracy for other countries in the aftermath of World War II before discussing anti-imperialism as a component of American foreign policy. It also explores the United States's promotion of democracy and pursuit of a liberal world order as a means of countering Soviet imperialism. It argues that liberal democratic internationalism has been the American way of practicing balance-of-power politics in world affairs, and that the dominant logic of American foreign policy was dictated by concerns for national security.

This chapter considers various accounts offered for the challenges confronting liberal international order today, and finds them wanting. It is argued that the most militarily aggressive and revisionist states over the thirty years since the end of the Cold War have been the status quo states of the West, not ‘emerging powers’ such as Russia or China. It is Western states that have repeatedly used force to reshape the international order as well as adapting international organisation to suit their new humanitarian outlook. This cuts against the expectations of International Relations theory regarding the origin of revisionist challenges to international order, and requires explanation. As this new form of liberal revisionism arises from the status quo states rather than outside them, this type of behaviour is called ‘inverted revisionism’.

The second historical case revisits Britain's role in the nineteenth century. While conventionally Pax Britannica has been presented as one of the cases of hegemonic stability, this view has been strongly challenged. The chapter suggests that Britain can be considered a case of singular hegemony, but of a distinctive type: it depended as much on British weaknesses as on its strengths. This was especially so in its inability to control the European balance, as also in its increasingly exposed position in the Empire. Rather than rehearse the material dimensions of British economic power, the chapter turns instead to the followers, and asks to what extent Britain was viewed as a model for emulation, or encouraged a liberal order. These issues are explored in the contexts of free trade, and the roles of sterling and the gold standard.

This chapter starts with a discussion about international relations (IR) theory’s understandings of peace as well as the relationship between peace and feminist IR, pointing at the need both to be concerned about peace and to revisit its relationship to feminism. It highlights the importance of analyzing women’s peace activism to draw lessons for IR and feminism as well as the uniqueness of WILPF for this type of project. This is followed by historical background on WILPF, from its origins to the end of the Second World War. Finally, it locates the organization in the context of the post–WWII international liberal order as it was being shaped by the United States and its allies.

This chapter challenges the liberal treatment of security and liberty. Rather than a mythical liberal ‘balance’ between security and liberty, the chapter argues that liberalism has in fact always prioritised security over liberty. It has done so through the logic of ‘emergency’ and ‘prerogative’, which allow for liberties which are supposedly fundamental to be suspended in the name of security. The chapter thus offers a critique of the liberal tradition, by arguing that liberalism's driving principle is security, and that security has been central to liberal order-building.

This chapter argues that conservatism is better positioned than liberal philosophy. A just liberal society is characterized by moral homogeneity about justice. If liberalism, or a liberal order, is identified with a specific “theory of justice” in this way, it must set itself up in opposition to competing “political theories” such as conservatism. A successful, triumphant, just liberal order has no place for conservatism as a popular political program, for the conservative rejects “the liberal theory of justice” and so cannot be a part of a well-ordered society based on it. The existence of a viable conservative party must indicate an incomplete or imperfect “collective commitment to justice.”

The global economic order that emerged at the end of the Second World War was the work of two men: John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White. This chapter describes the tense negotiations between them. Once they had agreed on a final package, however, they worked closely. At an international conference held in Bretton Woods, they convince delegates to create the IMF and World Bank. The ‘third leg’ of the Bretton Woods stool was to be the International Trade Organization (ITO). Negotiations between the main sponsors of the ITO ran into problems early. Will Clayton for the US and Sir Stafford Cripps for the UK, failed to come to an agreement before the Havana Conference, in which the ITO treaty was negotiated. When the resultant ITO charter failed to be ratified, the major trading powers agreed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which saw limited liberalisation of trade. These institutions are the fundamental building blocks of the liberal economic order, designed to ‘make finance the servant, not the master of human desires.’

Chapter 7 (“Birthing the Liberal International Order”) focuses on the American order project after the Second World War. It argues that there were actually two distinct American visions for order in the 1940s, a universalist global order vision—manifested in the United Nations system—and a smaller Western order vision—comprised of the Bretton Woods economic and NATO security systems. Observers often posit that these layers were complementary, representing an evolving but not contradictory strategy by the United States to build an inclusive and multilayered international order. By contrast, this chapter argues that this transition from global to Western order can be best explained by American leaders’ shifting threat perceptions during this critical period. While they began with a more inclusive global order vision, they soon shifted to a more exclusive and adversarial Western order idea as they became increasingly wary of the extraordinary threat posed by their former wartime ally, the Soviet Union. The Soviet threat is the most important causal force in explaining this shift in America’s ordering strategy, and the story of the liberal international order’s origins simply cannot be told without it.

Chapter 6 explores developments in Asia’s regional architecture under the Trump government and the rising influence of China under Xi Jinping. The chapter draws explicit connections between Asia’s current regional architecture and the future of Asian order. It makes the case that institutions in Asia, particularly US bilateral alliances, are more resilient than presumed. It then draws on the historical institutionalism and regime complexity literatures to describe how the complex patchwork both complicates and advances institutional cooperation. The chapter concludes by offering a more optimistic outlook regarding the complex patchwork and its potential for improving regional governance.

This chapter examines the types of challenges that rising states might bring to struggles over international order with a view to the distinctive character of the American-led liberal order and the ways in which this existing order creates constraints and incentives for a rising China. This is contextualized by the geopolitical setting in which China is situated. The chapter argues that even as China faces constraints on the pursuit of a revisionist agenda, it finds incentives to operate within a liberal-oriented international order. China and the United States seem destined to clash over the terms of order in East Asia. But it is a clash that will unfold in a different world-historical setting than past power transitions. The rise of China may bring to an end the era of American hegemony—but it will be harder for China to end the liberal world order that the American era wrought.