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Global Studies Quarterly (2024) 4 , ksae026
Contestation in a World of Liberal Orders
STACIE E. GODDARD
Wellesley College, USA
RONALD R. KREBS
University of Minnesota, USA
CHRISTIAN KREUDER-SONNEN
Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
AND
BERTHOLD RITTBERGER
Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany
It is widely acknowledged that the core institutions of the Liberal International Order (LIO) have in recent years been subject
to increasingly intense contestation. There is less agreement on the sources of this contestation. This introductory paper to
the special forum on “contestation in a world of liberal orders” makes two main contributions. First, the paper develops a
theory of endogenous order contestation. It conceptualizes the LIO as a system of different types of suborders, which vary in
the extent to which they reflect and promote liberal values and in the extent to which they are legally institutionalized. The
paper explains how these different suborders generate their own types of order contestation. More liberally embedded and
institutionalized suborders endogenously generate more intense and order-challenging contestation, while less liberal and
less institutionalized orders are amenable to more modest and order-consistent contestation. Second, this paper identifies the
specific endogenous mechanisms through which contestation shifts from order-consistent to order-challenging in especially
these more liberally embedded and institutionalized suborders. It argues that not only liberal resistance to reform gives rise
to order-challenging contestation, but even liberal accommodation and responsiveness can ultimately paralyze and ossify LIO
institutions, which in turn lose legitimacy, frustrate would-be reformers, and drive them to order-challenging contestation.
The different contributions to this special issue examine our core propositions across a range of economic, security, and
social–political LIO suborders.
On s’accorde largement sur le fait que les institutions fondamentales de l’ordre libéral international (OLI) ont fait ces
dernières années l’objet d’une contestation de plus en plus intense. Cet accord est bien moins évident lorsqu’on s’intéresse
aux sources de cette contestation. Cet article introductif au numéro spécial sur la contestation dans un monde d’ordres
libéraux offre principalement deux contributions. D’abord, l’article développe une théorie de contestation endogène de
l’ordre. Il conceptualise l’OLI comme un système regroupant différents types de sous-ordres, qui diffèrent quant à leur degré
de réflexion et de promotion de valeurs libérales et leur degré d’institutionnalisation légale. L’article explique comment ces
différents sous-ordres génèrent leurs propres types de contestation. Les sous-ordres libéralement plus implantés et institu-
tionnalisés génèrent de façon endogène une contestation plus intense, qui remet en question l’ordre. Àl’inverse, les ordres
moins libéraux se prêtent davantage àune contestation plus modeste et cohérente avec l’ordre. Ensuite, cet article identifie
les mécanismes endogènes spécifiques par lesquels une contestation cohérente avec l’ordre finit par le remettre en question,
notamment dans ces sous-ordres libéralement plus implantés et institutionnalisés. Il affirme que la résistance libérale àla
réforme débouche sur une contestation qui remet en question l’ordre, mais aussi que la conciliation et la réactivité peuvent
finir par paralyser et ossifier les institutions de l’OLI. Ainsi, elles perdent leur légitimité, frustrent les réformateurs en herbe et
les poussent àune contestation plus fondamentale de l’ordre. Les différentes contributions de ce numéro spécial examinent
nos principales idées dans un éventail de sous-ordres d’OLI économiques, sécuritaires et sociopolitiques.
Aunque es ampliamente reconocido que las principales instituciones del Orden Liberal Internacional (OLI) han sido ob-
jeto de una creciente impugnación en los últimos años, existe un menor consenso sobre las fuentes de esta impugnación.
Este artículo introductorio al número especial sobre la impugnación en un mundo de órdenes liberales ofrece dos con-
tribuciones principales. En primer lugar, el artículo desarrolla una teoría endógena de la impugnación del orden. Esta teoría
conceptualiza el OLI como un sistema que comprende diferentes tipos de subórdenes, los cuales difieren en la medida en que
reflejan y promueven los valores liberales, asi como en su grado de institucionalización legal. El artículo explica cómo estos
diferentes subórdenes generan sus propios tipos de impugnación de órdenes. Los subórdenes arraigados e institucionalizados
de forma liberal generan, de manera endógena, una impugnación más intensa y desafiante para el orden. Por lo contrario,
los órdenes menos liberales y menos institucionalizados son más susceptibles a una impugnación más modesta y consistente
con el orden. En segundo lugar, el artículo identifica los mecanismos endógenos específicos a través de los cuales la impug-
nación cambia de consistente con el orden a desafiante con el orden, especialmente en los subórdenes institucionalizados
e integrados de forma más liberal. El artículo argumenta que no solo la resistencia liberal a la reforma genera una impug-
nación desafiante para el orden, sino que incluso la adaptación liberal puede hacer que las instituciones del OLI se paralicen
y pierdan su legitimidad. Este proceso, a su vez, frustra a los potenciales reformadores y los conduce hacia una impugnación
Goddard, Stacie E. et al. (2024) Contestation in a World of Liberal Orders. Global Studies Quarterly , https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksae026
C
The Author(s) (2024). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
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2 Contestation in a World of Liberal Orders
más fundamental del orden. Las diferentes contribuciones a este número examinan estas ideas en referencia a una gama de
subórdenes económicos, de seguridad y sociopolíticos del OLI.
Introduction
The liberal international order (LIO) and the institutions
underpinning it are under stress. The last decade in par-
ticular has seen contestation intensify, with challengers in-
creasingly taking aim at the LIO’s underlying principles and
procedures. This contestation, while pervasive, also varies
significantly by domain. Some LIO suborders have become
the target of order-challenging contestation: dissatisfied ac-
tors reject the domain-specific order as currently consti-
tuted, take aim at its underlying principles and normative
vision, and seek to undermine, replace, or simply abandon
its institutions. For instance, whereas earlier critics of the
free trade regime proposed reforms—granting exceptions
to poorer nations, incorporating environmental sustainabil-
ity into regulations, including rising powers in key decision-
making bodies—populist nationalists and even more main-
stream critics now often seek to subvert the World Trade
Organization (WTO) or exit the regime. Likewise, while
African states once saw the International Criminal Court
(ICC) as a flawed but salvageable institution, many now see
the international criminal justice regime as so broken and
illegitimate that they have refused to cooperate with the
ICC and have lost faith in the underlying vision. In other
suborders, however, challengers still seem satisfied pursuing
order-consistent reforms.
1
For example, despite the climate
regime’s significant failures in changing state behavior, and
corresponding demands for more ambitious and binding
agreements, calls for wholesale revision are rare: this contes-
tation occurs within, not at odds with, the main institutional
and ideational tenets of the climate regime.
Explanations abound as to why the LIO and its main
characteristics—institutionalized multilateralism, the pro-
motion of individual liberties, the rule of law, and open
markets—have become increasingly contested (per the de-
bate among, e.g., Nye 2017 ; Alcaro 2018 ; Grewal 2018 ;
Ikenberry 2018 ; Mearsheimer 2019 ; Eilstrup-Sangiovanni
and Hofmann 2020 ; Huang 2021 ; Copelovitch et al. 2020 ;
Lake et al. 2021 ). Most approaches center on factors ar-
guably exogenous to the LIO, such as global power shifts,
notably the rise of China and US hegemonic decline (e.g.,
Boyle 2016 ; Stephen and Zürn 2019 ; Weiss and Wallace
2021 ), domestic economic shocks and distributional in-
equalities ( Bearce and Jolliff Scott 2019 ; Bisbee et al.
2020 ), economic globalization and deglobalization (e.g.,
Kornprobst and Paul 2021 ), and a backlash against cul-
tural globalization and progressive norms by older gener-
ations ( Inglehart and Norris 2017 ; Norris and Inglehart
2019 ). Some also treat the rise of nationalist populism as
the main independent variable to account for the increased
delegitimation of the LIO and its component institutions
( Copelovitch and Pevehouse 2019 ; Pevehouse 2020 ; Voeten
2020 ; De Vries et al. 2021 ). While these explanations pro-
vide insight into some of the forces that have given rise to
order-challenging contestation, they provide less leverage in
explaining why the form and intensity of contestation vary,
both over time and across the LIO’s suborders.
1
Our categories of order-consistent and order-challenging contestation
largely parallel “opposition” and “dissidence” in Daase and Deitelhoff (2019) , but
we separate the ends from the means of contestation.
Recent literature offers a promising path forward: it
identifies factors endogenous to the LIO as sources of
contestation—that is, it focuses on properties of the or-
der that are potentially self-undermining (see Zürn 2018 ;
Mearsheimer 2019 ; Barnett 2021 ; Farrell and Newman
2021 ). Within this literature, one strand focuses on the self-
undermining properties of the LIO’s economic order. Af-
ter its neoliberal turn in the 1980s, the LIO opened the
doors to “hyper-globalization” and unfettered trade liberal-
ization, which heightened economic inequality. As a con-
sequence, the “losers” of globalization have mounted op-
position to the order ( Colgan and Keohane 2017 ; Rodrik
2018 ; Broz et al. 2021 ; Flaherty and Rogowski 2021 ). An-
other strand explores the political properties of the LIO and
their self-undermining potential ( Zürn 2018 ; Koopmans
and Zürn 2019 ; Börzel and Zürn 2021 ; Kreuder-Sonnen
and Rittberger 2023 ). The main argument is that the LIO
has empowered international organizations (IOs), enabling
them to assert intrusive policies, which undermine national
sovereignty (see also Ecker-Ehrhardt 2014 ; Hooghe et al.
2017 ). Because the effects of international authority are dis-
tributed unevenly across states, and because IOs lack suf-
ficient grounds to legitimize their practice, they provoke
a backlash—especially of an authoritarian–nationalist bent
( Börzel and Zürn 2021 ; see already Zürn 2004 ). While this
newer literature highlights important building blocks for
understanding the LIO’s current crisis, it remains unclear
which properties of the LIO produce contestation, why and
when that contestation becomes order-challenging rather
than remaining order-consistent, or how order-consistent
reformist demands transform into order-challenging move-
ments. Critically, it also does not center the puzzle of varia-
tion in contestation across LIO suborders.
This special forum begins from the premise that the in-
stitutions that make up the LIO are deeply varied: it would
be more accurate to speak of liberal “orders” rather than
“order.” That variation, however, is, analytically, both a puz-
zle and an opportunity. By leveraging the differences in
LIO suborder configuration and the variation in contesta-
tion across suborders, this special forum yields insight into
why different LIO suborders experience different types of
challenges and how and why contestation evolves over time
within LIO suborders. In so doing, this special forum de-
velops a theoretical account of the endogenous processes
that produce and intensify contestation and of the condi-
tions under which these processes will be more or less pro-
nounced.
In this article, framing and introducing the special fo-
rum, we develop a typology of liberal orders, which vary in
the extent to which they are liberally embedded—reflecting
and promoting liberal norms and values—and the extent to
which they are institutionalized, and hence possess the ca-
pacity to enforce those liberal norms and values. We argue
that, while all orders generate contestation over resources
and principles, specific types of liberal order give rise to spe-
cific types of contestation—either order-consistent or order-
challenging. The counter-intuitive central claim of this ar-
ticle, and the special forum as a whole, is that the more
a suborder lives up to liberal aspirations—in terms of its
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STACI E E. GODDARD ET AL. 3
normative embeddedness and institutionalization—the
more it is susceptible to order-challenging contestation. We
map out how liberal orders’ resistance and reform to ini-
tial, order-consistent contestation both intensifies and rad-
icalizes contestation. Ironically, we argue, even liberal ef-
forts to accommodate contestant demands can, uninten-
tionally, undermine the order’s legitimacy. The contribu-
tions to this special forum show how this introductory ar-
ticle’s core propositions hold across a range of economic,
security, and social–political LIO suborders.
This finding has important normative consequences.
Many blame the LIO’s current ills on its imperfections and
hypocrisy, and they seek to save the LIO by enacting liberal
reforms that would make it more fully and consistently lib-
eral. We cast doubt on the wisdom and efficacy of this plan
of action, which, our argument suggests, would exacerbate
rather than solve the problem of order contestation.
The remainder of this introductory article is structured
as follows. First, we define the LIO and introduce a four-
fold typology of its suborders, and present a typology of
order contestation. Second, we develop comparative-static
expectations that relate the LIO suborders to particular
forms of order contestation. Third, we theorize the dynamic
processes through which properties of liberal orders en-
dogenously generate order-consistent or order-challenging
contestation. Throughout, we draw on material from the
other articles in the special forum to support and illus-
trate our theoretical claims. These articles examine, among
other LIO suborders, the regimes focusing on international
refugees, human rights, climate change, nuclear nonprolif-
eration, and international trade. We conclude with a discus-
sion of the analytical, empirical, and normative implications
of this special forum for our understanding of contestation
within a world of liberal orders.
The LIO: Liberal Properties and Liberal Suborders
Definitions of the LIO provided in the literature oscil-
late between minimalist versions focusing on an “open and
rules-based international order” ( Ikenberry 2011 , 56) and
maximalist versions advocating the definitional inclusion
of liberal social purpose, economic and political rights,
and democratic decision-making procedures ( Stephen and
Skidmore 2019 ; Lake et al. 2021 , 4–8). While the thin, min-
imalist versions are prone to the question of what is actually
liberal about them (e.g., Kundnani 2017 ), the thick, max-
imalist versions may be questioned for their descriptive va-
lidity (e.g., Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann 2020 ). After
all, today’s international order is ripe with practices and pat-
terns that do not conform to the thick conception of the
LIO.
Acknowledging the validity of these conceptual and em-
pirical critiques, this special forum aims for a middle ground
that, on the one hand, does not throw the liberal baby out
with the bathwater, but, on the other hand, recognizes how
rarely liberal ideals are fully realized. What sets the current
global order apart from nonliberal alternatives is its embed-
ding in liberal discourses of legitimation that justify inter-
national authority (or power) structures with a view to ap-
proaching (typically a selection of) elements of an ideal-
typical LIO. We, therefore first describe the contours of this
ideal-type LIO and then develop a typology of LIO subor-
ders based on the extent to which they actually approximate
the ideal-type in terms of liberal embeddedness and institu-
tionalization.
The Ideal-Type LIO
An ideal-typical LIO has unique ideational and institutional
properties. First, the ideal LIO rests on ideational proper-
ties reflected in the basic principles and norms that de-
fine its social purpose and mission. Liberalism is a com-
plex, historically contingent, and essentially contested con-
cept ( Freeden and Stears 2013 ). But it has relatively undis-
puted “core” features (see, e.g., Barnett and Finnemore
2005 ). Political liberalism is associated with freedom of the
individual, understood first and foremost as freedom from
arbitrary rule. It is ensured by legal and institutional con-
straints on authority as well as by procedures for collective
self-determination and thus democratic participation. Eco-
nomic liberalism implies a commitment to a market econ-
omy and free trade, accompanied by economic and social
rights to foster individual capacities for freedom ( Doyle
2012 , 4–5).
At the global level, the LIO seeks to promote core lib-
eral values through cooperative international institutions
( Keohane 2012 ). Its central reference point is the individual
endowed with rights, and liberal international institutions
aim to reduce the barriers to individuals’ pursuit of their
self-interest. State sovereignty thus becomes secondary to
the fulfilment of individual rights ( Peters 2009 ). Liberal in-
ternationalism prizes cooperation among states as a means
of enhancing citizens’ welfare (see also Lake et al. 2021 ).
It presumes that international relations, like interpersonal
relations, is not a zero-sum competition, but rather one in
which interests are at least partially overlapping. At both
the domestic and international levels, liberal internation-
alism affirms that, through well-designed institutions and
precisely formulated rules and laws, human reason can and
must curb the exercise of naked power. In an ideal LIO, in-
ternational and transnational cooperation among political
communities civilizes global politics, and politics converge
toward the liberal ideal ( Bell 2007 ).
Second, the ideal-typical LIO is characterized by distinct
institutional properties informed by liberal values. All orders
contain decision rules—that is, procedures through which
the interests of the constituent actors are aggregated and in-
stitutional outcomes produced. The ideal-typical LIO’s deci-
sion rules emphasize equality before the law as well as inclu-
sive, equal, and fair participation (see Zürn 2018 , 8; Lake
et al. 2021 , 5). These norms find expression in multilat-
eral institutions’ formal legalized procedures and adjudica-
tory bodies, as well as in avenues for inclusive participation
through stakeholder forums or supranational parliamentary
assemblies. The supranational delegation of authority to po-
litically neutral institutions and agencies—from indepen-
dent, technocratic bureaucracies to expert bodies—is con-
gruent with liberal decision rules that prioritize fairness and
collective welfare over majoritarianism. An order’s institu-
tional properties also include formal membership rules and
informal status hierarchies that define who is an insider and
who is an outsider of a particular order ( Pouliot 2016 ; Viola
2020 ; Adler-Nissen and Zarakol 2021 ). In the ideal-typical
LIO, membership in international institutions should be
maximally inclusive, granted to all who commit to abiding by
the institution’s norms and rules: “It follows from the prin-
ciple of individual equality that the LIO as a political order
is ’open,’ almost by definition” ( Lake et al. 2021 , 8).
The ideal-type LIO thus consists of inclusive, fair, and le-
galized multilateral institutions wedded to decidedly liberal
social purposes.
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4 Contestation in a World of Liberal Orders
Tab le 1. Classifying LIO suborders
Liberal embeddedness
Low High
Liberal institutionalization Low Weakly institutionalized and weakly liberal
order (WIWO)
Weakly institutionalized liberal
order (WILO)
High Strongly institutionalized yet weakly liberal order
(SIWO)
Strongly institutionalized liberal
order (SILO)
A Typology of LIO Suborders
The contemporary global order does not neatly conform to
this ideal-type. In some substantive domains, its institutions
more closely approach the ideal LIO properties than in oth-
ers. The articles in this special forum recognize that there
is extensive variation across LIO regimes or suborders. As
Iain Johnston (2019) rightly reminds us, the LIO is a world
of orders, not a monolithic order.
First, LIO suborders can reflect and promote substantive
liberal norms and principles to greater or lesser degrees. We
call this dimension the order’s liberal embeddedness . Some LIO
suborders, such as the international human rights regime or
the international free trade regime, are built on core liberal
principles and pursue a decidedly liberal social purpose. In
others, liberal principles are not key to the order’s legitima-
tion. As Thompson (2024) argues, the international regime
to combat climate change, for instance, subordinates liberal
ideas of individual freedom to the protection of nature.
Second, LIO suborders vary in the degree to which they
operate according to liberal procedures—that is, the extent
of their liberal institutionalization . LIO suborders have codi-
fied rules with greater or lesser “precision” and “obligation”
and they have delegated the monitoring and implementa-
tion of these rules to third parties with more or less indepen-
dence ( Abbott et al. 2000 ; Goldstein et al. 2001 ). The global
investment regime, for instance, is highly legalized. Bilateral
and plurilateral investment treaties codify precise and bind-
ing rules for the protection of investors, and disputes are
routinely delegated to binding arbitration. By contrast, the
realm of international peacekeeping exhibits much less le-
galized institutionalization. As Hofmann (2024) shows, un-
codified social norms, as well as imprecise and nonbinding
aspirational norms such as the “Responsibility to Protect,”
constitute the international regime of collective security.
LIO suborders also vary in the degree to which their mem-
bership rules reflect inclusive liberal values. For instance,
the global climate regime is open to all states and addition-
ally allows for comparatively strong stakeholder participa-
tion ( Thompson 2024 ). This stands in contrast with the nu-
clear regime, as Tannenwald (2024) shows, which contains
a mix of inclusive, universal bodies whose membership rules
are formally codified—via ratification of the 1968 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty—and powerful, exclusive bodies,
like the Nuclear Suppliers Group, whose decision and mem-
bership rules are merely informal.
These two dimensions combine to form a typology, in
which the contributions to this special issue situate real-
world LIO suborders (see table 1 ). Where both liberal em-
beddedness and institutionalization are high, a strongly insti-
tutionalized liberal order (SILO) approaches the LIO ideal-type.
According to Heinkelmann-Wild et al. (2024) , the WTO
as the focal institution of the international trade regime,
with its heavily legalized dispute settlement process aiming
to advance the classic liberal vision of free trade, falls into
this category. So does the individual criminal accountabil-
ity regime, atop which sits the ICC, and which is rooted in
the liberal vision of protecting individual liberties through a
“duty to prosecute” ( Lesch et al. 2024 ).
In contrast, weakly institutionalized liberal orders (WILOs)
are legitimated in the familiar terms of liberal norms but
lack formal codification and strong enforcement mecha-
nisms. Lavenex (2024) shows that the contemporary refugee
regime, which embodies a liberal vision of individual human
rights but does not back this up with legalized obligations,
resides in this realm.
Strongly institutionalized yet weakly liberal orders (SIWOs) are
grounded in detailed, binding law, but do not further clas-
sic liberal aims. As Tannenwald (2024) shows, the nuclear
nonproliferation regime, through the legally binding Nu-
clear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), sets out concrete obli-
gations for signatories and delegates monitoring tasks to
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However,
seemingly contrary to liberal principles, it cements an in-
equitable order that discriminates between nuclear haves
and have-nots.
Finally, WIWOs score low on both dimensions. The law
of armed conflict is not overly constraining, as Hofmann
(2024) demonstrates, and it thus also permits uses of mili-
tary force that are contrary to the spirit of liberalism. Sim-
ilarly, according to Thompson (2024) , the norms of the
global climate regime would allow for restrictions on indi-
vidual autonomy for the sake of the collective good and thus
do not always sit comfortably with liberal values. Moreover,
with few enforceable commitments, the climate regime is
hardly legalized, and it is very flexible by design.
Contestation in the LIO
Elites and citizens around the world are increasingly en-
gaged in contesting core LIO institutions. But the LIO is
deeply varied and textured across domains, and the contes-
tation it faces is similarly varied and textured. Sometimes it
is intense and fundamental, and the label “crisis” is fitting,
but not all LIO suborders are in crisis. To better capture
the extent, nature, and drivers of contestation within LIO
suborders, we first introduce different strategies of LIO con-
testation and then advance claims about how LIO suborders
and strategies of contestation are linked.
Strategies of Order Contestation
Contestation is “a social practice [that] entails objection
to specific issues that matter to people” ( Wiener 2014 , 3).
In this special forum, we focus on contestation by states
and distinguish between order-consistent contestation and order-
challenging contestation . Order-consistent contestation refers to
expressions of discontent regarding either the deficient
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STACI E E. GODDARD ET AL. 5
Tab le 2. Strategies of order contestation
Grounded in liberal norms and principles Rejecting liberal norms and principles
Adaptation of existing institutional properties Liberal reform Illiberal subversion
Abandonment of existing institutional properties Liberal counter-institutionalization Illiberal r eor dering
realization of the suborder’s principles or their distribu-
tional implications. Instead of criticizing liberal principles,
contestants “challenge practices [. . .] from the point of
view of liberal principles” ( Zürn and Gerschewski 2021 , 4).
The goal is to improve the workings of the suborder, bring-
ing them (back) into line with its liberal norms and prin-
ciples (ideational properties) and broadly within its exist-
ing institutional framework (institutional properties). Order-
challenging contestation rejects both the suborder’s liberal
norms and principles as well as its institutional setup. It does
not legitimate its demand for change with reference to lib-
eral values, and it seeks to jettison the suborder’s current
institutions, replacing them with alternative institutions.
Combining the two dimensions of consistency with lib-
eral norms and consistency with existing institutional prop-
erties, four strategies of contestation emerge ( table 2 ). The
more contestation is aligned with liberal norms, and the
more it accepts existing institutions, the more such contes-
tation falls on the order-consistent end of the spectrum: lib-
eral reform (upper-left cell). At the very least, order-consistent
contestation is grounded in liberal norms and principles,
even if it finds existing institutions so problematic that
they require replacement: liberal counter-institutionalization
(lower-left cell). Order-challenging contestation rejects lib-
eral norms and principles. It is less overtly order-challenging
if it works through existing institutions: illiberal subversion
(upper-right cell). It is more obviously order-challenging
when it rejects the current institutional framework : illiberal
r eor dering (lower-right cell).
Liberal reform —the upper-left cell of table 2 —does not
challenge the order’s principles or institutional properties
but highlights their inconsistent application or negative un-
intended consequences. It seeks to reforming the existing
institutional framework in line with existing liberal norms.
For instance, Heinkelmann-Wild et al. (2024) show that
the US-led postwar international trade order was initially
rather exclusive, built around like-minded Western powers.
Over time, the exclusion of non-Western powers bred dissat-
isfaction, and those excluded demanded, in line with liberal
values, a more inclusive regime. In the realm of interna-
tional refugee policy, transnational activists, and epistemic
communities pressed for the regime’s liberal reform in the
wake of the Cold War, demanding more rights for and le-
galized protection of asylum seekers. According to Lavenex
(2024) , demand for liberal reform resulted in a strengthen-
ing of “the primacy of the individual and rule of law stan-
dards vis-à-vis states’ sovereign discretion over the admission
of refugees.”
Liberal counter-institutionalization accepts existing liberal
norms, but rejects flawed existing institutions. It, there-
fore seeks to overcome existing institutional arrangements
by replacing them with more, not less, liberal alterna-
tives. Its proponents ground their calls for fundamental
change in the language of liberalism, arguing that their al-
ternative would better serve liberal aspirations. Frustrated
by the nuclear powers’ longtime failure under the NPT
to take meaningful steps towards nuclear disarmament,
Tannenwald (2024) argues that “states squarely within
the core of the LIO had launched a new normative and
rule-making initiative outside the NPT that resulted . . . in
an entirely new legal instrument to pursue disarmament.”
The Treaty on the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons—the
so-called nuclear-ban treaty—represents an instance of lib-
eral counter-institutionalization. Similarly, frustrated with
the liberal hypocrisy of the postwar economic order as en-
shrined in the compromise of embedded liberalism (CEL),
proponents of a “redistributive multilateralism” sought to
implement a New International Economic Order (NIEO) to
counter Western-led institutions. According to Pouliot and
Patterson (2024) , the NIEO was—in its procedural, if not
necessarily substantive, outlook—more, “not less, liberal in
spirit than the CEL.”
Contestation that is decidedly nonliberal in its aspira-
tions, but that seeks to attain its goals through existing in-
stitutions, is more order-challenging. Illiberal subversion at-
tempts to further illiberal ends not through open revolt
against the LIO’s rules, but by using those rules to advance
an antithetical political vision. Under the Bush and Trump
administrations, the United States engaged in illiberal sub-
version with respect to climate change. It sought to sabotage
the project of international cooperation to combat human-
induced climate change by rejecting two major climate
treaties—the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement—
but it nevertheless continued to participate in the regime
( Thompson 2024 ). In the international refugee regime,
Lavenex (2024) similarly shows how states undermined
the regime’s liberal substance and achievements, e.g., by re-
stricting potential claimants’ access to liberal asylum systems
and legal recourse, while they refrained from abandoning
the regime itself.
Finally, illiberal r eor dering is fully order-challenging contes-
tation: it challenges the suborder’s liberal norms while re-
sisting or abandoning its institutions and calling for their
wholesale transformation. Lesch et al. (2024) present the
African Union’s (AU) deep critique of the international
criminal justice system, embodied by the ICC, and its con-
comitant call for member states to withdraw from the court,
as an attempt at illiberal reordering. According to Koch
(2024) , the populist critique of the global liberal economic
order as a system that benefits the elites over “the people”
has mobilized antisystem sentiment that can also be consid-
ered an example of (an attempt at) illiberal reordering.
Accounting For Variation in Order Contestation
Which of these four strategies of contestation emerges
prominently in any particular suborder, we argue, depends
on that suborder’s institutional and ideational properties.
They shape contestants’ political opportunity structure, and
thus the concrete mode and substantive direction of their
contestation ( McAdam et al. 2001 ). In other words, we posit
a causal link between the type of LIO suborder and the type
of order contestation (see figure 1 for an overview).
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6 Contestation in a World of Liberal Orders
Figure 1. Theoretical expectations.
r SILOs are most prone to illiberal r eor dering . In light of SI-
LOs’ high degree of liberal embeddedness, contestation
is more likely to emanate from actors with normative dis-
positions that are at odds with liberalism than from LIO
supporters. Given SILOs’ high degree of institutionaliza-
tion, contestants will find it difficult, if not impossible, to
change the order within existing institutional parameters.
Since SILOs are substantively liberal, and since they are
procedurally largely insulated from political influence, il-
liberal contestants’ only viable option is to resist or aban-
don the order’s institutional setup. African states’ rejec-
tion of the ICC is a case in point. As Lesch et al. (2024)
record, not only did many African states stop cooperating
with the Court, the AU also started negotiations to create
a less liberal and less legalized alternative.
r SIWOs are likely to fall prey to liberal counter-
institutionalization. Because SIWOs are highly institu-
tionalized, but only weakly liberal in their social purpose,
contestation is likely to take a decidedly liberal bent.
Illiberal actors have little reason to demand change
of this weakly liberal suborder in the first place. It is
liberal actors who find SIWOs problematic. As in SILOs,
however, attaining transformative goals in the highly
institutionalized setting of SIWOs is hard. Entrenched
institutional structures, are thus likely to frustrate
contestant demands, and they therefore invite liberal
counter-institutionalization . The nuclear nonproliferation
regime is a case in point: Tannenwald (2024) argues
that, after proponents of nuclear disarmament failed
to achieve meaningful progress through the NPT, they
mobilized on behalf of the so-called nuclear ban treaty as
a direct—but liberal—challenge to the existing suborder.
Similarly, Heinkelmann-Wild et al. (2024) interpret the
US turn to bi-, mini-, and plurilateral trade institutions
as a strategy of liberal counter-institutionalization in
response to the WTO’s inclusion of nonliberal powers
and the resulting stymied Doha Round of negotiations.
r WILOs may be attacked with two different strategies. First,
WILOs are strongly rooted in liberal aspirations, and may
thus evoke challenges from illiberal actors. But, because
WILOs are less institutionalized, they offer contestants
ways to achieve their goals within the given setup. By
engaging in illiberal subversion , challengers may attempt
to use the institution to further illiberal goals. Lavenex
(2024) shows how, in the international refugee regime,
states frequently exploit the regime’s weak rule precision
and independent enforcement to eschew its demanding
liberal obligations. At the same time, WILOs come under
pressure from liberals who believe the order could per-
form better if its rules were rendered more precise and
binding. These critics engage in liberal reform that seeks
to strengthen the regime’s rules in ways consistent with
its liberal principles. Critique of the international trade
regime under GATT’s political dispute settlement system
resulted in the much more legalized mechanism of the
WTO ( Zangl 2008 ).
r WIWOs, finally, are most prone to either liberal reform
or illiberal subversion . On the one hand, given WIWOs’
low degree of liberal embeddedness, dissatisfied actors
can push for these regimes’ greater adherence to lib-
eral principles. Since WIWOs are only weakly institu-
tionalized, and thus relatively flexible, pressing for in-
ternal reform is more appealing than pursuing counter-
institutionalization. Thompson (2024) shows that rising
powers’ attempts to commit the climate change WIWO
to fairness and equity, for instance, always remained
within its institutional structures. On the other hand, that
same flexibility allows actors with illiberal inclinations
to use ambiguities and loopholes in the existing institu-
tional framework to dodge or pervert normative commit-
ments. Hofmann (2024) demonstrates how, in the col-
lective security WIWO, illiberal states have subverted lib-
eral agendas—e.g., seeking to expand the Responsibil-
ity to Protect or advancing the Women, Peace, and Se-
curity agenda—by exploiting this suborder’s lack of in-
stitutionalization and by taking advantage of its political
mechanisms, rejecting resolution drafts at the UN Secu-
rity Council or mobilizing opposition at the UN General
Assembly.
Dynamics of Contestation: Reactive Sequences
So far, our analysis has been static. We have explored how
particular configurations of LIO suborders produce differ-
ent strategies of order contestation. In this section, our anal-
ysis becomes dynamic, exploring how the nature of contes-
tation in LIO suborders can change over time. In particu-
lar, we ask how liberal orders react to initial contestation
and how this reaction shapes the trajectory of contestation.
As in the preceding analysis, the chief causal driver is en-
dogenous to the LIO. Our main proposition is that liberal
modes of managing contestation tend to increase the inten-
sity of contestation, transforming order-consistent contesta-
tion into order-challenging contestation.
We focus on what historical institutionalists call negative
feedback mechanisms or reactive sequences . Early scholarship
in the historical institutionalist tradition was predominantly
interested in path-dependence, highlighting positive feed-
back mechanisms—that is, those inducing institutional sta-
bility and self-reinforcement ( Mahoney 2000 ; Fioretos 2011 ;
Hanrieder 2015 ; Rixen and Viola 2016 ). However, institu-
tional feedback processes can also be negative—that is, un-
dermining existing institutions. Such reactive sequences are
“marked by backlash processes that transform and perhaps re-
verse early events” ( Mahoney 2000 , 526). These endogenous
processes “change the opportunities, beliefs, or desires of
the involved actors [. . .] so that they erode support for the
institution.” An institution is thus self-undermining when it
produces its own “challengers and challenges” ( Hanrieder
and Zürn 2017 , 100; see also Moschella and Vetterlein 2016 ;
Farrell and Newman 2021 ).
Building on this scholarship on self-undermining in-
stitutional feedback effects, in the following sections, we
set out generalizable mechanisms endogenous to the
LIO through which order-consistent contestation becomes
order-challenging contestation.
2 We develop our account
with reference to the suborder that most closely approaches
the LIO ideal-type: the SILO. Since we argue that it is the
liberal properties of global order that themselves tend to
exacerbate contestation, SILOs’ liberal social purpose and
2
Importantly, we do not, and cannot, develop a fully specified causal theory
explaining why particular forms of contestation arise under particular conditions
or articulating the conditions under which full-blown order-challenging contesta-
tion takes shape or is interrupted.
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STACI E E. GODDARD ET AL. 7
Figure 2. Reactive Sequence #1: LIO producing initial con-
testation.
liberal institutional features are more prone to trigger re-
active sequences than the other variants. Accordingly, while
all LIO suborders may produce the reactive sequences theo-
rized here, those that depart more from the LIO ideal-type
may also contain elements that counter-act those endoge-
nous negative-feedback processes. The empirical contribu-
tions to this special forum support this claim, finding that
weaker institutional properties (as in WILOs and WIWOs)
and ambiguous ideational commitments (as in SIWOs and
WIWOs) dampen the reactive sequences.
In the remainder of this section, we first ask how liberal
orders endogenously generate grievances that lead to initial
contestation. Second, we explore how the unique liberal as-
pirations of liberal orders shape how its defenders respond
to initial contestation, and how these reactions, in turn, give
rise to negative feedback mechanisms that undermine the
order. Third, we examine how and via what institutional
pathways the order may escape this negative feedback loop
and contain contestation.
Reactive Sequence #1: Initial Contestation
Admirers of the LIO sometimes seem baffled by dissatisfac-
tion with and contestation of the order. After all, the order
provides public goods—from free trade to investment arbi-
tration to collective security to nuclear nonproliferation—
that would otherwise be in short supply. Its relatively open
and inclusive decision-making processes and forums invite
a wide range of voices into the conversation and mitigate
the effects of material power. Membership in its institutions
is, in principle, open to all, so no one need be left on the
outside looking in. From their standpoint, the order enjoys
substantive legitimacy—because it boosts global welfare—
and procedural legitimacy—because its institutions and pro-
cesses are fair and inclusive (e.g., Keohane et al. 2009 ).
But the LIO gives rise to initial contestation through three
distinct pathways—per figure 2 . First, like all orders, the
LIO’s institutional properties have distributional effects . Even
if the LIO helps facilitate cooperation that would not be
achieved in its absence, and thereby moves the world closer
to the Pareto frontier, as its defenders maintain, there will
still be competition along the Pareto frontier—that is, over
how those institutions distribute their burdens and allocate
their gains—as Stephen Krasner (1991) argued decades ago.
Even if liberal institutions provide benefits to all, they do
so in unequal ways and thereby generate dissatisfaction that
gives rise to contestation (see also Colgan and Keohane
2017 ; Rodrik 2018 ).
The second pathway through which the LIO endoge-
nously produces contestation pertains to frictions over and
among liberal principles . “Liberalism” is not an ideological
monolith. It is composed of multiple streams that all prize
individual freedom but differ in important ways over the
status of other values and their relationship to freedom
( Freeden and Stears 2013 ). As a result, contestants can in-
voke alternative liberal values and norms in protesting LIO
institutional policies. For instance, liberal commitments to
promote individual human rights can bump up against poli-
ties’ claims, equally grounded in the liberal tradition, to self-
determination and to respect for local norms. At the level
of decision rules, liberalism insists that legitimate decision-
making embody participants’ consent, but its more tech-
nocratic and economistic forms also expressly prize effi-
ciency and effectiveness of governance—which may then
require bypassing consensus decision-making. In terms of
membership, liberal principles of inclusiveness and univer-
sality might be at odds with the aspiration to create a liberal
community when inclusion means the integration of antilib-
eral spoilers; on liberal grounds, therefore, the institution’s
protectors may justify excluding certain categories of mem-
bers.
Third, the LIO, like other orders built on legitimation
and institutionalization, is vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy
(see Finnemore 2009 ). Liberal orders rest on largely aspira-
tional principles that clash with the concrete political prac-
tices of creating and sustaining order. The world is filled
with illiberalism, and liberalism itself provides no basis for
picking and choosing when to promote values like human
rights or to protest against trade barriers. Pragmatic con-
siderations necessarily inform these choices, but they also
imply tolerance for the illiberal practices of some, and thus
invite allegations of hypocrisy. Liberal decision rules prize
fairness and transparency, but institutions that are trying to
solve collective action problems and yield tangible benefits
for their members often require elements of hierarchy to
reach decisions. Liberal membership rules that, despite an
institution’s universal aims, prioritize efficiency over demo-
cratic inclusion become susceptible to charges that they ex-
clude others and are really just furthering the material in-
terests of the few, rather than the collective good.
In short, the LIO endogenously produces dissatisfaction,
and thus contestation. This is not to say that there are not
exogenous sources of conflict. Changes in the distribution
of power, for example, are likely to heighten conflicts over
the distribution of resources. States are more likely to cham-
pion those liberal principles that advance their own inter-
ests. The point is not that these endogenous processes are
the only source of contestation, but rather that the LIO is
likely to become subject to strain even in the absence of ex-
ternal pressures.
Reactive Sequence #2: Reactions to Initial Contestation Produce
Order-Challenging Contestation
When faced with initial, often order-consistent contesta-
tion, an order’s supporters can either undertake reform of
the institution’s norms, decision rules, and membership,
or they can resist meaningful change. This choice, which
is not distinctive to liberal orders, plays out in distinctive
ways in the LIO, thanks to its particular liberal aspirations.
Conventional accounts have downplayed the ways in which
supporters of the status quo can resist contestation. Per-
haps even more surprisingly, they do so with the resources
available within the LIO itself, drawing from the order’s
ideational and institutional properties to block critics’ ef-
forts at reform. Moreover, even when supporters make ef-
forts at reform, the LIO’s ideational and institutional aspi-
rations shape how supporters reform the suborder and, we
argue, can trigger reactive sequences that end up making
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