This volume explores the Western-led liberal order that is claimed to be in crisis. Currently, the West appears less as a modernizing or civilizing entity leading the way and more as being engulfed in a deep crisis. Simultaneously, the West still appears to be needed in order to imagine the global order by promoters of liberal peace as well as its opponents. This book asks how and why “crisis” is needed for constituting “the West,” liberal, and global order and how these three are conjoined and reinvented. The book encompasses narratives endorsing and rejecting the West and the liberal international order, as well as alternative visions for a post-Western world conceived within the rising and challenging powers. The study is of interest to scholars and students of international relations, critical security studies, peace and conflict research, and social sciences in general.

The notion that we are experiencing a change in times, whereby an old global order is giving way to a new one, has been gaining legitimacy in international debates. As US power is waning, the argument goes, so is the set of liberal norms, rules and institutions around which the Unites States organised its global supremacy. Ideational contests, power shifts, regional fragmentation, and socio-economic turmoil paint a broad picture of complex and often inter-related challenges that fuel contestation of the liberal order, both as a normative project and as an emanation of US power. Major players - China and India, Europe and Russia, and the United States itself - are all engaged in a process of global repositioning, most notably in areas where the liberal project has only fragile roots and order is contested: Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. This volume aims to provide critical frames of reference for understanding whether geopolitical and ideational contestations will eventually bring the US-centred liberal order down or lead to a process of adjustment and transformation. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in The International Spectator.

The Theory of Contestation advances critical norms research in international relations. It scrutinises the uses of ‘contestation’ in international relations theories with regard to its descriptive and normative potential. To that end, critical investigations into international relations are conducted based on three thinking tools from public philosophy and the social sciences: The normativity premise, the diversity premise and cultural cosmopolitanism. The resulting theory of contestation entails four main features, namely types of norms, modes of contestation, segments of norms and the cycle of contestation. The theory distinguishes between the principle of contestedness and the practice of contestation and argues that, if contestedness is accepted as a meta-organising principle of global governance, regular access to contestation for all involved stakeholders will enhance legitimate governance in the global realm.

Provides a new framework for reconceptualizing the historical and contemporary relationship between cultural diversity, political authority, and international order.

Liberal World Orders is a timely contribution to debates about the current world order in the face of declining US hegemony and rising new powers. It examines the history and durability of liberal thought. Neo-liberalism is criticised as a theoretical perspective ill-equipped to understand the current crisis or possibilities for its amelioration.

Examines the involvement of local actors in conflicts over global norms at the intersection between international relations and international law.

Examines how ideas of sovereignty and security from the non-Western world contribute to order and change in world politics.

Using the theoretical tools drawn from historical materialism and deconstruction, Tzouvala offers a comprehensive history of the standard of civilisation.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Preface -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Summary -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Chapter One: Introduction -- The Order and Its Health -- Challenges with Measurement -- Methodology -- Structure of the Report -- Chapter Two: Participation in Formal Regional and International Institutions -- Steady Institutional Participation -- Integrating International Order into Domestic Institutions -- Increasingly Diverse and Informal Institutions -- Building New Institutions -- Regional Institutions -- Chapter Three: Economic Liberalization and Interdependence -- Trade and Financial Integration -- Capital Markets and Foreign Direct Investment -- Response to Crises -- Development Assistance -- Chapter Four: International Conflict and Peace -- Treaties of Pacific Settlement -- Territorial Changes Resulting from Conflict -- Status of Controls on Weapons of Mass Destruction -- Levels of Conflict -- Ability to Constrain Major War -- Chapter Five: Adherence to Liberal Norms and Values -- Democracy and Liberal Systems -- Human Rights -- Corruption and the Rule of Law -- Economic Growth and Democratic Stability -- Chapter Six: Major-Power Signaling and Policies Toward Order -- Russia -- China -- India -- Brazil -- Conclusion -- Chapter Seven: Public Attitudes Toward Elements of the Order -- Support for the Order's Rules and Institutions -- Support for Trade -- Support for Liberal Norms and Values -- Support for Internationalism -- The Rise of Nationalism -- Chapter Eight: Foundations of Order: Geopolitics and Ideology -- Geopolitical Trends -- Ideological Trends -- Conclusion: Causes for Worry -- Chapter Nine: Summing Up: The State of the Order -- The Importance of Ideas and Beliefs -- Recognizing Danger Signs -- Implications for Policy -- References

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.