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

Journal article

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.

Authors: Whitehead, L

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Journal of Asian and African Studies
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 10-24
• Publication date: 2026-01-29
• DOI: 10.1177/00219096251380760
• EISSN: 1745-2538
• ISSN: 0021-9096
• Language: English
• Keywords: liberalism; metanarrative; overreach; unravelling; unipolarity; Convergence