Ininternational relations, theliberal international order (LIO), also known as therules-based order (RBO), consists of a set of global, rule-based, structured relationships based onpolitical liberalism,economic liberalism andliberal internationalism since the late 1940s.^[1] More specifically, it entails international cooperation throughmultilateral institutions (like theUnited Nations,World Trade Organization andInternational Monetary Fund) and is constituted byhuman equality (freedom, rule of law and human rights),open markets,security cooperation, promotion ofliberal democracy, andmonetary cooperation.^[1][2][3] The order was established in the aftermath ofWorld War II, led in large part by theUnited States.^[1][4]

The nature of the LIO, as well as its very existence, has been debated by scholars.^[5][6][7][1] The LIO has been credited with expandingfree trade, increasingcapital mobility,spreading democracy, promotinghuman rights, and collectively defending theWestern world from theSoviet Union.^[1] The LIO facilitated unprecedented cooperation among the states ofNorth America,Western Europe andJapan.^[1] Over time, the LIO facilitated the spread of economic liberalism to the rest of the world, as well as helped consolidate democracy in formerly fascist or communist countries.^[1]

Origins of the LIO have commonly been identified as the 1940s, usually starting in 1945,^[1] with some scholars pointing to earlier agreements between the WWII-eraAllies such as theAtlantic Charter in 1941.^[8]John Mearsheimer has dissented with this view, arguing that the LIO only arose after the end of theCold War.^[9] Core founding members of the LIO include the states of North America, Western Europe and Japan; these states form asecurity community.^[1] The characteristics of the LIO have varied over time.^[1] Some scholars refer to a Cold War variation of the LIO largely limited to the West, and a post-Cold War variation having a more widespread scope and giving international institutions more powers.^[10]

Aspects of the LIO are challenged within liberal states bypopulism,protectionism andnativism,^{[11][12][9][13][14][15]} as well as growing hostility byconservatives to the LIO.^[16] Scholars have argued thatembedded liberalism (or the logics inherent in theDouble Movement) are key to maintaining public support for the planks of the LIO; some scholars have raised questions whether aspects of embedded liberalism have been undermined, thus leading to a backlash against the LIO.^{[17][18][13][19]}

Externally, the LIO is challenged byauthoritarian states,illiberal states, andstates that are discontented with their roles in world politics.^{[9][20][21][22][23][24]} China, Russia,Iran,North Korea and theUnited States have been characterized as prominent challengers to the LIO.^{[25][9][21][22][26][27][28]} Some scholars have argued that the LIO contains self-undermining aspects that could trigger backlash or collapse.^[20][27]

Minimalist definitions of the LIO characterize it as "open and rules-based international order" while maximalist definitions include liberal social purpose, economic and political rights, and democratic decision-making procedures.^[29]

David Lake,Lisa Martin andThomas Risse define "order" as "patterned or structured relationships among units". Interactions in the LIO are structured by rules, norms and decision-making procedures. They note that the LIO is not synonymous with a "rule-based international order", as non-liberal rule-based orders may exist (such as theWestphalian order).^[1][30] Others refer to the LIO as the rules-based international order (RBIO),^[31] or the rules-based order (RBO).^[30]

Lake, Martin and Risse define "liberal" as a belief in the universal equality of individuals, as well as individual and collective freedoms.Political liberalism entails the rule of law, and the sovereign equality of states, as well as protections for human rights, political rights and civil liberties.Economic liberalism entails free market-oriented policies.Liberal internationalism entails principled multilateralism and global governance.^[1]

Michael Barnett defines an international order as "patterns of relating and acting" derived from and maintained by rules, institutions, law and norms.^[32] International orders have both a material and social component.^[32] Legitimacy (the generalized perception that actions are desirable, proper or appropriate) is essential to political orders.^[32][33] George Lawson has defined an international order as "regularized practices of exchange among discrete political units that recognize each other to be independent."^[34] John Mearsheimer defines an international order as "an organized group of international institutions that help govern the interactions among the member states."^[9]

InAfter Victory (2001),John Ikenberry defines a political order as "the governing arrangements among a group of states, including its fundamental rules, principles and institutions." Political orders are established when the basic organizing arrangements are set up, and they break down when the basic organizing arrangements are overturned, contested or in disarray. He defines a constitutional international order as a political order "organized around agreed-upon legal and political institutions that operate to allocate rights and limit the exercise of power." There are four main core elements of constitutional orders:

1. Shared agreement about the rules of the game within the order
2. Rules and institutions that bind and limit the exercise of power
3. Institutional autonomy from special interests
4. The entrenchment of these rules and institutions with a broader, immutable political system.^[35]

In 2018, Ikenberry defined the liberal international order as:^[36]

multilayered, multifaceted, and not simply a political formation imposed by the leading state. International order is not “one thing” that states either join or resist. It is an aggregation of various sorts of ordering rules and institutions. There are the deep rules and norms of sovereignty... There is a sprawling array of international institutions, regimes, treaties, agreements, protocols, and so forth. These governing arrangements cut across diverse realms, including security and arms control, the world economy, the environment and global commons, human rights, and political relations. Some of these domains of governance may have rules and institutions that narrowly reflect the interests of the hegemonic state, but most reflect negotiated outcomes based on a much broader set of interests.

Charles Glaser has disputed the analytical value of the concept of the LIO, arguing that the concept is so broad and vague that "almost any international situation qualifies as an international order, so long as its members accept the sovereignty norm."^[37] Some critics of the LIO, such asJohn Mearsheimer, have argued that liberaldemocracy promotion andhyper-globalization are elements of the LIO.^[9]

Jeff Colgan has characterized the liberal international order as the theme that unites multiple subsystems in the international system.^[38] These subsystems can experience drastic change without fundamentally changing the liberal international order.^[38]

The debate about liberal international order has grown especially prominent in International Relations.^[39]Daniel Deudney andJohn Ikenberry list five components of this international order: security co-binding, in which great powers demonstrate restraint; the open nature of US hegemony and the dominance of reciprocal transnational relations; the presence of self-limiting powers like Germany and Japan; the availability of mutual gains due to "the political foundations of economic openness"; and the role of Western "civil identity."^[40] According toCharles Glaser, there are five key mechanisms in the LIO: "democracy, hierarchy built on legitimate authority, institutional binding, economic interdependence, and political convergence."^[37]

The more supportive views of scholars such as Ikenberry have drawn criticism from scholars who have examined the imperial and colonial legacies of liberal international institutions.^[41][42] The contributions of non-Western actors to the formation of the liberal international order have also recently gained attention from scholars advancing global International Relations theory.^[43] In the case of Latin America, for example, "From as far back as the 1860s, Latin American jurists have made prominent contributions to international jurisprudence, the ‘mortar’ that binds international order. [...] However, in other ways, historically the LIO has been—and remains—superficial in its reach in Latin America."^[44] According to Abrahamsen, Andersen, and Sending, the contemporary liberal international order includes the legacy of "southern actors" in Africa and Asia advocating the process ofdecolonization.^[45]

International organizations play a central role in the liberal order. TheWorld Trade Organization, for example, creates and implements free trade agreements, while theWorld Bank provides aid todeveloping countries. The order is also premised on the notion that liberal trade andfree markets will contribute to global prosperity and peace. Critics argue that free trade has sometimes led to social problems such as inequality and environmental degradation.^[46]

Post-Cold War, some consider international agreements on issues such as climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and upholding initiatives in maritime law (UNCLOS) to constitute elements of the LIO.^[47][48] TheEuropean Union is often considered a major example of the liberal international order put into effect in terms of international agreements between the constituent countries.^[49][50]

Others argue that weak states played a central role in shaping the liberal international order.^[51][33] Marcos Tourinho argues that weak states used the three strategies of "resistance", "community" and "norms" to push back on U.S. dominance during the construction of the liberal international order, thus ensuring that the order did not just reflect U.S. interests.^[51]Martha Finnemore argues that unipolarity does not just entail a material superiority by the unipole, but also a social structure whereby the unipole maintains its status through legitimation, and institutionalization. In trying to obtain legitimacy from the other actors in the international system, the unipole necessarily gives those actors a degree of power. The unipole also obtains legitimacy and wards off challenges to its power through the creation of institutions, but these institutions also entail a diffusion of power away from the unipole.^[33] David Lake has argued along similar lines that legitimacy and authority are key components of international order.^[52][53] Abrahamsen suggested thatmiddle powers also benefit from liberal internationalism. By investing in the maintenance of multilateral institutions, moderate powers can collectively advocate for their self-interest, counterbalancinggreat power politics. Supporting liberal internationalism is thus a form ofrealpolitik for middle powers.^[45]

Realist critics of the LIO includeJohn Mearsheimer, Patrick Porter andCharles Glaser. Mearsheimer has argued that the LIO is bound to fail due to the pushback it faces internally within liberal states and externally by non-liberal states.^[9] Porter has argued that the LIO was actually a coercive order and that it was not liberal.^[54] Glaser has argued that the balance of power theory, bargaining theory and neo-institutional theories better explain NATO than mechanisms associated with the LIO.^[37]

Aaron McKeil of theLondon School of Economics finds realist criticism of liberal order insufficient. He argues that the alternative foreign policies offered by realists as "restraint" and "offshore balancing" would be more generative of proxy wars and would fail to offer the level of institutions required for managing great power competition and international challenges.^[55]

Inderjeet Parmar has argued that the LIO is "imperialism by another name" and that it promotes a class-based, white elitist and racist hegemony over the rest of the world.^[56] According toAmitav Acharya, the LIO is often perceived outside of the West as a narrow ideological, economic, and strategic system that promotes the interests and culture of Western nations at the expense of their own local cultural languages, identities, and religions.^[57] Gellwitzki and Moulton complement these critiques by arguing that the LIO endures through institutionalized political myths, such as liberal values, sovereignty, and Western leadership.^[58] These confer legitimacy and guide state behavior, but while influential in the West, they have lost significance elsewhere.

John Dugard of theLeiden Law School has argued that the concept of the rules-based international order (RBO) operates in tension with international law and has often been used to advance Western interests. Dugard argues that RBO rests on tacit agreements between only a handful of Western states which other states have not endorsed and that its amorphous nature makes it easier for Western countries, particularly the United States, to justify special treatment for their actions when they violate international law.^[59] According to Jeremy Garlick of the Prague University of Business and Economics, in the eyes ofdeveloping countries, the United States practices double standards when it argues for a rules-based international order while simultaneously failing to sign on to international agreements such as the UN Convention of the Law of the Seas.^[60]: 153

China, Russia and (since late 2025) the United States have been characterized as the most threatening states to the LIO.^[61][62][63]

During the second presidency ofDonald Trump, the United States has pursued a campaign to annex Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and whose citizens are also citizens of the European Union. This has triggered a confrontation between the United States on one side, and Denmark, the European Union and severalNATO members on the other.

On 3 January 2026,US forces abducted the Venezuelan president and his wife during a large-scale strike on the country’s capital, with Trump saying the US will "run" Venezuela and is "not afraid of boots on the ground". A week later, the US withdrew from 66 international organisations and Trump told the New York Times "I don’t need international law".

These actions have been described by academics and commentators as deliberate steps towards ending a rules-based world order in favour of one where great powers have spheres of influence.^[64][65][66]

In a widely acclaimed and discussedspeech at the World Economic Forum in January 2026, Canadian Prime MinisterMark Carney described a "rupture" in the rules-based international order, which was always "partially false" as the "strongest would exempt themselves when convenient". He stated that the world is now in an era of great power rivalry and that "great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited".^[67][68]

Some see China as a potential challenger to the liberal order. According to Darren Lim andJohn Ikenberry, China seeks an international order that protects its illiberal domestic political and economic model.^[69] Scholars cite initiatives such as theAsian Infrastructure Investment Bank andOne Belt One Road Initiative as institutions that appear to compete with existing liberal international institutions.^[70] Van Niewenhuizen is categorical thatXi Jinping, thenGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, seeks to supplant the LIO. According to political scientistThomas Ambrosio, one aim of theShanghai Cooperation Organisation was to ensure thatliberal democracy could not gain ground in these countries, promotingauthoritarian norms inCentral Asia.^[71]

Rühlig asks in his March 2018 paper why China under Xi would seek to change a system by which it earns enormous profit.^[72][73]

Nisha Mary Mathew contends that China's relationship with Iran is driven not only by economics, but by a desire to see an international order not dominated by the U.S. and its allies.^[74]

China contends that the U.S. violates the international order, sometimes citing the2003 United States invasion of Iraq as an example.^[75]: 62 On the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, theMinistry of Foreign Affairs of China stated that the US' bypassing of the UN Security Council violated the norms of the UN Charter, and "facts have demonstrated that any discourse on a 'rules based international order' that excludes the United Nations and international law is merely a façade for the principle of 'might makes right' and the law of the jungle."^{[75]: 62–63}

Publishing in 2024, academics Xinru Ma and David C. Kang observe that U.S. scholars who contend that China does not accept the RBO rarely consider it an issue that the U.S. also often ignores these same rules.^[76]: 190

Many scholars agree that theRussian Federation underVladimir Putin seeks to undermine the liberal international order.^[77][78] Various viewpoints have been developed on the subject. The first is that Russia is a "revanchist power" seeking to completely overturn international diplomacy, the second is that Russia is a "defensive power" that seeks to push incremental change in the existing order, and the third is that Russia is an "aggressive isolationist", with Putin playing a "spoiler role" in international affairs to boost legitimacy domestically.^[77]

Political sociologistLarry Diamond argues that Putin's assault on liberal democracy is exemplified by the2008 military intervention for the enclaves ofAbkhazia andSouth Ossetia against independentGeorgia, Russian support forViktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, and theRussian military intervention in Ukraine bytroops without insignia in 2014.^[78] Putin has been accused of giving financial support to far-right ornational populist parties across Europe.^[79][78] For example, theNational Front (now National Rally) obtained a 9 million euro loan from a Russian bank in 2014.^[78][80] Larry Diamond argues this influenced the policy of the National Front such asMarine Le Pen's support for theannexation of Crimea.^[78]

The2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and a widespread response against the invasion has led to renewed discussion of the liberal international order.^{[81][82][83][84]} Political scientist Lucan Way writes that the invasion has inadvertently strengthened the liberal international order in opposition, with the full-scale Russian invasion being a more conspicuously imperialistic challenge to sovereignty than smaller-scalefrozen conflicts and political interferences. Way says that blocs such as the European Union will have more unified action while being currently pillars in the liberal international order.^[81] Samir Saran, head of theDelhi-basedObserver Research Foundation, says that a renewed emphasis in the liberal international order offers new opportunities for the international community, but hopes that the LIO should maintain interest in global issues after the security crisis in Europe.^[83]Edward Luce says the invasion is a serious threat to the international order because, "should Putin succeed, it would legitimise the law of the jungle, where large countries can annex smaller ones with impunity." At the same time, Luce suggests different terminology should be used besides "liberal international order" due to what he says is the selective nature of diplomacy.^[84]Kori Schake argues that the Russian invasion has provoked a Western response which strengthens thetransatlantic alliance, a main component of the LIO, yet has also involved a global response, with the largest partner being Japan. Schake suggests that Ukraine's own defense is a new strengthening element to the LIO, by showing a stark contrast between liberalism and authoritarianism.^[82]

John Mearsheimer argues that the US-led liberal international order emerged in 1991 after the break-up of theSoviet Union, when theUnited States became the only superpower in the world. The absence of any other power capable of challenging the US hegemony resulted in numerous illiberal activities (e.g.bombing on Yugoslavia in 1999,Afghanistan in 2001,Iraq in 2003–2011 and in 2014,Libya in 2011 and in2015–2019) initiated by the United States under false pretences.^[85] However, these wars have "failed to spread democracy or produce international stability", and instead they "antagonized the forces of nationalism and realist counter-hegemonic power politics".^[86] TheRussian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was notable as perhaps the first time thatNATO and its allies failed to achieve their goals, potentially symbolizing the end of the unipolar moment of liberal hegemony and the beginning of a newinternational order, which may or may not be multipolar.^[87]

• BRICS
• Cosmopolitan democracy
• European Union
• European integration
• Global citizenship
• Hegemony
• Institutional liberalism
• Liberal democratic basic order
• Liberal internationalism
• Liberalism (international relations)
• Major non-NATO ally
• Multilateralism
• New International Economic Order
• Perpetual peace
• Polarity
• Spheres of influence
• The Fourth Political Theory
• Western culture

• Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order byJohn J. Mearsheimer
• The Rules-Based International Order: A Historical Analysis by Marc Trachtenberg
• A World Imagined: Nostalgia and Liberal Order By Patrick Porter
• There's No Such Thing as 'the' Liberal World Order by Michael Lind
• Asia after the liberal international order by Amitav Acharya
• Misreading the “Liberal Order” by Paul Staniland
• Paeans to the ‘Postwar Order’ Won’t Save Us by Stephen Wertheim
• Why the West should stop talking about the “rules-based order” by Jerome Roos
• The Myth of the Liberal international order by Hans Kundnani
• Robert Keohane. 1984.After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton University Press.
• John Ikenberry. 2001.After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars. Princeton University Press.
• Patrick J. Hearden. 2002Architects of Globalism: Building a New World Order During World War II, Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press.
• Latin America and the liberal international order by Tom Long
• Ordering the world? Liberal internationalism in theory and practice, edited by G. John Ikenberry, Inderjeet Parmar, Doug Stokes
• Kyle M. Lascurettes and Michael Poznansky. 2021. "International Order in Theory and Practice." in theOxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies.

• Will Current World Order Survive Without US Power? by Rajesh Rajagopalan
• How do you solve a problem like the liberal international order? byJeet Heer
• The Amnesia of the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment by John Glaser
• Mourning a phantom: the cherished “rules-based order” never existed byHelen Thompson
• The ‘Liberal World Order’ Was Built With Blood byVincent Bevins
• Welcome back to 1945: The liberal world order was always a myth by Aris Roussinos
• Trump’s bombing proves ‘the global order’ was just power politics all along. Now? Welcome to the jungle by Bernard Keane
• The myth of the US-led rules-based international liberal order and the Gaza genocide by Umur Tugay Yücel

• International relations
• Liberalism
• Multilateral relations
• International security
• International relations terminology
• International relations theory
• Democracy promotion
• Western culture

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