[5][6][7][1] The LIO has been credited with expanding free trade, increasing capital mobility, spreading democracy, promoting human rights, and collectively defending the West from the Soviet Union.
[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.
[8] John Mearsheimer has dissented with this view, arguing that the LIO only arose after the end of the Cold War, since in his theory liberal international order is possible only in a unipolar World.
[1] Michael Barnett defines an international order as "patterns of relating and acting" derived from and maintained by rules, institutions, law and norms.
[31][32] George Lawson has defined an international order as "regularized practices of exchange among discrete political units that recognize each other to be independent.
"[9] In After Victory (2001), John Ikenberry defines a political order as "the governing arrangements among a group of states, including its fundamental rules, principles and institutions."
In 2018, Ikenberry defined the liberal international order as:[35]multilayered, multifaceted, and not simply a political formation imposed by the leading state.
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.
[38] Daniel Deudney and John 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.
"[39] According to Charles Glaser, there are five key mechanisms in the LIO: "democracy, hierarchy built on legitimate authority, institutional binding, economic interdependence, and political convergence.
"[43] According to Abrahamsen, Andersen, and Sending, the contemporary liberal international order includes the legacy of "southern actors" in Africa and Asia advocating the process of decolonization.
[45] 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.
According to Darren Lim and John Ikenberry, China seeks an international order that protects its illiberal domestic political and economic model.
According to political scientist Thomas Ambrosio, one aim of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was to ensure that liberal democracy could not gain ground in these countries, promoting authoritarian norms in Central Asia.
[63][64] 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.
[65] 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.
[68][70] Larry Diamond argues this influenced the policy of the National Front such as Marine Le Pen's support for the annexation of Crimea.
[73] 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."
[72] John Mearsheimer argues, that the US-lead liberal international order emerged in 1991 after the break-up of the Soviet Union, when the USA 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, Afganistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003-2011 and in 2014, Libya in 2011 and in 2015–2019) initiated by the United States under false pretences.
[75] 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".
[76] The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was notable as perhaps the first time that NATO and its allies failed to achieve their goals, potentially symbolizing the end of the unipolar moment of liberal hegemony and the beginning of a new International order, which may or may not be multipolar.