Liberal theory, liberal context and the G20

The emergence of the liberal international order (LIO) after World War II, and its significant reconfiguration after the end of the Cold War, has been driven by rising liberal economic and political forces. These strong liberal currents during the Cold War gathered even greater momentum after the geopolitical divisions between East and West melted away.1 Only with the ‘Rise of the Rest’, and in particular the ‘Rise of China’, the resurgence of a more aggressive Russia, and most dramatically the shock of a presidential election victory in the United States (US) by Donald Trump, and his ‘America First’ actions, have we come to suspect that the LIO is no longer assured. This, then, is a story of the liberal forces that have carried the LIO forward since the end of World War II. I recognize that there are distinctions to be made in the Liberal Order. For me, the Liberal Order is made up of liberal democratic countries only. It is what John Ikenberry (2018), one of the best-known chroniclers of the LIO has referred to as the ‘small and thick’ vision of Liberal Order. In contrast, the LIO includes a wide variety of states that are liberal democratic, but also includes states that are illiberal and indeed in some instances authoritarian as well. Nevertheless, the system is built on global market forces, relatively open markets and International Organizations (IOs) and increasingly sub-state and non-state actors (NSAs). Ikenberry (2018) refers to this architecture of international relations as a ‘large and thin’ version of liberal internationalism. Both systems have existed but in the post-Cold War era a thin version of liberal internationalism, what is referred to here as the LIO, has emerged dominant. The expansion of the LIO after the end of the Cold War, as we will see, is not just a narrative of states. A significant variety of actors have come to have a part in advancing the collective efforts of the LIO. Intergovernmental institutions, in particular, have been a critical part of the architecture of the LIO. These institutions, notably the United Nations (UN), the Bretton Woods institutions, the alliance systems in