The Crisis of Liberal Interventionism and the Return of War

Cornelia Baciu, Falk Ostermann and Wolfgang Wagner
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Cornelia Baciu: Centre for Military Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Falk Ostermann: Institute of Social Sciences, Kiel University, Germany
Wolfgang Wagner: Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Politics and Governance, 2024, vol. 12

Abstract: Liberal interventionism is in crisis, being weakened both from within and without. From Kabul to Kyiv and beyond, the contributions to our thematic issue reveal that the crisis of liberal interventionism has unraveled differently than previously understood. In countries of the Global North, it stretched out in different ways, depending on the political culture, party/coalition in power, or institutional path dependencies. In countries of the Global South, mandate-specific benchmarks in addition to the neglect of local agencies by both interveners and domestic elites, produced unintended consequences and a backlash effect. The articles in this thematic issue contribute to a better understanding of the crisis of liberal interventionism by unpacking the global fragmentation of collective security instruments, patterns and conditions of foreign policy change in liberal democracies, intervention failure in Afghanistan, alternative forms of interventionism like the one of the Wagner Group, international orientation change through the Zeitenwende, or counter-terrorism and deterrence postures. To conclude, the thematic issue critically investigates whether singing the swansong of liberal interventionism is premature.

Keywords: Afghanistan; crisis; liberal interventionism; Ukraine; war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v12:y:2024:a:7865

DOI: 10.17645/pag.7865

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