Introduction: Liberal World Order

The current liberal order is fading and has failed to deliver on some of its most fundamental promises. Yet, rather than taking flight from liberal order, this book suggests that liberal orders in the past always have been historically constituted and institutionally contested. Although liberal order's current crisis is not disputed, it suggests that the crisis has partly been constituted by the specific account of liberal order offered by 'new liberalism', which in its quest for a scientific method has shorn liberalism - and with it liberal order - of its critical and normative potential. The observation places liberal order's alleged crisis in a new light, where attention to liberal values and ordering practices invite consideration of those aspects of liberal order that are resilient and enduring.