What is it about?
What happens to small state diplomacy when this order is weakened or even falls apart? This book chapter provides a bottom up reading of the debate on the Liberal International Order as seen from the vantage point of small states. Building on this bottom-up deconstruction of the liberal international order debate, I reconstruct the crisis of the liberal international order from a small state perspective. The small states narrative allows us to free arguments on the nature and consequences of the crisis from its current great power bias and identify an alternative set of challenges and opportunities. Building on the discussions in the chapter, I outline what future to expect for small states after the liberal international order.
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Why is it important?
For small states, the liberal international order is a mixed bag of beneficial and adverse consequences, but for all small states, the liberal international order has changed the structural conditions for foreign policymaking and facilitated a shift in focus from securing survival to seeking influence. Consequently, the crisis and potential breakdown of the Liberal International Order poses a serious challenges to small states in world politics.
Perspectives
Living in a small state with an open economy and a high degree of security dependence on the United States and growing up in world where international institutions seemed to become more and more important, the current crisis in the international order has made me think deeply about how small states are effected by the crisis and how they may navigate a future that is more dominated by great power politics.
Dr. Anders Wivel
University of Copenhagen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Small States in a Post-Liberal International Order, November 2025, JSTOR,
DOI: 10.2307/jj.27299998.6.
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