2020 |
Babic, M Let’s talk about the interregnum: Gramsci and the crisis of the Liberal World Order Journal Article In: International Affairs, vol. 96, no. 3, pp. 767-786, 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: crisis, Globalization, Gramsci, international political economy, International Politics, international relations, liberal world order @article{Babic2019,The liberal international order (LIO) is in crisis. Numerous publications, debates and events have made it time and again clear that we are in the midst of a grand transformation of world order. While most contributions focus either on what is slowly dying (the LIO) or what might come next (China, multipolarity, chaos?), there is less analytical engagement with what lies in between those two phases of world order. Under the assumption that this period could last years or even decades, a set of analytical tools to understand this interregnum is urgently needed. This paper proposes an analytical framework that builds on Gramscian crisis concepts that will help understanding the current crisis of the LIO in a more systematic way. It adds to a gap in the literature on changing world order by elaborating three Gramsci-inspired crisis characteristics - processuality, organicity and morbidity - that sketch the current crisis landscape in a systematic way. Building on this framework, the paper suggests different empirical entry points to the study of the crisis of the LIO and calls for a research agenda that takes this crisis seriously as a distinct period of changing world orders. |