S0020818320000636jra 225..257

As International Organization commemorates its seventy-fifth anniversary, the Liberal International Order (LIO) that authors in this journal have long analyzed is under challenge, perhaps as never before. The articles in this issue explore the nature of these challenges by examining how the Westphalian order and the LIO have co-constituted one another over time; how both political and economic dynamics internal to the LIO threaten its core aspects; and how external threats combine with these internal dynamics to render the LIO more fragile than ever before. This introduction begins by defining and clarifying what is “liberal,” “international,” and “orderly” about the LIO. It then discusses some central challenges to the LIO, illustrated by the contributors to this issue as well as other sources. Finally, we reflect on the analytical lessons we have learned—or should learn—as the study of the LIO, represented by scholarship in International Organization, has sometimes overlooked or marginalized dynamics that now appear central to the functioning, and dysfunction, of the order itself. The Liberal International Order (LIO) has structured relations among capitalist, democratic, and industrialized nations since the late 1940s; it has also influenced international affairs in general. It is now being challenged in multiple and wide-reaching ways: populist, nationalist, and antiglobalist movements within its core members; the rise of peer competitors with different, more state-centered economies and authoritarian political systems; and the threats of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic that exacerbate other challenges to the LIO. This is not the first time the postwar LIO has faced difficulties, of course. Like Mark Twain’s death, rumors of the demise of the LIO have been greatly exaggerated. The LIO has proven resilient in the past, and it may prove to be so once more. Yet, the combination of internal and external challenges suggests that this time might be different. International Organization (IO) grew up alongside the LIO, first as almost a journal of record describing events at the United Nations and its related institutions and, later, as a venue for some of the most innovative and important scholarship on this order. Many of the key concepts used to interpret the LIO first appeared or received serious scholarly attention in the pages of this journal: transnational relations; hegemony; domestic structures; international regimes; embedded liberalism; multilateralism; international norms; the function and design of international institutions; the process of legalization; socialization. The journal has long been a premier outlet for the study of economic interdependence, alliances, war, human rights, the European Union, and other substantive issues central to the LIO. International Organization 75, Spring 2021, pp. 225–57 © The IO Foundation 2021 doi:10.1017/S0020818320000636 h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 1 7 / S 0 0 2 0 8 1 8 3 2 0 0 0 0 6 3 6 D o w n l o a d e d f r o m h t t p s : / / w w w . c a m b r i d g e . o r g / c o r e . I P a d d r e s s : 7 0 . 9 5 . 6 7 . 9 2 , o n 2 3 M a y 2 0 2 1 a t 1 5 : 1 7 : 2 6 , s u b j e c t t o t h e C a m b r i d g e C o r e t e r m s o f u s e , a v a i l a b l e a t h t t p s : / / w w w . c a m b r i d g e . o r g / c o r e / t e r m s .