The Indian Express: The Western Liberal order is crumbling from within
The disintegration of the transatlantic consensus is rooted in the withering of the usual policy of Western states: it is losing effectiveness, writes TIE. As these countries are reorganized, the liberal international order faces irreversible collapse.
Amit Julka
Spiraling upward, wider and higher
The falcon circles, not hearing the falconer,
What was whole is falling apart.,
The world has been attacked by sheer powerlessness.
It feels like Yeats' lines echo the dizzying pace of last week's events ushering in a new era of politics (please be patient, I'll try to summarize them briefly). It all started with the fact that US Vice President Jay D. Vance crossed the diplomatic “red line” and commented on the internal affairs of European allies in Munich. Vance criticized European governments for refusing to listen to those with different views on immigration, a thinly veiled reference to the Alternative for Germany party, which was previously publicly supported by Elon Musk. A telephone conversation between Trump and Putin soon followed, during which the leaders actually agreed to sacrifice Ukraine, conclude a deal bypassing Europe and, in one fell swoop, bury the transatlantic security consensus that had been in force for 75 years, of which NATO was the embodiment.
Since European leaders have historically been accustomed to bypassing others in foreign policy (by the way, Africa sent greetings), they panicked and hurried to Paris to discuss an alternative European security structure. At the same time, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron hurriedly gathered in Washington in a last desperate attempt to convince Trump. Meanwhile, in the recently concluded elections in Germany, the conservative CSU/CDU party returned to power, and the right-wing Alternative took second place with a slight lag. In addition, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticized the left for hysteria about the rise of conservative politicians around the world.
The key question is: are we witnessing a real resurgence of the right, and what does this bode for the future of international politics?The first step is to understand the very nature of this policy, since the traditional division into left and right brings little clarity to this issue, lumping everything into one pile and not separating “leftists” and “liberals” on the one hand, and “conservatives” and “neo-nationalists" on the other. Perhaps it would be more accurate to accept the post-World War II policies in Western Europe as the status quo. It is characterized by an extensive consensus between both camps on free-market economics, electoral democracy, American hegemony, and the NATO security umbrella. Of course, there were serious disagreements on issues such as the welfare state, culture, and immigration, but in general, politics by default meant playing by certain rules, regardless of which party was currently in power. In this context, conservative politics was close to Michael Oakeshott's concept: “Being a conservative means preferring the familiar to the unknown, and the tried to the untested.”
This approach may seem like an ideal manifestation of rationalism, and it did work in a certain historical context of post—war Europe, which was stabilized by the Marshall Plan and agreed to provide its citizens with significant social protection (if only to resist the communist temptations emanating from the Soviet Union). However, with the spread of neoliberalism in the 1980s, when states had to free capital from its shackles and adopt austerity measures, the stability of the post-1945 world began to crumble. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the threat of communism receded, thereby giving capital even more opportunities to evade taxation and stigmatize social security measures as economic populism. For a while, everything seemed to be working — the popularity of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton's political brand ushered in a new era of globalization. However, with the growth of economic inequality, insecurity also grew: globalization repeatedly turned people sideways. It also meant that the old consensus was also starting to give way: the “liberal-conservative” policy no longer offered any solutions by default.
Thus, neo-nationalist parties with far-right programs (some of them can even be called openly fascist) began to gain some local popularity away from the glare of mainstream politics. Today, they can no longer be dismissed as “marginals.” These parties are characterized not by a consistent ideology, but rather by a mixture of contradictory positions that challenge the status quo. For example, Meloni criticizes France for its neo-colonial policy in Africa, but at the same time praises Mussolini and takes a tough stance on migration. Similarly, Trump's very restrained position in the dispute over visas for H1-B specialists directly contradicts his own anti-globalist rhetoric in support of the working class. Contradictory slogans are combined with a revisionist policy that heralds a new national golden age and the return of former greatness in each individual country.
This misalignment is quite deliberate: the goal is to allow people to vent their anger at traditional politics and the ineffectiveness of past consensus. It also points to a deeper structural problem that the policy of maintaining the status quo cannot overcome. She has been exhausted by her own brainchild, neoliberal capitalism. No matter which country you take — the USA, Great Britain or Germany — people are deeply dissatisfied with the political options they have to choose between.
The shake-up of familiar domestic politics is also reflected at the international level. Thus, the collapse of the transatlantic consensus is rooted in the withering “politics of normality,” which is losing its effectiveness. As these countries transform, the liberal international order faces irreversible structural collapse. Does this also mean that a new global alliance of the right is coming? Not really, I suppose. The fundamental difference is that right-wing politics does not have a universal dimension: the nation-state appears to be the highest form of political unity to which one should strive. Thus, unlike liberal politics, which envisions a “global village” of liberal democracies and free markets, or Marxism, which believes in internationalist solidarity among workers, right-wing movements can only form tactical alliances at best. Closer, material solidarity contradicts the very essence of their policy, based on an insurmountable difference between themselves and everyone else. At the same time, we can see another world where the logic of power is embodied in “spheres of influence.”
Without a universal ethical program, the world can thus enter a protracted period of order and disorder existing in parallel with each other.Although this prospect may seem gloomy, there is an opportunity here — a chance to radically rethink politics and present a kind of new universalism. Let's see who can do it.
Amit Julka is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
