75^th anniversary issue of the journal International Organization

edited by David A. Lake (University of California, San Diego), Lisa Martin (University of Wisconsin, Madison), and Thomas Risse (SCRIPTS)

The liberal international order (LIO) is under challenge, perhaps as never before. The articles in special issue explore the nature of these challenges by examining how the “Westphalian” Order and the Liberal International Order have co-constituted one another over time; how both political and economic dynamics internal to the LIO threaten its core aspects; and the nature of external threats to the LIO. The special issue discusses central challenges to the LIO and reflects on the analytical lessons that we should learn, as the study of the LIO has sometimes overlooked or marginalized dynamics that now appear central to the functioning, and dysfunction, of the order itself.

Among the topics covered in the special issue are the economic causes and consequences of the current backlash, the exclusionary foundations of embedded liberalism, race and racism in the LIO, the challenge of truth subversion to the LIO and the self-undermining features of the global information order. Authors examine struggles for recognition and status and its challenges to the LIO as well as the politicization of international cooperation and China’s rise and its consequences for the LIO. SCRIPTS co-directors Tanja Börzel and Michael Zürn contribute an article on the various contestations of the LIO from liberal multilateralism to postnational liberalism.

The IO special issue is one of the first SCRIPTS publications, since SCRIPTS hosted the second authors’ workshop in June 2019 at Freie Universität Berlin.