Researcher Cornelia Baciu has co-edited a new Special Issue in Politics and Governance
CMS Researcher Cornelia Baciu has co-edited a new Special Issue of the journal Politics and Governance in cooperation with Falk Ostermann and Wolfgang Wagner. The Special Issue explores how liberal interventionism – understood as the use of armed force to advance liberal norms and values – is in a crisis and is being weakened both from within and without.
It argues that the crisis of liberal interventionism has unraveled differently than previously understood. In countries of the Global North, it stretched out in different ways, depending on the political culture, party/coalition in power, or institutional path dependencies. In countries of the Global South, mandate‐specific benchmarks, in addition to the neglect of local agencies by both interveners and domestic elites, produced unintended consequences and a backlash effect.
The Special Issue contributes to a better understanding of the crisis of liberal interventionism by unpacking the global fragmentation of collective security instruments, patterns and conditions of foreign policy change in liberal democracies, intervention failure in Afghanistan, alternative forms of interventionism like the one of the Wagner Group, international orientation change through the Zeitenwende, or counter‐terrorism and deterrence postures. To conclude, the thematic issue critically investigates whether singing the swansong of liberal interventionism is premature.
You can read more about the Special Issue and access the articles here.
See also: In July 2022, Centre for Military Studies co-hosted a workshop on the crisis of liberal interventionism. The workshop was financed by the Carlsberg Foundation.
Read more about the workshop and watch the videos from the contributors here.