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Inter-Imperiality and the Crisis of the Global Order

Europe (Central and Eastern)
International Relations
Political Theory
Global
Identity
Negotiation
Liberalism
Andreea Tănasie
European University Institute
Andreea Tănasie
European University Institute

Abstract

Much of the literature addressing the crisis of the contemporary global order relies on distinctions between internal and external challenges to the order, oftentimes the discussion being about the liberal international order (LIO). These distinctions tend to be framed through a rather inconclusive East/West Cold War lens or a Global North–Global South perspective, both rooted in the assumption that the global liberal order is more or less stable in its procedural commitments and structured around so-called cores and peripheries, which impose and entrench structures of power and domination. While such frameworks can be analytically useful in specific cases, they risk neglecting the complex dynamics that emerge from semi-peripheral regions, where constant negotiation between the benefits of the core and the invisibilities of the periphery is most evident. The main objective of this paper is to center the semi-periphery in discussions about the global order and to offer both a corrective to, and a complication of, the dominant narrative of stability that underpins much of the existing literature. It does so by examining the legacy of ‘imperial difference’ between former European empires and their subjects as a semi-peripheral driver of contemporary global disorder. It critically interrogates the imperial logics still operating in the modern world to uncover what they reveal about the nature of the crisis of the global order. The analysis draws on the inter-imperial approach theorised by Laura Doyle and further developed by Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatcă. More precisely, the paper argues that the contemporary politically salient recognition struggles stemming from the semi-peripheral regions marked by imperial legacies reveal dynamics of order and disorder still underexplored in the literature on the changing global orders. One illustration is related to the very understanding of the moral and political dilemmas raised by what liberalism and, by extension, by what the liberal order is and/or should be, which takes different forms in different political and cultural environments. This is also linked to the overall question of how the changing global order affects marginalised political actors and how they can be included in thinking about it. Finally, while the paper primarily engages with theoretical questions, it also grounds its argument in the cases of Eastern Europe and Eurasia – regions historically defined by ‘imperial difference’, where the violence of imperialist intervention is still present.