Illiberalism and a Multipolar Global Order
Aditya Pratap Singh Phogat: Why illiberal regimes reject liberal hegemony
The phoenix’s wings are torn apart,
By million mites of different shade,
For unjust survival or righteous rage,
Who cares?
Just as long as the bird’s fiery glory decays.
Introduction
The international system as we have known it is in a state of flux. The unipolar liberal world order led by the United States is crumbling in the face of multipolar competition posed by rising great powers such as China, India, and Russia. We live in an era wherein liberal principles are losing ground on both global and domestic levels. Globally, we see the failure of international organisations like the United Nations at preventing the actions of states like Russia that have caused extraordinary human disasters such as those in Ukraine. Domestically, we see democracies like India move away from liberalism in favour of competitive authoritarianism. I contend these two phenomena are inextricably linked to one another. Be it outrightly authoritarian states such as China, Russia and Iran, or democratic states that have now begun to move towards illiberalism such as Turkey and India, all of these states have both a revisionist character and a desire to reshape the international system into a multipolarity, which they have made a central pillar of their foreign policies. It is this connection between illiberalism and multipolarity that I will attempt to investigate through this article.
The Basics: Ends, Ways, and Means
Prima facie, it is possible to understand why states with illiberal governments would want to redefine the international system as a multipolarity through a game of ends, ways, and means. This is a contest rooted in both the relative capabilities of states and their respective domestic attributes.
The fundamental political end for all illiberal regimes is survival, and the philosophy of liberalism threatens this from both national and international levels. Internationally, the status quo has so far been a scenario managed by international organisations such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank that are majorly backed by the United States, a country that, as Henry Kissinger claimed, has the principles of liberalism inherently infused in its foreign policy. Given this, it is very difficult for illiberal governments to conduct their ordinary business with a US-backed liberal order forcing checks-and-balances on their activities every step of the way: an example behind this could be the sanctions the United States has instituted against countries like Iran and Russia in concert with its allies. Domestically, the very philosophy of liberalism strikes a deep fear into the hearts of autocratic governments owing to the fact that it can propagate popular demonstrations and even “colour revolutions” that may oust them out of power. Consequently, it becomes a matter of natural interest for illiberal regimes to strive towards the establishment of both a world order and a national ecosystem wherein liberalism is rejected and shunned, wherein their power can be indefinitely preserved without the normative coercion of this philosophy.
This brings us to the topic of the larger way through which the aforementioned political end can be achieved, which illiberal regimes consider to be multipolarity. Such an ordering of the international system is favourable because it emphasises upon the unitary, sovereign nature of states and removes the possibility of the formation of any enforceable norms that could determine the legitimacy of the actions of an illiberal regime. A multipolarity is also profitable for illiberal regimes because it is open enough to permit collaborative action amongst them for mutual “win-win” benefit such as the Russian PMC deployment in the Central African Republic, wherein private military contractors would secure critical infrastructure and stabilise the government in exchange for access to key mineral resources such as gold and diamond. Most importantly, illiberal regimes posit multipolarity as an answer to the issues the incumbent world order has failed to address, and that only national governments are best attuned to the needs of their respective peoples (regardless of the nature of the government itself). As a matter of fact, this is a policy position that China has explicitly taken through its 2021 White Paper titled, ‘Pursuing Common Values of Humanity – China’s Approach to Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights’ wherein it prioritises sovereignty, emphasises heavily upon the provision of socio-economic opportunities, makes no policy proposals for the provision of civil rights, and disparages liberal democracy for its inability to solve the world’s problems. This conjunction between domestic illiberalism and a joint effort to undo an America-sponsored world order thus forms the heart of our argument.
There are various means revisionist illiberal regimes pursue in order to strike against the status quo powers of the international system. Governments with overlapping interests often cooperate with one-another for mutual benefit and also go so far as to institute alternative global dialogues such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in order to counter liberal international organisations. They are also able to block inquiry into their domestic affairs by exploiting loopholes in the existing world order, an example of this being China’s usage of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter to block investigative efforts into alleged human rights violations in its Xinjiang region. More aggressive states with greater resources go so far as to conduct “sharp power” action against democracies in order to destabilise them. An example of this would be China’s 2018 disinformation campaign against Taiwan following the carnage of Typhoon Jebi, wherein a purportedly Taiwanese news agency with links to the CCP was responsible for circulating fake information on social media portraying Taiwan as incapable of helping stranded citizens in a disaster in contrast while presenting a comparatively efficient Chinese rescue. Mass proliferation of the incident by social media was such that the false information brought great discredit upon the Taiwanese government, and resulted in a diplomat taking his own life out of shame. Ultimately, all measures are directed towards weakening the legitimacy of the practice of liberalism, and so far, the ‘Illiberal International’ are greatly successful in this endeavour.
An Illiberal State or an Illiberal People?
So far, this article has only considered why multipolarity is an enticing proposition for illiberal regimes without considering the positions of the people they supposedly represent. This would be a mistake, because illiberal regimes are often supported by their respective populations. The common misconception of leaders being unpopular because they are illiberal, because they do not respect civil liberties, is something that must be dispelled. Granted, while illiberal governments frame the issue of multipolarity in a certain fashion in order to maintain legitimacy and remain in power, cultural differences and historical grievances held by a people also make the case for a “national” system of governance that resonates with a state’s own “culture”. Putin, as an example, is able to maintain his popularity on the backs of hypernationalism and the importance he publicly assigns to traditional Russian values. China explicitly rejects Western conceptions of government on the basis of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial values it has come into possession of after its “century of humiliation.” As a matter of fact, India is an extremely illiberal state owing to the fact that it is reasonably democratic and has constitutional provisions that warrant the withdrawal of fundamental rights on grounds of public order, morality, and the security of the state. This means that as the Indian government censures civil rights, jails academics, kicks out international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, and ignores bodies such as the United Nations, it can claim to have done so in accordance to statute passed by an elected Parliament, in the name of the Indian people that wish to preserve their way of life without being told what to do the way they were under British rule. As the people of this South Asian republic reject constitutional liberalism and multipluralism today in favour of hypernationalism that is centered on the premise of a single “Indian” identity, we see similar robust trends arising in traditionally liberal European states such as France and Germany with the increasing popularity of far-right political parties such as the le Rassemblement National and der Alternative für Deutschland Consequently, it may be contended that while the transition of the world from an America-led liberal world order to a multipolarity is being caused by illiberal regimes, the illiberal regimes themselves find their support base in populations that attach a great degree of value to their respective civilisational constructions. The political scientist Samuel Huntington, who postulated a “clash of civilisations” in the early years of post-Cold War unipolarity, argued that the nature of discord itself would shift from the traditional conflict between states to conflict between peoples, cultures, and ideologies.
The world today is divided on similar lines, and so are nations. What is to be done? Will liberalism continue to be an authority that distinguishes between right from wrong, and attempt to keep the world together at the risk of homogenising it? Or will endemic strongmen seize the reins and divide it instead? Liberalism appears to be losing this contest.
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