This article asks whether Western democracies still possess the domestic political support needed to sustain liberal internationalism. Using cross‑national data on 24 industrialized democracies and hundreds of parties, the authors trace trends since the end of the Cold War and document a widening gap between governments' international ambitions and domestic party-level capacity to back them. They argue mainstream pro‑integration parties have lost ground to both radical-left and anti‑globalist radical‑right parties, and they consider what this means for the liberal international order.
Cross‑national party-level data, twenty‑five year trend, focus on liberal internationalism, party competition between radical-left and radical-right
Data and methods
The study draws on “an array of cross‑national data for twenty‑four industrialized democracies and hundreds of political parties,” examining party positions and electoral outcomes over roughly twenty‑five years beginning after the Cold War. The abstract presents a comparative, party‑level empirical approach to measure domestic backing for liberal internationalism across these democracies.
Main findings
According to the abstract, the authors find that domestic support for liberal internationalism has been receding for twenty‑five years across the West, producing “a large and widening gap” between Western governments’ international ambitions and the domestic political capacity to sustain them. The abstract highlights electoral gains for parties on the radical‑left and the anti‑globalist radical‑right as the main vehicles of this backlash.
- Mainstream pro‑integration parties have reportedly lost electoral ground.
- Electoral advances by radical‑left and anti‑globalist radical‑right parties are emphasized as drivers of the retreat.
What the authors discuss next
The abstract indicates the authors discuss implications for the Western liberal international order and outline strategies that might be used to repair that order, but it does not specify those strategies or their evaluated effectiveness.
