Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza, Trump's attacks on multilateralism and free trade, and most recently the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran: many observers argue that we are witnessing a historic rupture in the liberal international order. Indeed, the fundamental principles of that order are under considerable pressure. What we are seeing are deep contestations—challenges that do not merely question individual rules or policies but the order itself. Yet contestation is not inherently problematic. On the contrary, normal contestation is constructive and even constitutive of liberal orders, as it enables their adaptation and renewal. It is therefore key to the order’s resilience. Deep contestations, by contrast, challenge the legitimacy and foundations of the order as such. In a recent publication we argue that these developments do not necessarily imply the end of the rules-based international order, as is often claimed. Norms do not die easily and rules to not disappear into thin air. Both are and remain contested. The talk centres on different types and practices of contestation and how they matter for the international order’s resilience.

Read more with:  Deep Contestations of the Liberal International Order edited by Antje Wiener, David A Lake, and Thomas Risse, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026

Open Access, available here: https://academic.oup.com/book/62001

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Antje Wiener, University of Hamburg

Antje Wiener holds the Chair of Political Science, especially Global Governance at the University of Hamburg where she is also a professor at the Law Faculty. She serves as Honorary Professor at the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She is an elected By-Fellow at Hughes Hall University of Cambridge as well as a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences and Member of the Academia Europaea. Her research centres on International Relations (IR) theory especially norms research and contestation theory. Current DFG-funded research focuses on Varieties of Climate Agency (CLICCS, with Stefan Aykut) and the UN’s Contested Security Promise Norm (PROMISE). Prior to coming to Hamburg, she held Chairs in International Studies at Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Bath and has taught at the Universities of Stanford, Carleton, Sussex, and Hannover. With James Tully, she is founding editor of Global Constitutionalism which has been published with Cambridge University Press since 2012. And she is also founding editor-in-chief of the Springer Series on Norm Research in International Relations. Among others she currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Global International Relations Section at the International Studies Association. Her most recent publications include Contesting the World: Norm Research in Theory and Practice (CUP 2024, with Phil Orchard),  Deep Contestations of the Liberal International Order (OUP 2026, with Thomas Risse and David Lake), The Oxford Handbook of Grounded and Engaged Normative Theory (OUP 2026, with B Ackerly, L Cabrera, M Deveaux, F Forman, G Fuji Johnson and Starblanket, and The Oxford Handbook of Norms in International Relations (OUP 2025 with Sassan Gholiagha and Phil Orchard).

Banner image by Dorota Dymek on Pixabay