Realist, Conservative, and Populist Challenges to International Law

• In Event: Explaining US Intervention and Restraint after the Cold War

Abstract

In recent years, right-wing “populists” in Europe and the United States have waged a frontal assault on international norms, attacking multilateral institutions and alliances, denigrating human rights principles, and stoking nationalist resentment of “globalism.” While these developments are alarming, threatening to unravel the international liberal order and empower authoritarians and neo-fascists, they are not unprecedented. Conservatives of various stripes and realists have long criticized international law. It is not clear that there is anything inherently “populist” or anti-elitist about their opposition. Rather, conservative hostility has often been directed at international legal norms that promote social inclusion and economic redistribution. In contrast, left-wing populists often support international law in so far as it advances global justice, while critiquing neo-imperialism. Accordingly, understanding challenges to international law requires unpacking the ideological content of various critical positions. In this paper, we will map the contemporary landscape of anti-legalism and anti-internationalism to better understand these ideas and the relationship between old and new forms of conservatism, realism, and populism. Doing so will clarify the political forces at work in undermining and potentially defending besieged international legal norms.

Author

• Rebecca Sanders, University of Cincinnati