Party contestation of foreign policy in the new global (dis)order: introduction

The Liberal International Order (LIO) faces challenges both from authoritarian powers and within multi-party democracies from radical and populist parties. Yet while the dual–internal and external–nature of the challenges to the LIO is obvious, it is still unclear how these two dimensions interact. This special issue explores this link, with particular reference to reactions to the Russia-Ukraine war. This introduction analyses linkages between polarizing trends in multi-party democracies and growing contestation of the international order; explains why the Russia-Ukraine war provides a lens to analyse the domestic contestation of the international order; and shows how this contestation is shaped by combinations of national culture, party systems, and geopolitical considerations. We find contestation of LIO is near-ubiquitous in democracies. While on the surface Russia’s invasion galvanised the ‘global West’, this crisis has added to democracies’ struggles with their own identities and debates about the kind of world order they want to see.