Public and Elite Behaviour in World Order Crisis

Abstract

This panel investigates how liberal order erosion is produced – and potentially contained – through crisis-driven shifts in threat perceptions, alliance politics, and public support for collective defence. Rather than treating “liberal order collapse” as a singular systemic event, the papers unpack the micro-level mechanisms by which shocks in one arena reshape expectations and behaviour in others. The first paper theorises a crisis domino effect as a mechanism of order breakdown. It argues that when a major crisis such as a U.S.–China confrontation erupts, allied responses – unified or fragmented – diffuse across theatres. Using a large-N expert vignette experiment, it tests whether a US–China clash heightens perceived likelihood and impact of EU–Russia risks, and whether EU cohesion can dampen this threat inflation. The second paper shifts from elites to citizens, applying Hirschman’s exit–voice–loyalty framework to conceptualise four ideal-typical trajectories of European polity development (“thick”, “thin”, “arena”, and “club” polities). A conjoint experiment in a multi-country survey identifies which combinations of central authority and exit constraints Europeans prefer under conditions of ongoing crisis. The third paper examines whose security guarantees matter most for mass support to defend allies. It develops and tests a micro-founded model in a 12-country experiment that varies legal treaty cues (NATO vs EU clauses) and U.S. involvement, mapping how these signals shape support for sanctions, military aid, and troop deployments. The fourth paper analyses how external threat and uncertainty about U.S. commitments structure preferences over European defence integration, combining formal modelling with a 4×4 survey experiment on Russian threat and U.S. unreliability. Taken together, the panel links elite and mass perceptions, legal and organisational cues, and crisis scenarios across theatres to show how a fragmenting liberal order is contested, reproduced, or reconfigured from below.

Title	Details
Why These Times Are Different: Time, Crises, and the (Re)making of World Order	View Paper Details
How World Order Collapses: Crises Dominos and Collective Security	View Paper Details
Crafting Solidarity? Cueing Effects on Public Support for EU Solidarity	View Paper Details
Whose Guarantee Counts? Treaty Cues and U.S. Signals in European Support for Defending Allies	View Paper Details
Phased to Fight: How Threat and Alliance Uncertainty Shape Support for European Defense	View Paper Details