The Domestic Roots of Contestation: Government Narratives on the Liberal International Order

The liberal international order (LIO), characterized by open markets, rule-governed state behavior, multilateralism, and liberal values in foreign policy, appears increasingly fragile. What explains which governments are most outspoken in their criticism of the LIO? A common view links contestation to revisionist powers challenging U.S. hegemony. Yet China remains rhetorically supportive of many LIO elements, whereas the United States under President Donald Trump has fundamentally abandoned its support. We thus propose a focus on domestic pressures as an alternative. Import-competing pressures can induce governments to contest trade openness and, as disputes broaden, to extend criticism to other LIO pillars. In parallel, a cultural-ideological backlash against liberal values, such as human rights, pluralism, and cosmopolitan cooperation, can motivate governments to portray the LIO as incompatible with national identity or sovereignty, thereby legitimating resistance to liberal constraints. To evaluate these perspectives, we compile a corpus of speeches and press releases by heads of state/government, foreign ministries, and trade ministries in 21 countries (including China, the European Union, and the United States) from 2010 to 2025. Utilizing a large language model (LLM), we classify texts for support or opposition to seven LIO dimensions and construct government-level indices of LIO-consistent rhetoric. We find evidence consistent with both mechanisms: stronger import-competing pressures and more pronounced cultural-ideological backlash are associated with shifts away from LIO-consistent rhetoric, controlling for cross-country and over-time differences. This paper offers a new understanding of international order change and government narratives based on systematic empirical data. It also introduces a reusable measurement strategy for tracing foreign-policy discourse across actors and time. The findings also inform debates about the European Union’s evolving role as the primary defender of LIO principles in a more contested international environment.