Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?

Name: Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?
Start: 2026-05-20T14:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-05-20T15:30:00+02:00
Location: Litteraturhuset

Schedule

Wed May 20 2026 at 02:00 pm to 03:30 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Litteraturhuset | Oslo, OS

The Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics and NUPI invite you to a lecture on the world's most urgent ‘whodunnit’: "Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?".
For eighty years, international peace and prosperity have depended on a Liberal International Order— one shaped by U.S. leadership, multilateral cooperation, open markets, and democratic values. But that world order is now crumbling. Great power rivalries are intensifying, multilateral institutions are faltering, and democracy is besieged globally by a rising tide of tyranny.
In this lecture, Professor Andrew Phillips pursues the world’s most urgent ‘whodunnit’, asking who (or what) killed the Liberal International Order.
Was it “murdered” by rising authoritarian powers like China and Russia? Did the United States commit “suicide” by abdicating its leadership role? Or has the order simply grown old—undone by fading memories of the Second World War or the economic whiplash of globalisation?

THE LECTURE IS FREE, BUT IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE REQUIRES THAT YOU SIGN UP USING THIS LINK:
https://nupinytt.wufoo.com/forms/m1ge3p3y1dmsxg4/
Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, this lecture offers a post-mortem of the Liberal International Order—and asks what might emerge from its ruins. Will a new international order arise under Chinese leadership? Will the world fragment into feuding regional power-blocs? Will the world’s leaders ‘muddle through’, uniting to confront catastrophic risks like climate change? Or is the entire idea of international order doomed to extinction?
IMPORTANT: Please note that this event takes place at Skram, Litteraturhuset, Wergelandsveien 29 in Oslo. The event will also be live streamed on NUPI's YouTube channel (no registration needed for online participation): www.youtube.com/nupinytt
About the speaker
Andrew Phillips is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor of International Relations and Strategy in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on war, strategy and international order, with a particular concentration on Great Power rivalry and asymmetric violence as drivers of transformative change in world politics.
His works include War, Religion and Empire: The Transformation of International Orders(Cambridge University Press, 2011); How the East was Won: Barbarian Conquerors, Universal Conquest and the Making of Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and (with J.C. Sharman) Outsourcing Empire: How Company-States Made the Modern World(Princeton University Press, 2020).
He is currently at Visiting Fellow at King’s College at the University of Cambridge, where he is working with his long-term collaborator Professor Jason Sharman (University of Cambridge) on their next book, provisionally titled: Conquest – A Global History from Genghis Khan to the War in Ukraine.
This event is organized by the Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics and NUPI. Moderator is Head of the Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics, Ole Jacob Sending.