Illiberalism, geopolitics, and middle power security: Lessons from the Norwegian case
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Author | Nina Græger |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702019834982 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
Illiberalism, geopolitics,
and middle power
security: Lessons from
the Norwegian case
Nina Græger
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
Abstract
Middle powers have played a key role in supporting global governance, a rules-based
order, and human rights norms. Apart from conveying and effectuating global solidarity
and responsibility, multilateral cooperation has been an arena where middle powers
seek protection and leverage relatively modest power to greater effect, sometimes as
‘‘helpful fixers’’ to great powers. This article argues that geopolitical revival and the
contestation of the liberal order are challenging middle powers’ traditional sheltering
policies, based on empirical evidence from the Norwegian case. First, the weakening of
multilateral organizations is making middle powers more vulnerable to great power
rivalry and geopolitics, and Norway’s relationship with Russia is particularly pointed.
Second, existing shelters such as NATO and bilateral cooperation with the US are
negatively affected by the latter’s anti-liberal foreign policies, making looser sheltering
frameworks important supplements. While Norway’s and other middle powers’ trad-
itional policies within the ‘‘soft power’’ belt may continue, ‘‘doing good’’ may become
less prioritized, due to the need for security.
Keywords
Security, middle powers, geopolitics, liberal order, Norway, multilateral organizations
Ever since the global financial crisis in 2008, there has been much debate on the
demise of the liberal world order based on free trade, rule of law, multilateralism,
International Journal
2019, Vol. 74(1) 84–102
!The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702019834982
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Corresponding author:
Nina Græger, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), PO Box 8152, 0033 Oslo, Norway.
Email: ng@nupi.no
and cooperative security, as well as US leadership.
1
Emerging economies in the
Global South and power shifts towards Asia have helped fuel those debates, as
have the UN’s failure to promote peace in Syria, Russia’s annexation of the Crimea
and destabilization of Ukraine, and President Trump’s protectionist and anti-lib-
eralist foreign policies. In Europe, contestation of the liberal order is reflected in
‘‘Brexit,’’ the failure to craft a common European response to the refugee flows
since 2015 and the reinstatement of national border controls, and the rise of right-
wing governments and populism.
2
While important, this is not just a reflection of
anti-integration sentiments, dissatisfaction with economic policies, or rage against
political elites. International liberalism is under attack as a political idea of how
societies should govern themselves, as are the institutions that embody that idea.
3
The contestation of international rule of law principles, stability, and restraint is
paralleled by an emphasis in several countries on greatness, glory, vitality, patri-
archy, unilateralism, and, as Tjalve observes, ‘‘a revived geopolitical reasoning and
its agendas of historical revisionism [...] that is being directly linked to the liberal
order.’’
4
Today’s geopolitics has, Guzzini argues, ‘‘a military bias—which puts
national security thinking first,’’ and where ‘‘the mobilisation of the implicit nation-
alist biases of the geopolitical tradition to ‘rally round the flag,’’’ is also visible.
5
Middle powers’ ability to navigate this increasingly challenging terrain when
seeking security, is the concern of this article. As Abrahamsen, Riis-Andersen,
and Sending argue, ‘‘as standard bearers of liberal internationalism, they provide
a useful prism for exploring how middle powers are navigating an environment
where international institutions are in flux and appear less able to reduce uncer-
tainty.’’
6
Together, the demise of liberalism a more insecure world, and new geo-
political shifts raise a set of pressing questions related to middle power security
strategies: Will existing multilateral frameworks continue to provide security, or
are middle powers likely to opt for new strategies and alignments, if possible? In
1. J. Anderson, John Ikenberry, and Thomas Risse, eds, The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the
Atlantic Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008); Charles A. Kupchan, No One’s World: The
West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012);
Joseph S. Nye Jr., ‘‘Will the liberal order survive?, The History of an Idea’’ Foreign Affairs,
January/February 2018; Robert Kagan, ‘‘The twilight of the liberal world order,’’ Brookings,24
January 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-twilight-of-the-liberal-world-order/
2. A. Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Niklas Bremberg, A. Michalski, and L. Oxelheim, eds, Trust in the
European Union in Challenging Times (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018); Anthony Dawkin and Mark
Leonard, ‘‘Can Europe save the world order?,’’ European Council on Foreign Relations, May 2018.
3. See Michael Williams and Jean Francois Drolet, ‘‘The view from MARS: American ‘populism’ and
the liberal world order,’’ International Journal 2019, Vol. 74(1) 15–31, DOI: 10.1177/
0020702019834716
4. Vibeke Tjalve, ‘‘Geopolitical amnesia: The rise of the right and the crisis of liberal memory,’’ paper
presented at the Theory Seminar Series, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo,
30 August 2018.
5. Stefano Guzzini, ‘‘Which geopolitics?,’’ in Stefano Guzzini, ed., The Return of Geopolitics in Europe?
Social Mechanisms and Foreign Policy Identity Crises (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 18–44, at 34–35.
6. Rita Abrahamsen, Louise Riis-Andersen, and Ole Jacob Sending, ‘‘Introduction: Making liberal
internationalism great again?,’’ International Journal 2019, Vol. 74(1) 47–64, DOI: 10.1177/
0020702019833739
Græger 85
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