Order without victory: international order theory before and after liberal hegemony

This article contributes a step towards the consolidation of the wide-ranging intellectual history and rapidly growing literature of international order theory. It traces the development of international order theory across three eras: 1919 and the interwar era; 1945 and the Cold War era; and 1989-1991, the post-Cold War era and rise of the "liberal"order debate. Gathering this history finds that critics in contemporary debates are deploying arguments with a quasi-polemical style similar to those used by E.H. Carr and others in past international order debates. These polemical qualities, it is suggested, may likely make contemporary debates difficult to assess and persistently controversial, even after the contemporary crisis of international order has run its course in practice.