Regime Transition and Violence: The Future of the World Order

Abstract

This special issue is the attempt to scrutinize the current transition process of the regimes at the domestic or regional level as well as the global level. Its title ‘Regime Transition and Violence’ reminds us of the democratic peace theory. Following the end of the Cold War, there had been some optimistic prospect that the waves of democratization would transform the world order into more peaceful one, which the democratic peace theory suggested.

However the use of force for the regime change brought about more violent situations, which we could notice in the case of Iraq. In addition, the liberal democracies themselves as well as the liberal international order began to face serious crisis, which questions the plausibility of “the end of history” argument.

In other words, the rise of illiberalism and the consolidation of competitive authoritarianism seem to rebuke the liberal view of progressive history, which presupposes the inevitable transition toward the liberal democracy. Unlike the prospect of the democratic peace theory, the real world order seems to be rearranged in accordance with the deepening crisis of liberal order. Articles in this special issue argue about the problems with way in which the post-liberal world order (the post-liberal peace) as well as the domestic order is reconfigured each other.