Article by DIIS researcher awarded

`Curb Your Enthusiasm. Middle-power liberal internationalism and the future of the United Nations’, an article written by DIIS senior researcher Louise Riis Andersen, has been awarded the SAGE Award for International Scholarship by Canada's leading journal of global policy analysis.

In the article, Louise Riis Andersen explores whether an emerging post-western world order will also be a post-liberal order. The article thus speaks directly to the theme of Westlessness, that was introduced at the 2020 Munich Security Conference. Zooming in on the United Nations, the article explores the past, present and potentially future role of liberal-minded small states and middle-powers in advancing a multilateral, rules-based world order. As such, the article provides a historically grounded corrective to the suggestion that without US leadership, ‘the jungle grows back’.

The SAGE award was established in 2013 to celebrate the most influential work appearing in International Journal. It is given out annually to the best essay on a general international relations topic, with special consideration for work by scholars from outside Canada.

‘Curb your enthusiasm’ is part of a special issue of International Journal, co-edited by professor Rita Abrahamsen, Ottowa University, research director Ole Jacob Sending, NUPI, and senior researcher Louise Riis Andersen. The issue revisits the theory and practice of middle-power liberal internationalism and is the result of a two-day workshop that was held in Ottowa, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada with the aim of investigating the future of liberal internationalism in an increasingly illiberal world.