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The Order Remains Relatively Stable Since 1945, but Recent Trends May Threaten It

• To gauge the health of the order, researchers examined 18 indicators, including development assistance, membership in formal institutions and alliances, peacekeeping contributions, territorial changes resulting from conflict, global indexes of democracy, and public opinion, among others.
• Based on the analysis in this report, until recently, measurable indicators of the rule-based order remained broadly stable and did not show evidence of a rapid decline. However, developments since 2014 — including Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Brexit vote, the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the continued influence of far-right parties in Europe — suggest that the order could be in much more peril than the data through 2014 would suggest.
• In many ways, the foundational promise of the order is economic prosperity. If public and governmental audiences perceive that the order can no longer make this promise, support for its rules, norms, and institutions could be fatally weakened, partly because so many other variables are affected by economic ones. In this sense, economic growth and stability represent a basic source of equilibrium in the order.
• Our analysis strongly suggests that the order is robust enough to sustain some negative impacts, but if negative trends were to accelerate in all three sources of equilibrium — economic indicators, U.S. leadership, and governing systems (via the rise of authoritarian populism) — at the same time, the order could sustain fatal damage.