Russian, US and Chinese Revisionism: Bridging Domestic and Great Power Politics

Abstract

The essay investigates the revisionism of great powers, namely Russia, the United States and China. We study intermestic configurations, linking domestic populism, the presidential power of national leaders as expressed by their strategic narratives, and each state’s international revisionist posture. In each case, we identify a different style of revisionism: Russia’s ‘guerrilla’ great power revisionism, the Trumpian anti-doctrine revisionism, and China’s revisionist quest for power and status. We argue that the different revisionist trajectories of these great powers contribute to the multifaceted and uneven unmaking of global liberal internationalism and liberal norms rather than to a coherent revisionist challenge.