(Il)Liberal peace? P5 approaches to conflict management and resolution

The framework of liberal peace – once the hallmark of a Western-led international order – is now in deep crisis. Its decline coincides with the rise of non-Western actors proposing alternative models of conflict management and resolution. This article challenges the assumption that Western states always pursue conflict resolution objectives, while non-Western states focus on conflict management tasks through illiberal approaches. Drawing on role theory, we reinterpret how states conceptualise and perform their responsibilities in the conflict management and resolution arena. We treat the Western/non-Western and liberal/illiberal divides as role conceptions, while the rhetoric preferences towards conflict management/conflict resolution are understood as role enactments. Using Latent Semantic Scaling, we analyse over 14,000 United Nations Security Council speeches (1992–2023). While the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia conform to their expected roles, China and France deviate from them. Our results suggest that conflict management and resolution strategies align more closely with conflict-specific and temporal factors than a rigid P3–P2 divide.