Express View: Vance, Meloni, AfD and The New Right

The institutions and values firmed up in Europe and the US — the West — in the last decade of the 20th century are facing a crucial moment of reckoning. Western liberalism and the much-touted "rules-based order" championed by Washington and Brussels arguably reached their pinnacle after the G7 was expanded to include Russia in 1998. The "end of history" moment, though, now seems a thing of the past. The economic vision articulated as the "Washington Consensus" — with a focus on free markets, trade liberalisation, fiscal discipline — began eroding with the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of…