The Fictional World Order

In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned that the rules-based international order is eroding, a concern that has persisted since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

But perhaps the most striking aspect of his speech was the assertion that this order has always been fictional - a convenient story we’ve told ourselves to hide the naked realities of power.

In his speech, he condemned how states use “financial infrastructure as coercion,” but avoided mentioning that this has been standard practice since the summer of 1989. That’s when the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was created—an organization with the purported goal of combating organized crime and drug smuggling, yet one that has so far had little significant effect on criminal networks. After September 11, 2001, a state of emergency was invoked. Shortly thereafter, critics argue, FATF engaged in “extraterritorial bullying”. Those who did not follow the organization’s recommendations were threatened with exclusion from important U.S. financial markets. According to one analysis, these measures may have violated international law.

The European Union has also recently invoked emergency powers. This time, to circumvent opposition to a permanent freeze of Russian assets. Reports often portray it as though EU countries are united - despite strong resistance from Hungary and Slovakia. Hungary has also taken the EU to court.

Furthermore, when Carney claimed that “our public square is loud, diverse, and free,” he ignored the fact that the Canadian government froze numerous people’s bank accounts a few years ago without a court order. The country’s government invoked emergency powers in 2022 and used “financial infrastructure as coercion” (to quote Carney) against the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers. Canada’s Court of Appeal has since ruled these measures unreasonable. But by then, the opponents had already been neutralized.

According to philosopher Michel Foucault, the “political and legal weapons” of colonial powers and empires eventually return home in a boomerang effect. Perhaps it is Foucault’s boomerang we are seeing, and not just in Canada. Within the EU, harsh financial sanctions have recently been imposed on several private individuals, also without a court order. One affected individual is the Swiss analyst Jacques Baud, a resident of Belgium. His assets are frozen. He is banned from entering or traveling through EU member states. EU citizens are prohibited from doing business with him, despite him not having done anything illegal. The sanctions are justified on the grounds that he is alleged to undermine Ukraine’s stability.

Extraterritorial bullying, economic sanctions, and frozen assets for distant countries have now been replaced by frozen bank accounts for truckers and private individuals. Carney seems to believe that the use of “financial infrastructure as coercion” is solely an international issue, but perhaps Foucault’s boomerang has begun to hit closer to home?

Carney argued that the rules-based order has been fictional - a comforting story we have been telling ourselves. But is it perhaps the case that an equally convenient story now also surrounds our own supposedly liberal democracies?