A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order

Abstract

L iberal internationalism is in a crisis, but it still has a future and will survive. So argues G John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international relations at Princeton University who, with Daniel Deudney, political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, developed the theory of liberal internationalism (see their article, ‘The Nature and Sources of Liberal International Order’, in the April 1999 issue of Review of International Studies). That said, the theory itself may be old wine in new bottles; as the author postulates, as a practical way of organising international relations, liberal internationalism has been around for more than two centuries. Essentially a Western order, it faces contemporary challenges originating from illiberal powers such as Russia and China, as well as from reactionary forces within the liberal-democratic state, such as nationalism, authoritarianism and the slow withering away of the rule of law in some states. However, he notes, these must be evaluated against the background of what has always been liberal internationalism’s crooked historical trajectory, during which setbacks and crises were not unknown. Moreover, contemporary events appear to provide support to the competing intellectual tradition of realism: a shift of global power from west to east with the post-Second World War hegemony of the US being challenged by the economic and military rise of China and Russia’s more assertive military posture. Viewed through this prism, many observers believe that power and geopolitics will increasingly shape a realist international order in the near future. Indeed, in a steadily more dynamic and even unstable international system, the triumph in 1989 of liberal democracy and market capitalism, the so-called ‘end of history’, as discussed by Francis Fukuyama in The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press, 1992), may be a quaint historical relic. However, the author believes that despite these contemporary crises, with the application of pragmatic policy options, liberal internationalism and its principles and institutions will not only survive, but will indeed be indispensable for addressing the challenges faced by the international community in the 21st century. Ikenberry defines liberal internationalism in the context of the rise of Western liberal democracy as a system to organise international relations to advance the security and wellbeing of liberal-democratic states, and to harness the The Rules-Based International System