Dilemmas and Pathways of Liberal International Order - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 202

liberals did not see the liberal project involving a deep transformation of states themselves
as sovereign legal units. Nationalism was a dominant force in world politics, and Wilson's
support for rights of national self-government gave voice to it. In May 1916, for example,
Wilson proclaimed that “every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they
shall live.” He argued that “small states” as well as “great and powerful nations” should en-
joy sovereignty and territorial integrity free from aggression. 6 To be sure, at the Paris peace
conference, Wilson was hesitant to recognize new nations, particularly outside of Europe. As
the historian Lloyd Ambrosius observes: “As in the Philippines earlier, he [Wilson] applied
the principle of national self-determination with great caution. He did not undermine British
rule in Ireland, Egypt, and India, or French rule in Indochina. Wilson recognized only new
nations that emerged from the collapse of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Otto-
man empires.” 7 Wilson's notion of national self-determination was decidedly development-
al—and patronizing. Sovereign self-rule required the emergence of an “organic” nation in
which the people were politically mature enough to independently govern themselves. Hence
the mandate system—a League of Nations innovation to replace foreign colonial rule—that
would operate to maintain order in backward areas until national self-rule was possible.
The political reality and preconditions for sovereign self-determination had not fully deve-
loped in some parts of the world, but the liberal vision was clear. A world order built on lib-
eral principles would ultimately be a world of sovereign states. The international community
would not wield power and authority. Sovereign states would interact in a system defined by
open trade and rule-based collective security.
As we noted in chapter 5 , in the postwar decades a more universal and interventionist no-
tion of rights and protections emerged that has offered a more complex and restrictive notion
of state sovereignty. One of the shifts was to new understandings about the dangers and op-
portunities of economic and security interdependence. The economic calamities of the 1930s
and the successes of New Deal regulation and governance informed these new views. Ad-
vanced societies were seen to be deeply and mutually vulnerable to international downturns
and the bad policies pursued by other states. This new imperative led to an expansive agenda
of rule and institution building in the postwar period for the management of complex inter-
dependence. The other shift that challenges the old norms of sovereignty was the unfolding
human rights and “responsibility to protect” revolution. The international community was
seen as having a legitimate interest in what goes on within countries. As noted, this growing
interest on the part of the international community in the domestic governance practices of
states is driven by both considerations of human rights and security. 8 The result is that norms
of sovereignty are seen as more contingent.
It is clear that liberal internationalism does not have a simple and principled view of state
sovereignty. Liberals have both embraced and rejected it in different times and settings. The
importance of the norms of sovereignty and self-determination to liberal internationalism is