Dilemmas and Pathways of Liberal International Order - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 225

nationalism also reinforces this notion—that the rule of law is the source of legitimacy and
political inclusion. This tradition provides a background support for a multilaterally oriented
foreign policy. 69
The basic distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism is useful in locating this feature
of the American political tradition. Civic identity is group identity that is composed of com-
mitments to the nation's political creed. Race, religion, gender, language, and ethnicity are
not relevant in defining a citizen's rights and inclusion within the polity. Shared belief in the
country's principles and values embedded in the rule of law is the organizing basis for polit-
ical order, and citizens are understood to be equal and rights-bearing individuals. Ethnic na-
tionalism, in contrast, maintains that individual rights and participation within the polity are
inherited—based on ethnic or racial or religious ties. 70
Civic national identity has several implications for the multilateral orientation of Americ-
an foreign policy. First, civic identity has tended to encourage the American projection out-
ward of domestic principles of inclusive and rule-based international political organization.
The American national identity is not based on ethnic or religious particularism but on a more
general set of agreed-upon and normatively appealing principles. Ethnic and religious iden-
tities and disputes are pushed downward into civil society and removed from the political
arena. When the United States gets involved in political conflicts around the world it tends to
look for the establishment of agreed-upon political principles and rules to guide the rebuild-
ing of order. Likewise, when the United States promotes rule-based solutions to problems, it
is strengthening the normative and principled basis for the exercise of its own power—and
thereby making disparities in power more acceptable.
Second, because a civic political culture is shared with other Western states it tends to
be a source of cohesion and cooperation. Throughout the industrial democratic world, the
dominant form of political identity is based on a set of abstract and juridical rights and re-
sponsibilities that coexist with private ethnic and religious associations. Just as warring states
and nationalism tend to reinforce each other, so too do Western civic identity and cooperat-
ive political relations. 71 Political order—domestic and international—is strengthened when
there exists a substantial sense of community and shared identity. It matters that the leaders
of today's advanced industrial states are not seeking to legitimate their power by making ra-
cial or imperialist appeals. Civic nationalism, rooted in shared commitment to democracy and
the rule of law, provides a widely embraced identity across most of the advanced industrial
world. At the same time, potentially divisive identity conflicts—rooted in antagonistic ethnic
or religious or class divisions—are dampened by relegating them to secondary status within
civil society. 72 This notion that the United States participates in a wider Western community
of shared values and like-minded states reinforces American multilateral impulses. 73
Third, the multicultural character of the American political identity also reinforces inter-
nationalist—and ultimately multilateral—foreign policy. John Ruggie notes that culture wars