Dilemmas and Pathways of Liberal International Order - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 226

continue in the United States between a pluralistic and multicultural identity and nativist and
parochial alternatives but that the core identity is still “cosmopolitan liberal”—an identity
that tends to support instrumental multilateralism: “[T]he evocative significance of multilat-
eral world order principles—a bias against exclusive bilateralist alliances, the rejection of
discriminatory economic blocs, and facilitating means to bridge gaps of ethos, race, and re-
ligion—should resonate still for the American public, insofar as they continue to reflect its
own sense of national identity.” 74 The American society is increasingly heterogeneous in
race, ethnicity, and religion. This tends to reinforce an activist and inclusive foreign policy
orientation and a bias in favor of rule-based and multilateral approaches to the conduct of
American foreign policy. 75
To be sure, American leaders can campaign against multilateral treaties and institutions
and win votes. But this has been true across the last century, as manifest most dramatically
with the rejection of the League of Nations treaty in 1919 but also reflected in other defeats,
such as that of the International Trade Organization after World War II. When President Bush
went to the United Nations to rally support for his hard-line approach to Iraq, he did not artic-
ulate a central role for the world body in promoting international security and peace. He told
the General Assembly: “We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary res-
olutions.” But he also made clear: “The purposes of the United States should not be doubted.
The Security Council resolutions will be enforced . . . or action will be unavoidable.” 76 In
contrast, just twelve years earlier, when the elder President Bush appeared before the General
Assembly to press his case for resisting Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, he offered a “vision of a
new partnership of nations . . . a partnership based on consultations, cooperation and collect-
ive action, especially through international and regional organizations, a partnership united
by principle and the rule of law and supported by an equitable sharing of both cost and com-
mitment.” 77 It would appear that quite divergent visions of American foreign policy can be
articulated by different presidents—each resonating in its own way with ideas and beliefs
within the American polity. If this is true, it means that American presidents do have polit-
ical and intellectual space to shape policy—and that they are not captives of a unilateralist-
minded public.
Recent public opinion findings confirm this view and actually suggest that the American
public is quite willing and eager to conduct American foreign policy within multilateral
frameworks. In a comprehensive poll of American and European attitudes on international
affairs, the German Marshall Fund study found that a clear majority of Americans actually
favored joining the European Union in ratifying the Kyoto accord on global warming and the
treaty creating an ICC. American public attitudes reveal a general multilateral bent. When
given three alternatives about the role of the United States in solving international problems,
most Americans (71 percent) said that it should act to solve problems together with other
countries, and only 17 percent said that “as the sole remaining superpower the United States