Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
This spread of liberal democracy and adaptation and extension of liberal international or-
der took place amidst war and economic upheaval. At each turn, nonliberal states offered
alternative models of socioeconomic development and rival ways of ordering international
politics. In the 1930s and into the Cold War era, geopolitics was not just a struggle for power
but a contest between alternative pathways to modernity. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany
embodied the authoritarian capitalist alternative. The Soviet Union embodied the state social-
ist pathway. World politics was, in a profound sense, a competition between these alternat-
ives. Success was defined in terms of the ability to generate power and wealth, build coali-
tions and alliances, and overcome geopolitical challengers. With the defeat of the Axis states
in World War II, the “great contest” shifted to a struggle between communism (or state so-
cialism) and liberal capitalism.
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Following from this, it is possible to make several general observations about the rise of
liberal states and liberal order building.
First, liberal international order can be seen as a distinctive type of international order.
As noted earlier, liberal international order is defined as order that is open and loosely rule-
based. Openness is manifest when states trade and exchange on the basis of mutual gain.
Rules and institutions operate as mechanisms of governance—and they are at least partially
autonomous from the exercise of state power. In its ideal form, liberal international order cre-
ates a foundation in which states can engage in reciprocity and institutionalized cooperation.
As such, liberal international order can be contrasted with closed and non-rule-based rela-
tions—whether geopolitical blocs, exclusive regional spheres, or closed imperial systems.
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In ideal form, liberal international order is sustained through consent rather than balance
or command. States voluntarily join the order and operate within it according to mutually
agreed-upon rules and arrangements. The rule of law, rather than crude power politics, is the
framework of interstate relations. But of course, the real-world liberal international political
formations have been more complex orders where power balance and hierarchy intervene in
various ways to shape and constrain relations.
Second, the more specific features of liberal international order vary widely. The liberal
vision is wide ranging, and the ideas associated with liberal internationalism have evolved
over the last two centuries. In the nineteenth century, liberal international order was under-
stood primarily as a commitment to open trade, the gold standard, and great power accom-
modation. In the twentieth century, it has been understood to entail more elaborate forms of
rules and institutional cooperation. Notions of cooperative security, democratic community,
collective problem solving, universal rights, and shared sovereignty have also evolved over
the last century to inform the agenda of liberal order building.
Generally speaking, liberal international order in the twentieth century has traveled
through two phases—marked by the two world wars. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson
and other liberals pushed for an international order organized around a global collective se-
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