Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
liberal international order's open and rule-based character creates advantages for states that
operate within it—and places states outside the order at a disadvantage. 44
The building and rebuilding of liberal international order has taken place at periodic his-
torical junctures when leading liberal states have been in a position to shape global rules and
institutions. As noted earlier, realists and “society of states” theorists have emphasized the
ways in which great-power relations and the operation of the balance of power have evolved
over the centuries through the negotiations over postwar settlements. In the same way, these
postwar settlements have been crucial for liberal order building. The old order has been des-
troyed and opportunities emerge for shaping the principles and organizational arrangements
of a new order.
In the twentieth century, these liberal turning points have come after the world wars and
the Cold War. At these junctures, the United States and other liberal democracies stepped
forward with progressive ideas about the organization of international order. The first great
moment of twentieth-century liberal order building came in 1919 with Woodrow Wilson's
ambitious agenda at the Versailles conference. The Versailles settlement launched the League
of Nations, which its progressive advocates hoped would usher in an entirely new system of
interstate relations based on advanced liberal principles. Although the Versailles settlement
essentially failed as a framework for international order, its liberal principles were taken up
again and adapted after World War II. The United States took on a more direct role in or-
ganizing international order. The ideas and practical organization of liberal order evolved.
It became more hierarchical, institutionalized, and harnessed to an agenda of human rights
and economic development. Again, at the end of the Cold War, the United States and other
Western democracies articulated liberal principles of order as they negotiated with the Soviet
Union (and later, Russia) over the terms of the settlement. Adaptation, innovation, success,
and failure have shadowed liberal order building across the last century.
Liberal theories offer rich accounts of the ascendancy of Western democracies to global
preeminence. These theories also illuminate the consent-based principles and logic of the in-
ternational order championed by the United States and other states in the postwar era. But
liberal order building has also unfolded alongside the ordering forces captured by theories of
anarchy and hierarchy. The Western state system has evolved as the great powers have de-
veloped norms and practices of restraint and accommodation. This Westphalian system has
provided a foundation for liberal order building. At the same time, the post-World War II in-
novations in liberal international order involved the direct and ongoing hegemonic leadership
of the United States. Liberal theories see stable order built around the consent of the states
that operate within it. But the other mechanisms of order—balance and command—also lurk
at the edges of liberal international order.
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search