Tag: Liberal World Order

Monetary Order and International Security

September 9, 2021

Historically, there have long been close parallels between the collapse of monetary systems and the fall of global security orders. Hegemony requires a sound financial basis and global credibility – assets that can evaporate much faster than anyone in power cares to admit.

The nineteenth-century global order had been built around British imperial power, with the gold standard serving as its financial foundation. The gold standard was sustained by the expectation that even if it was suspended in times of war, the end of hostilities would allow the currency to return to its pre-war gold value. That promise of a constant gold value provided an element of credibility that made it easier for a wartime government to borrow, and thus to bear the cost of the conflict. 

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-afghanistan-defeat-recalls-nixon-shock-british-end-of-gold-standard-by-harold-james-2021-09

Beyond Neoliberal Trade

August 12, 2021

The growth of trade and the deepening of financial links over the past several decades has gone hand in hand with the re-entrenchment of a rigid ideological vision of how the international economy functions, and of the external policies that national governments should be encouraged, or permitted, to follow—the so-called Washington Consensus. This consensus has never been absolutely hegemonic, however, and its star has dimmed considerably since its heyday in the 1990s.

https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/arjun-jayadev-j-w-mason-beyond-neoliberal-trade

Make the Free World Free Again

August 11, 2021

It’s time for a smaller, deeper liberal order.

The gatekeepers of the liberal international order erred by allowing authoritarian states to participate as equal members after the Cold War. Whether China’s influence over the World Health Organization, Saudi Arabia on the U.N. Human Rights Council, or Russia in the former G8, authoritarian states have proven themselves untrustworthy stewards of international responsibility. Instead they have undermined international security and international standards of transparency, accountability, and of human rights. Liberal democracies should take steps to minimize their exposure to authoritarians’ influence by reforming international institutions, expelling irresponsible members or withdrawing from them. The goal should be a narrower but deeper version of liberal order: limited to liberal democratic nations but more meaningful, trustworthy, and accountable to democratic publics around the world.

https://thedispatch.com/p/make-the-free-world-free-again?

After the Liberal International Order

August 11, 2021

If Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November, the question he will face is not whether to restore the liberal international order. It is whether the US can work with an inner core of allies to promote democracy and human rights while cooperating with a broader set of states to manage the rules-based international institutions needed to face transnational threats.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/biden-must-replace-liberal-international-order-by-joseph-s-nye-2020-07

Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order

August 11, 2021

I offer three main sets of arguments. First, because states in the modern world are deeply interconnected in a variety of ways, orders are essential for facilitating efficient and timely interactions. There are different kinds of international orders, and which type emerges depends primarily on the global distribution of power. But when the system is unipolar, the political ideology of the sole pole also matters. Liberal international orders can arise only in unipolar systems where the leading state is a liberal democracy.

https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/43/4/7/12221/Bound-to-Fail-The-Rise-and-Fall-of-the-Liberal#.Xt2mKjLdbEM.twitter