Dan Drezner’s at Princeton discussing liberal internationalism, so he posts this rather interesting placeholder on his blog:
One question that came up at today’s sessions was pretty basic but rather important: how, exactly, would one define liberal internationalism? It’s one of those terms that foreign policy wonks like to throw around, but often means very different things to different people.
[So what’s your definition, smart guy?–ed. A marriage between the pursuit of liberal purposes (security, free trade, human rights, rule of law, democracy promotion, etc.) and the use of institutionalist means to pursue them (multilateral institutions of various stripes — not only the UN, but NATO or the G-7 as well).]
Why should foreign policy wonks be the only ones to debate this question? Readers, have at it.
I’ve written a variety of posts that touch on this topic (e.g., this one, this other one, this one here, and yet another one). My main concern with Dan’s definition is that he reduces the role of institutions to a “means” of spreading liberalism; certainly many liberal internationalists would view international institutions as an ends as well: liberalism’s writ spreads governance and law at the expense of international anarchy.
Beyond such objections, I wonder how far we can actually push the whole “what’s the best definition” question. Does liberal internationalism have an “essence,” or is it a shifting configuration of policies and rationales? Wilson’s “liberal internationalism” surely looks different from FDR’s, let alone George W. Bush’s.
Filed as: liberal internationalism
Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.
He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.
He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
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