Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T01:52:58.164Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Liberal Internationalism 3.0: America and the Dilemmas of Liberal World Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

G. John Ikenberry
Affiliation:
Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Politics Department. E-mail: gji3@Princeton.EDU

Abstract

Liberal international order—both its ideas and real-world political formations—is not embodied in a fixed set of principles or practices. Open markets, international institutions, cooperative security, democratic community, progressive change, collective problem solving, the rule of law—these are aspects of the liberal vision that have made appearances in various combinations and changing ways over the last century. I argue that it is possible to identify three versions or models of liberal international order—versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. The first is associated with the ideas of Woodrow Wilson, the second is the Cold War liberal internationalism of the post-1945 decades, and the third version is a sort of post-hegemonic liberal internationalism that has only partially appeared and whose full shape and logic is still uncertain. I develop a set of dimensions that allow for identifying different logics of liberal international order and identify variables that will shape the movement from liberal internationalism 2.0 to 3.0.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aaltola, Mika. 2005. The international airport: The hub-and-spoke pedagogy of the American empire. Global Network 5 (3): 261–78.Google Scholar
Adler, Emanuel, and Barnett, Michael, eds. 1998. Security Communities. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ambrosius, Lloyd E. 2002. Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Steven, and Pauly, Louis W., eds. 2007. Global Liberalism and Political Order: Toward a New Grand Compromise. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Borgwardt, Elizabeth. 2005. A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cirincione, Joseph, Wolfshal, Jon B., and Rajkmar, Miriam. 2005. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Claude, Inis L. 1962. Power and International Relations. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Claude, Inis L. 1966. Collective legitimation as a political function of the United Nations. International Organization 20 (3): 367–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daalder, Ivo, and Lindsay, James. 2003. America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Daalder, Ivo, and Lindsay, James. 2007. Democracies of the world, unite: The debate continues. The American Interest 2 (4): 137–39.Google Scholar
Dallek, Robert. 1979. Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deudney, Daniel, and Ikenberry, G. John. 1999. The nature and sources of liberal international order. Review of International Studies 25: 179–96.Google Scholar
Deutsch, Karl, Burrell, Sidney A., and Kann, Robert A.. 1957. Political Community and the North Atlantic Area. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Divine, Robert A. 1971. Second Chance: The Triumph of Internationalism in America during World War II. New York: Atheneum.Google Scholar
Doyle, Michael. 1983. Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs. Philosophy and Public Affairs 12: 205–35, 323–53.Google Scholar
Doyle, Michael. 1997. Ways of War and Peace. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Drezner, Daniel. 2007. The new New World Order. Foreign Affairs 86 (2): 93106.Google Scholar
Evans, Gareth. 2008. The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institutions.Google Scholar
Evans, Gareth, and Shanoun, Mohamed, eds. 2001. The Responsibility to Protect: A Report on the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.Google Scholar
Fearon, James, and Laitin, David D.. 2004. Neotrusteeship and the problem of weak states. International Security 28 (4): 543.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. 2004. Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Gilpin, Robert. 1981. War and Change in World Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Judith, Kahler, Miles, Keohane, Robert O., and Slaughter, Anne-Marie, eds. 2001. Legalization and World Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Grant, Ruth, and Keohane, Robert O.. 2005. Accountability and abuses of power in world politics. American Political Science Review 99 (1): 115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, Ernst. 1964. Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Haass, Richard. 2003. “The Changing Nature of Sovereignty.” United States Department of State, remarks given at Georgetown University, January 14.Google Scholar
Hobson, John M., and Sharman, J.C.. 2005. The enduring place of hierarchy in world politics: Tracing the social logic of hierarchy and political change. European Journal of International Relations 11 (1): 6398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffmann, Stanley. 1998. World Disorders: Troubled Peace in the Post-Cold War Era. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Hurrell, Andrew. 2007. On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. 1993. Creating yesterday's new world order. In Ideas and American Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, ed. Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. 2006. America's security trap. Democracy: A Journal of Ideas 2: 8019.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. 2008. The rise of China and the future of the west. Foreign Affairs 87 (1): 2337.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. Forthcoming. The Restructuring of the International System after the Cold War. In Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Leffler, Melvyn, and Westad, Odd Arne. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John, Mastanduno, Michael, and Wohlforth, William. 2009. Unipolarity and International Relations Theory. World Politics Special Issue 61 (1).Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John, and Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2006. Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, Final Report of the Princeton Project on National Security. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John, and Wright, Thomas. 2007. “Rising Powers and Global Institutions.” Century Foundation Working Paper. New York: Century Foundation.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 2002. Theories of war in an era of leading-power peace. American Political Science Review 96 (1): 114.Google Scholar
Kagan, Robert. 2002. “Multilateralism American Style.” Washington Post, September 13.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert. 1990. International liberalism reconsidered. In Economic Limits to Modern Politics, ed. Dunn, John. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert. 2002. The globalization of informal violence, Theories of world politics, and the liberalism of fear. In Understanding September 11, ed. Calhoun, Craig, Price, Paul, and Timmer, Ashley. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert. 2003. Political authority after intervention: Gradations in sovereignty. In Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas, ed. Holzgrefe, J. L. and Keohane. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert, and Nye, Joseph. 1977. Power and Interdependence. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert, and Nye, Joseph. 2003. Redefining accountability for global governance. In Governance in a Global Economy: Political Authority in Transition, ed. Kahler, Miles and Lake, David. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kessler, J. Christian. 1995. Verifying Nonproliferation Treaties: Obligations, Process, and Sovereignty. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press.Google Scholar
Keynes, John Maynard. 1920. The Economic Consequences of the Peace. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Khanna, Parag. 2008. The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Kimball, Warren F. 1994. The Juggler: Franklin Delano Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knock, Thomas. 1992. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen, ed. 1981 International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen 2005. Sharing sovereignty: New institutions for collapsed and failing states. International Security 29 (2): 85120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A. 2003. The new sovereignty in international relations. International Studies Review 5: 303–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legro, Jeff. 2007. Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Leonard, Mark. 2008. What Does China Think? New York: Public Affairs Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P.J. 2001. The architecture of the WTO. European Journal of Political Economy 17: 327–53.Google Scholar
May, Ernest, ed. 1993. American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC-68. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 1997. Taking preferences seriously: A liberal theory of international relations. International Organization 51 (4): 513–53.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2000. The origins of human rights regimes: Democratic delegation in postwar Europe. International Organization 54 (1): 217–52.Google Scholar
Morse, Edward. 1976. Modernization and the Transformation of International Relations. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, Craig. 1994. International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nincic, Miroslav. 2007. Renegade Regimes: Confronting Deviant Behavior in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ninkovich, Frank. 1999. The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Organski, A.F.K. 1958. World Politics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Press-Barnathan, Galia. 2003. Organizing the World: The United States and Regional Cooperation in Asia and Europe. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rosenau, James, ed. 1969. Linkage Politics: Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Rosenau, James. 1991. Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John. 2004. American exceptionalism, exemptionalism, and global governance. In American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, ed. Ignatieff, Michael. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce, and Oneal, John. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence and International Organization. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Ian. 2008. Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2001. Governing the global economy through government networks. In The Role of Law in International Politics, ed. Byers, Michael. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2004. A New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Viner, Jacob. 1942. Objectives of post-war international economic reconstruction. In American Economic Objectives, ed. McKee, William and Wiesen, Louis J.. New Wilmington, PA: Economic and Business Foundation.Google Scholar
Zakaria, Fareed. 2008. The Post-American World. New York: Norton.Google Scholar