AbstractThe liberal international order, erected after the Cold War, was crumbling by 2019. It was flawed from the start and thus destined to fail. The spread of liberal democracy around the globe—essential for building that order—faced strong resistance because of nationalism, which emphasizes self-determination. Some targeted states also resisted U.S. efforts to promote liberal democracy for security-related reasons. Additionally, problems arose because a liberal order calls for states to...
Read More »Pence Vs. Xi at APEC — Trump decides to skip
Is accusing China of using debt as a weapon capitalist chutzpah on the part of Pence, when it's SOP under neoliberalism — "free markets, free trade, and free capital flows" — to put less powerful countries in debt to powerful countries to the degree that they need to go to the IMF for funding to meet debt obligations, the strings attached being giving up control of their institutional arrangements, fiscal policy and national sovereignty? I doubt Pence will fool anyone on this, but...
Read More »Jonathan Cook — Long Read: The neoliberal order is dying. Time to wake up
Analysis from the left mostly about British politics but inclusive of all aspects of neoliberalism as the policy, strategy and tactics of elite power. Says "long read," but it is not that long. Worth a read even if you are not British since it is also an analysis of elite power as it relates to national politics and neoliberal globalization. Let's hope Cook is correct in seeing the wave cresting. The question then becomes will the breaking of the wave result in world war as the elite...
Read More »Pratap Bhanu Mehta — A darkening horizon [for the liberal order]
As the recently much derided “liberal order” ebbs away, what is the ideological constellation that will replace it? The liberal order was often more an idea than a reality and in international politics, often not very liberal at all. But it operated within a series of normative horizons — economic centrism, openness to trade, multiculturalism, and so on. The flagbearers of that order are losing credibility all across the world, for a variety of reasons. Deep misjudgements on inequality,...
Read More »Paul Robinson — Asymmetrical rules
Back in September I presented a paper at a conference in Moscow on the topic of ‘Human Rights Reasoning and Double Standards in the Rules-Based Order.’ In this I pointed out that both Russia and the West claimed to be in favour of a ‘rules-based order’ and that each accused the other of breaking that order. The problem, I conjectured, derives from differing understanding of what the rules are and how they should be applied. Russia believes in a traditional, Westphalian, order in which...
Read More »Dani Rodrik — The great globalisation lie
Third way evangelists presented globalisation as inevitable and advantageous to all. In reality, it is neither, and the liberal order is paying the price.... The fundamental thing to grasp is that globalisation is—and always was—the product of human agency; it can be shaped and reshaped, for good or ill. The great problem with Blair’s forceful affirmation of globalisation back in 2005 was the presumption that it is essentially one thing, immutable to the way that our societies must...
Read More »