Geopolitics and Democracy: The Western Liberal Order From Foundation to Fracture

In this groundbreaking study, Trubowitz and Burgoon argue that the current backlash against the Western-led liberal international order can be traced to the 1990s. In the wake of the Cold War, Washington and European governments decided to globalize markets and expand multilateral cooperation while relaxing social and economic protections at home. This combination of actions enlarged the liberal international order at the cost of generating domestic discontent and division. During the Cold War, Western publics accepted the tradeoffs that came with market liberalization. The threat of Soviet communism encouraged a compromise between free-market capitalism and social democracy. But in the post–Cold War decades, as governments entered into more multilateral commitments and encouraged economic globalization, this cost-benefit calculation began to change. Citizens felt a keen sense of economic insecurity, and political spaces opened up for once marginalized groups to pursue antiglobalist and nationalist agendas. Established, mainstream political parties on the center-right and center-left—the backbone of the Western liberal order—are now on the defensive, facing electorates that want less globalization and more social and economic protection. As Trubowitz and Burgoon show, many people in the West will embrace liberal internationalism only once the social democratic system is rebuilt at home.