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Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2018

G. John Ikenberry
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Abstract

The crisis of the American-led international order would seem to open up new opportunities for rising states—led by China, India, and other non-Western developing countries—to reshape the global order. As their capacities and influence grow, will these states rise up and integrate into the existing order or will they seek to overturn and reorganize it? The realist hegemonic perspective expects today's power transition to lead to growing struggles between the West and the “rest” over global rules and institutions. In contrast, this essay argues that although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order—openness, rules, and multilateralism—are deeply rooted and likely to persist. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do.

Keywords

hegemonyAmerican powerrising statesliberal international orderliberal internationalismmultilateralismpower transitions
Type
Roundtable: Rising Powers and the International Order
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 32 , Special Issue 1: Rising Powers and the International Order , Spring 2018 , pp. 17 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2018 

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References

NOTES

1 See Obama administration, “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” Washington, D.C.: The White House, September 2002.

2 For an overview of the “rise and fall” of rising states during the Obama years, see Suzanne Nossel, “The World's Rising Powers Have Fallen,” Foreign Policy, July 6, 2016, foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/06/brics-brazil-india-russia-china-south-africa-economics-recession/.

3 For a survey of debates about rising states and global governance, see Acharya, Amitav, ed., Why Govern? Rethinking Demand and Progress in Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1951)Google Scholar; Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kennedy, Paul M., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987)Google Scholar; and Wohlforth, William, “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security 24, no. 1 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Strange, Susan, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” International Organization 41, no. 4 (1987), pp. 551–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Strange, Susan, States and Markets: An Introduction to International Political Economy (London: Pinter Publishers, 1988)Google Scholar.

6 For a discussion of the goals and interests of rising states, see Schweller, Randall, “Managing the Rise of Great Powers: History and Theory,” in Johnston, Alastair Iain and Ross, Robert S., eds., Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power (Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 1999), pp. 1–31 Google Scholar.

7 Kissinger, Henry, World Order (New York: Penguin Press, 2014), p. 27Google Scholar.

8 Ikenberry, G. John, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

9 Piccone, Ted, Five Rising Democracies and the Fate of the International Liberal Order (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2016), p. 5Google Scholar.

10 Ruggie, John G., ed., Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 11Google Scholar.

11 Miles Kahler, “Conservative Globalizers: Reconsidering the Rise of the West,” World Political Review, February 2, 2016. See, also, Miles Kahler, “Who Is Liberal Now? Rising Powers and Global Norms,” in Acharya, Why Govern?

12 See G. John Ikenberry and Darren Lim, “China's Emerging Institutional Statecraft: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Prospects for Counter-Hegemony,” Brookings Institution Report (Project on International Order and Strategy), Washington, D.C., April 2017.