A World Safe for Democracy : A World Safe for Democracy

A World Safe for Democracy : A World Safe for Democracy
ISBN: 9780300230987
Publication Date: 10 November 2020

A sweeping account of the rise and evolution of liberal internationalism in the modern era

"The crowning achievement of [Ikenberry's] decades-long work explaining and defending the liberal international order." &;Michael Hirsch, Foreign Affairs

&;A thoughtful and profound defence of liberal internationalism &; both as a political philosophy and as a guide to future actions."&;Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

For two hundred years, the grand project of liberal internationalism has been to build a world order that is open, loosely rules-based, and oriented toward progressive ideas. Today this project is in crisis, threatened from the outside by illiberal challengers and from the inside by nationalist-populist movements. This timely book offers the first full account of liberal internationalism&;s long journey from its nineteenth-century roots to today&;s fractured political moment. Creating an international &;space&; for liberal democracy, preserving rights and protections within and between countries, and balancing conflicting values such as liberty and equality, openness and social solidarity, and sovereignty and interdependence&;these are the guiding aims that have propelled liberal internationalism through the upheavals of the past two centuries. G. John Ikenberry argues that in a twenty-first century marked by rising economic and security interdependence, liberal internationalism&;reformed and reimagined&;remains the most viable project to protect liberal democracy.