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

A large and widening gap has opened between Western democracies' international ambitions and their domestic political capacity to support them. On issues ranging from immigration and international trade to national security, new political parties on the left and the right are rejecting the core foreign policy principles that Western governments have championed for over half a century. Much of the debate over the weakening of the Western liberal order has focused on recent changes: Donald Trump's presidency, Britain's vote to leave the European Union, and the surge of nationalist sentiment in France, Germany, and other Western democracies. In Geopolitics and Democracy , Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon provide a powerful new explanation for the rise of anti-globalism in the West. Combining a novel theoretical framework and empirical strategy, Trubowitz and Burgoon show that support for globalism has been receding for 30 years in Western parties and legislatures. They trace the anti-globalist backlash to foreign policy decisions that mainstream parties and party elites made after the end of the Cold War. These decisions sought to globalize markets and pool sovereignty at the supranational level while applying neoliberal reforms to social protections and guarantees at home--a combination of policies that succeeded in expanding the Western liberal order, but at the cost of mounting public discontent and political fragmentation. At a time when problems of great power rivalry, spheres of influence, and reactionary nationalism have returned, Geopolitics and Democracy reveals how domestic support for international engagement during the long East-West geopolitical contest was contingent upon social protections within Western democracies. In the absence of a renewed commitment to those social purposes, Western democracies will struggle to find a collective grand strategy that their domestic publics will support. "A large and widening gap has opened up between Western democracies' international ambitions and their domestic political capacity to support these objectives. Drawing on an array of cross-national data on Western governments, parties, and voters, Geopolitics and Democracy traces this ends-means divide back to decisions that Western governments made after the Cold War. The key decisions were to globalize markets and pool sovereignty at the supranational level, while at the same time reducing social protections and guarantees at home. This combination of foreign and domestic policies succeeded in expanding the Western liberal order in the quarter century after the Cold War, but at the cost of mounting public discontent and political fragmentation within the advanced industrial economies. The analysis reveals the large extent to which domestic support for international engagement during the long East-West geopolitical contest had rested on social protections within the Western democracies. At a time when problems of great power rivalry, spheres of influence, and reactionary nationalism have returned, Geopolitics and Democracy reminds us that the liberal order rose in an age of social democracy as well as Cold War. In the absence of a renewed commitment to those social purposes, Western democracies will struggle to find a collective grand strategy that their domestic publics will support"-- Provided by publisher In Geopolitics and Democracy, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon provide a powerful new explanation of why the Western liberal international order--which dominated for a half century after World War II--has buckled under the pressures of anti-globalist political forces in recent times. They trace the anti-globalist backlash to foreign policy decisions made by Western leaders in the decade after the Cold War's end. These decisions sought to globalize markets and pool national sovereignty at the supranational level while undercutting social protections at home--a combination of policies that succ Cover Geopolitics and Democracy Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments 1. The Solvency Gap 2. A Widening Gyre 3. Roots of Insolvency 4. Reaping the Whirlwind 5. Bridging the Gap Appendices Notes References Index