Thread by @DrKevorkO, As always, magisterially written; the call for a more humble form of [...]

As always, magisterially written; the call for a more humble form of liberal internationalism at the end is important, and will hopefully be taken on board.

HOWEVER….. (Thread)

1. Very little on the importance of the coercive and cultural aspects of liberal internationalism, and the role of power in upholding the liberal hegemonic order. It is mentioned - but very much on fly.

This being Ikenberry, this relative neglect of a realist or postcolonial point would have to be expected….

…but the question of power and coercion is an important one: suffice it to say that the period under review - past 200 years - is also a period of Western power-political & cultural dominance.

This makes the current moment different from 1918, 1945, 1991.

This is not a rearrangement of power within, or a victory by the liberal West, but a draining of relative power away from it.

Can liberalism survive this?

In how far is it specifically, culturally Western - and thus dependent on Western power - as opposed to having truly universal appeal?

The question is certainly underexplored here.

2. A more serious omission is the threat of inequality feeding oligarchy: in other words, of the Western liberal societies ‘closing up’ because of the dominance and distortion of political processes by vested interests.

A lot is made of the liberalism’s ability to reinvent itself - but as Karl Popper teaches us, much of that ability is founded on the openness of liberal societies.

Take away openness, and that flexibility and adaptability diminishes.

This is especially important in view of the stated need to redistribute costs and benefits in the economic realm, in something of a return to the social compact of ‘embedded liberalism’.

Will the billionaire class agree to that without a fight?

People like Murdoch, Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Page/Brin etc… certainly have the power to delay such a transition by distorting the public realm. With potentially disastrous consequences for the liberal order’s socio-economic legitimacy.

3. Then there is a point that seemingly stands in contradiction to the previous one - but, in fact, doesn’t: the democratisation of information flows, and of political violence.

While the former appears empowering, it also makes for much more chaotic public debates, filled with ‘fake news’ and prone to polarisation and external interference.

How does one tackle this without more forcefully - illiberally - regulating public debate?

And in how far is it right for such public debate - and much besides - to be regulated by private entities tied to a billionaire class more often than not interested in the neoliberal status-quo (pointing us back to question 2 on the continued openness of societies).

As for political violence - the dangers of overreaction to the openness of liberal societies have been put in stark relief in the decades following 9/11.

Another such episode, and attendant wave of militarisation/securitisation, and the internal workings of liberalism may shrink again, perhaps fatally.

4. This leads to a broader, final point on the internal contradictions within the liberal system.

Ikenberry looks at six debates that liberalism has had to resolve, one way over the other, over the past two centuries.

(efficiency/social stability, sovereignty/interventionism, closed/open systems, relations with the illiberal world, hegemony/restraint, the nature of modernity)

The real question is whether in view of the above - waning relative material and cultural power, the increasingly oligarchic nature of Western societies, tensions between security and freedom - liberalism will once again show itself to be the cat that always lands on its feet.

Simply put: the world might no longer be liberalism’s oyster, and late modernity may have made these debates irresolvable.

Plenty of reason to be even more humble - and pessimistic - than Ikenberry in his conclusion. /End

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