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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 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.
List of Figures
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: The Solvency Gap
Chapter 2: A Widening Gyre
Chapter 3: Roots of Insolvency
Chapter 4: Reaping the Whirlwind
Chapter 5: Bridging the Gap
Appendices
References
Index
Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations and
Director of the Phelan United States Center at the London School of
Economics and Political Science, and Associate Fellow at Chatham
House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs. His research
focuses on international security, domestic politics and foreign
policy, and party politics. His published work includes Politics
and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American Statecraft
and Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American
Foreign Policy, which won the American Political Science
Association's J. David Greenstone Prize for best book on politics
and history.
Brian Burgoon is Professor of International and Comparative
Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam, Director of the
Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES), and the former
Academic Director of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science
Research (AISSR). His research focuses on the politics of economic
globalization, immigration, inequality, and welfare and
labor-market policy. His work has been published in leading
journals in political science, economics,
sociology, European studies, and international relations.
Timely and compelling, Geopolitics and Democracy argues that since
the end of the Cold War, government leaders in the West broke the
social contract underpinning the liberal international order they
built. By focusing their efforts on market globalization and the
pooling sovereignty at the international level, while reducing
social protections at home, Western government leaders
overstretched public support for their actions, paving the way for
growing anti-globalization sentiment. The book is a model for how
to bridge insights from international relations and domestic
politics, and does an exceptional job of marshalling a wealth of
available evidence to make nuanced arguments about the state and
future of the Western-led liberal order. I strongly encourage
everyone to read it.
*Catherine E. De Vries, Professor of Political Science, Bocconi
University*
In this tour de force, Trubowitz and Burgoon offer a new and
compelling portrait of the shifting and fraught domestic
foundations of Western democracy and its postwar leadership of the
liberal world order. Beautifully written and deeply researched,
Geopolitics and Democracy chronicles the decades-in-the-making
erosion of support for liberal internationalism in Western
societies—and points to ways in which liberal democracies might
once again bring their ambitions and capacities back into line.
*G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and
International Affairs, Princeton University*
Trubowitz and Burgoon offer a highly readable and persuasive
argument about the interaction between populism and the unraveling
of the liberal international order. A notable contribution helping
us understand our politics today.
*Kathleen R. McNamara, Professor of Government and Foreign Service,
Georgetown University*
This ambitious book synthesizes existing scholarship and also
breaks new ground, theoretically and empirically. The authors argue
convincingly that the embrace of 'globalism' by Western political
elites has been accompanied by domestic reforms that have
undermined public support for the liberal international order. A
must-read for students of comparative welfare-state politics as
well as international political economy and international
relations.
*Jonas Pontusson, Professor of Comparative Politics, Université de
Genève*
Geopolitics and Democracy is essential reading for everyone who
wants to grasp the root causes of the anti-globalist pressures in
today's liberal democracies and the resulting crisis of the liberal
international order. Based on a rigorous analysis of a wealth of
data, Trubowitz and Burgoon challenge standard accounts of liberal
internationalism's decline and show how trade liberalization and
neoliberal governance have contributed to the widening gap between
governments and voters in the West.
*Wolfgang Wagner, Professor of International Security, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam*
Geopolitics and Democracy is a thought-provoking book that studies
the challenges to the liberal international order from a broad
perspective. Drawing on insights from different subfields that are
usually studied in isolation, paying attention to different levels
of analysis, and presenting a vast array of empirical findings,
this book provides a provocative new perspective on why the Western
liberal world order has come under pressure and what could be done
to change this.
*Stefanie Walter, Professor of International Relations and
Political Economy, University of Zurich*
A big, grand sweeping and important argument. Geopolitics and
Democracy makes a powerful case that Western governments got well
ahead of what their populations would support when they decided to
deepen and broaden the liberal international order after 1990.
*William C. Wohlforth, Daniel Webster Professor of Government,
Dartmouth College*
[A] groundbreaking study
*Foreign Affairs*
This book is easy to read and highly recommended for college and
university libraries and larger public library systems. More
importantly, political leaders and policy professionals would do
well to heed its findings and recommendations.
*Choice*
Geopolitics and Democracy constitutes a seminal contribution to the
scholarly discourse on global politics. Its incisive analysis and
thought-provoking insights make it a valuable resource for scholars
and practitioners grappling with the complexities of contemporary
geopolitics ... the book's overarching thesis provides a compelling
framework for understanding the multifaceted challenges facing
Western democracies in an era of geopolitical uncertainty and
ideological polarisation.
*Mahmoud Javadi, European Political Science*
In their interesting, carefully crafted book on the problems facing
liberal international order, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon
argue that, for Western states, their geopolitical predicament is
premised on their domestic politics.
*Professor George Lawson, Australian Outlook*
In their interesting, carefully crafted book on the problems facing
liberal international order, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon
argue that, for Western states, their geopolitical predicament is
premised on their domestic politics.
*Professor George Lawson, Australian Outlook*
Geopolitics and Democracy indeed provides a great and novel
scholarship with a holistic view through acknowledging the what,
why, and how to restore the wounds of liberal world order without
over-exaggerating the inclusiveness of the West through critical
assessment.
*Monika, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India,
Democratization*
Geopolitics and Democracy constitutes a seminal contribution to the
scholarly discourse on global politics. Its incisive analysis and
thought-provoking insights make it a valuable resource for scholars
and practitioners grappling with the complexities of contemporary
geopolitics.
*Mahmoud Javadi, AI Governance Researcher at Erasmus University
Rotterdam (EUR)*
Geopolitics and Democracy offers a valuable and innovative academic
perspective that takes into account the causes, reasons, and
methods of addressing the challenges facing the liberal world
order.
*Mohammad Imtiyaz, LSE Review of Books*
This book is an important addition to the burgeoning literature on
the crisis of the so-called liberal international order (LIO) ...
What sets this book apart is the innovative way in which the
authors comprehensively quantify the trends that so many have
already identified. The book features 34 figures and an extensive
appendix that provide data on 24 western countries and more than
400 political parties, across seven decades. Drawing on databases
and indicators that measure party policy positions, military
spending and support for economic openness, Trubowitz and Burgoon
correlate this data to show trends in the relationship between
partnership and power (the dynamics of support for international
cooperation and military spending).
*Hubert Zimmermann, International Affairs*
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