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The collapse of the bipolar international system near the end of the twentieth century changed political liberalism from a regional system with aspirations of universality to global ideological dominance as the basic vision of how international life should be organized. Yet in the last two decades liberal democracies have not been able to create an effective and legitimate liberal world order. In A Liberal World Order in Crisis, Georg Sorensen suggests that this is connected to major tensions between two strains of liberalism: a "liberalism of imposition" affirms the universal validity of liberal values and is ready to use any means to secure the worldwide expansion of liberal principles. A "liberalism of restraint" emphasizes nonintervention, moderation, and respect for others.
This book is the first comprehensive discussion of how tensions in liberalism create problems for the establishment of a liberal world order. The book is also the first skeptical liberal statement to appear since the era of liberal optimism—based in anticipation of the end of history—in the 1990s. Sorensen identifies major competing analyses of world order and explains why their focus on balance-of-power competition, civilizational conflict, international terrorism, and fragile states is insufficient.
Georg Sorensen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Aarhus. He is the author of several books, including Democracy and Democratization: Processes and Prospects in a Changing World and Changes in Statehood: The Transformation of International Relations.
"In this thoughtful, erudite book, Sorensen portrays the current challenges facing the US-dominated liberal world order.... Sorensen's argument is most persuasive when he vividly shows the policy dilemmas encountered by liberal democracies in dealing with weak or failed states, in fostering world trade, and in working through international institutions.... Sorensen deserves readers' gratitude for sharply pointing to the dilemmas faced by liberal democracy and the effects on international affairs. Summing Up: Recommended."
Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., Professor of International Studies, Cornell University, coeditor of Anti-Americanisms in World Politics:
"A Liberal World Order in Crisis is a terrifically clearheaded and well-written book; it is capacious and will lend itself well to teaching."
Pierre Hassner:
"George Sorensen is a frienc of liberalism and of liberals, but a moderate, critical, and often sceptical one.... [His] volume offers perhaps the most lucid view of international order, as well as of the crisis of liberal internationalism, since Stanley Hoffmann's article on 'The Crisis of Liberal Internationalism’ in Foreign Policy (1995) and since Andrew Hurrell’s On Global Order (2006), which centred on the tension between solidarism and pluralism and has much in common with Sorensen’s own theme."
Charles A. Kupchan, Georgetown University and Council on Foreign Relations, author of How Enemies Become Friends :
"Georg Sørensen elegantly exposes the insurmountable tensions confronting a liberal vision of world order. His analysis is as wise as it is sobering—and represents a major contribution to debate about international politics in the twenty-first century."
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