Anti-globalism and the Future of the Liberal World Order

In Geopolitics and Democracy, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon provide a new explanation of why the liberal international order has buckled under the pressures of anti-globalist political forces. 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 succeeded in expanding the Western liberal order, but at the cost of mounting public discontent and political fragmentation. This roundtable will discuss the book and its broader implications for democracy and the liberal order going forward.