![]() Xi Jinping’s China promotes an uneasy mix of (readily contradictory) global orientation and sovereigntism. Other anti-liberal reactions involve conservative nationalism, as in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, Modi’s India, Duterte’s Philippines, Putin’s Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, and Trump’s USA. Some are localist initiatives with progressive intentions, such as food sovereignty movements and alternative currency schemes. In this situation of flux and unpredictability, it seems vital to prepare for possible post-liberal world orders with new normative visions.Īt present, most alternatives to liberalism on offer reject globality and look inwards. Given the breadth and depth of the scepticism towards (neo)liberalism, it is by no means clear that another round of ‘social market’ reforms such as multistakeholder initiatives and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can succeed to resuscitate a liberal world order for the 2020s and beyond. In addition, many critics believe that a liberal world order does not (sufficiently) address issues of cultural identity, distributive justice, ecological integrity, moral decency, and solidarity. Significant streams of society and politics across the planet (including in the emerging powers) perceive that liberal principles of open economy, representative government, human rights, and multilateralism have failed to deliver on their promises of the good life. Possibly the present counter-movements pass as well, and West-centric liberalism makes another comeback yet it is also quite plausible that this normative basis of world order confronts long-term decline. To the extent that reformist global visions persist, their centre of gravity may have moved to the so-called ‘emerging powers’, with steps like China’s Belt and Road Initiative which also depart from liberal Pax Americana. Moreover, this time antiglobalism has captured several major states, including most notably the presidency of the former main sponsor of a liberal world order, the USA. ![]() ![]() Whereas the earlier backlashes had mainly left-progressive expressions, the current reaction has a primarily conservative-nationalist-authoritarian character. Yet the respite proved temporary, with first the Occupy movement in 2011–12 and now an apparently stronger wave of opposition to global liberalism in the late 2010s. This resistance was seemingly contained after the early 2000s with reformist prescriptions of corporate social responsibility, good governance, sustainable development, gender mainstreaming, and the like. But the touted ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama 1992) was but fleeting.Īlready the late 1990s saw an upsurge of ‘anti-globalization’ activism against ‘neoliberalism’, especially directed at the main multilateral economic institutions (IMF, OECD, WTO, World Bank). Proponents celebrated the apparent victory of an open international economy, universal human rights, representative governments advancing worldwide, and peaceful settlement of disputes through international law and multilateral institutions. Liberal principles seemed bound for a final triumph with the end of the Cold War. After a century-long steady, if irregular, ascent to peak in the early 1990s, this normative frame for world politics now once again faces deep challenges. Yet, with no less than the future of a good society at stake, it is vital further to pursue such experiments in globality beyond liberalism. To be sure, as the final section reflects, the formulation and implementation of post-liberal constructions of global democracy face considerable challenges. In particular, post-liberal reinventions of democracy could redefine the demos, incorporate non-modern institutions, deepen justice, and confront structural power hierarchies. Drawing on experiences of implementing these principles in a six-year ‘Building Global Democracy’ programme, the article argues that such a methodology can generate different, imaginative and transformative notions. To open space for more innovative thinking about people’s power in a global world, the article develops an approach which-in contrast to established liberal theorising-emphasises principles of diversity, reflexivity, and praxis. The discussion especially addresses methodological issues, on the premise that the way that global democracy is studied deeply affects the ways that it can be understood and enacted. This article explores how new ideas and practices of democracy might underpin a future post-liberal world order. Liberalism is in trouble as a normative basis of world order, partly for its failure to deliver adequate democracy to contemporary globalisation.
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