A World Safe For Democracy

A sweeping account of the rise and evolution of liberal internationalism in the modern era

For two hundred years, the grand project of liberal internationalism has been to build a world order that is open, loosely rules-based, and oriented toward progressive ideas. Today this project is in crisis, threatened from the outside by illiberal challengers and from the inside by nationalist-populist movements. This timely book offers the first full account of liberal internationalismosquo;s long journey from its nineteenth-century roots to todayssquo;s fractured political moment. Creating an international adquo;spacetdquo; for liberal democracy, preserving rights and protections within and between countries, and balancing conflicting values such as liberty and equality, openness and social solidarity, and sovereignty and interdependenceadash;these are the guiding aims that have propelled liberal internationalism through the upheavals of the past two centuries. G. John Ikenberry argues that in a twenty-first century marked by rising economic and security interdependence, liberal internationalismMdash;reformed and reimagined dash;remains the most viable project to protect liberal democracy.