Abstract
Claims by liberal states to be furthering democratic values and material prosperity are being contested due to the manner in which liberal states are attempting to provide for their own security, to the way in which democracy is being more forcefully projected onto the international order, and to the dislocations and inequality associated with global capitalism. The appeal of liberalism as a form of political and economic organization has declined even as its tenets have come to be taken for granted by virtue of their grounding in scientific reasoning. A sustainable resolution to the crisis of legitimacy of the liberal state requires the internal regeneration of the liberal state itself, a renewed commitment to dialogue in multilateral institutions, and a persuasive revitalization of the claims liberal states make that render their example attractive to others.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this point.
References
Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities, London: Verso.
Arnhart, L. (1981) Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on the ‘Rhetoric’, DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
Bukovansky, M. (2006) ‘The Hollowness of Anti-Corruption Discourse’, Review of International Political Economy 13 (2): 181–209.
Carr, E.H. (1964, c. 1946) The Twenty Years ‘Crisis’, 2nd edn., New York: Harper Collins.
Cerny, P. (1999) ‘Globalization and the Erosion of Democracy’, European Journal of Political Research 36 (1): 1–26.
Clark, I. (2005) Legitimacy in International Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deudney, D. (2004) ‘Publius before Kant: Federal-Republican Security and Democratic Peace’, European Journal of International Relations 10 (3): 315–356.
Eckersley, R. (2006) ‘From Cosmopolitan Nationalism to Cosmopolitan Democracy’, Paper presented at the workshop on ‘Nationalism, Self-Determination and Sovereignty’, Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, May.
Kant, I. (1983/1795) Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, New York: Hackett.
Lebow, R.N. (2003) The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests, and Orders, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lebow, R.N. (2005) ‘Power, Persuasion and Justice’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 33 (3): 551–582.
Machiavelli, N. (1950) The Prince and the Discourses, New York: Modern Library.
Mazower, M. (2000) Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, New York: Vintage.
Onuf, P. and Onuf, N. (1993) Federal Union, Modern World: The Law of Nations in an Age of Revolutions, 1776–1814, Madison, WI: Madison House.
Paris, R. (2004) At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pettit, P. (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, K. (1957/1944) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Raik, K. (2004) ‘EU Accession of Central and Eastern European Countries: Democracy and Integration as Conflicting Logics’, East European Politics and Societies 18 (4): 567–594.
Reus-Smit, C. (2004) American Power and World Order, New York: Polity Press.
Ruggie, J.G. (1982) ‘International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order’, International Organization 36 (2): 379–415.
Scott, J.C. (1985) Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Shklar, J.N. (1989) ‘The Liberalism of Fear’, in N. Rosenblum (ed.) Liberalism and the Moral Life, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shklar, J.N. (1990) ‘Montesquieu and the New Republicanism’, in G. Bock, Q. Skinner and M. Viroli (eds.) Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skinner, Q. (1978) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Volume One, The Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skinner, Q. (1990) ‘The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty’, in G. Bock, Q. Skinner and M. Viroli (eds.) Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slaughter, S. (2005) Liberty Beyond Neo-Liberalism: A Republican Critique of Liberal Governance in a Globalising Age, Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thucydides (1996) ‘The Peloponnesian War’, in Robert B. Strassler (ed.) The Landmark Thucydides, New York: Free Press.
Wade, R.H. (2003) ‘What Strategies are Viable for Developing Countries Today? The World Trade Organization and the Shrinking of “Development Space”’, Review of International Political Economy 10 (4): 621–644.
Wolf, K. (1999) ‘The New Raison d’Etat as a Problem for Democracy in World Society’, European Journal of International Relations 5 (3): 333–363.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bukovansky, M. Liberal States, International Order, and Legitimacy: An Appeal for Persuasion over Prescription. Int Polit 44, 175–193 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800183
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800183