The False Premise of a Liberal World Order — TRT World
Dated: 30th April 2021
Imagine a Muslim country backing Islamist elements in a non-Muslim European country. It funds social groups and non-governmental organizations who frequently protest against the ‘decadent’ political system of the West, demanding the imposition of a Sharia-based constitution. To them, an ideal world is based on universal equality, social justice and egalitarianism, and can only be established under an Islamic political system. Now take this thought process further and imagine another scenario in which a communist regime provides covert support to proxy elements in democratic countries. They frequently fan the flames of social discontent by highlighting and exaggerating injustices of the existing system while promoting themselves as a much-needed alternative.
One need not look further than the recent past to understand that these mentioned scenarios have not been seen in a favorable light by Western liberal democracies. Over the previous decade, France has led the charge against so-called Islamic separatism by adopting legislations that quell the rise of political Islam and ban the display Islamic symbols in public sphere. Of course, this is not the first time a democratic government has come down on political dissent with an iron fist. During the Cold War, the United States’ response to domestic communist elements was nothing short of a witch-hunt with figures like Senator Joseph McCarthy leading the charge.
Now take the previous two thought experiments again and replace the ideas of spreading Islam or communism with spreading democracy. All of a sudden, what was previously perceived as a forced imposition of values now seems to be a moral endeavor. With its popular sovereignty, accountability, and individual rights, democracy does seem to have some valuable ideals to offer. Yet, in reality, leading democracies today are struggling to reap the rewards of their own system. Right wing populism and polarized politics have tainted the once idealized image of democracy, eroding trust in its efficacy. Given its own dismal state, one wonders: what moral high ground does a democratic country have when it talks about spreading democracy abroad?
In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden claimed that: “We’ll lead not merely by the example of our power, but the power of our example.” While one can acknowledge that his words are quite righteous, his claims are divorced from reality. The United States has a notorious record of leading by the example of its power, especially when that power is threatened. And as for the power of its example, right-wing militias, racism, police brutality, and forever wars do not project the United States as an example to be followed.
However, the flaws in the United States’ democratic system is not the issue at hand. The issue is the sheer hubris with which it promotes democracy globally as the only legitimate political system despite its own domestic shortcomings.
This pursuit of spreading democracy is part of a larger goal of establishing a liberal world order. The premise provided for such a goal is that since liberal values are universal and absolute, they provide the only path to progress and should be adopted by all nations. Liberals claim that their world order would achieve progress through welfare, cooperation, and interdependence. It would emphasize freedom of thought and diversity of opinion, embracing the existence of contrasting views. According to them, these qualities make liberal democracy the best path towards progress — all other systems are redundant at best and require replacement.
Yet, this rationale for proliferating liberal democracy suffers from a logical paradox. It sets up liberal democracy as an antithesis to all other political systems and conveniently deems them illiberal — they restrict freedom of thought and behavior. But if liberalism promotes diversity of thought, should it not accept other systems as legitimate instead of labelling them as oppressive and invalid? Better yet, if advocates of liberal democracy reject the viability of other systems, does it not make them restrictive in nature and thus illiberal?
Of course, this situation bears resemblance to Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. According to Popper, a tolerant society can only exist by being intolerant towards intolerance. The same analogy can be used to justify the pursuit of a liberal world order. One must draw the proverbial line somewhere in order to differentiate right from wrong. Yet, the notion that this line must project liberal democracy as the only morally acceptable system uncovers some underlying flaws in how liberal democracies perceive the world.
Originating with John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, modern liberal ideology inspired the American and French Revolutions. Later, in the aftermath of the First World War, liberal internationalism started taking root and liberalism became a primary theory in international relations. The post-Cold War period marked liberal thought’s evolution into a dominant global political ideology with the United States actively spearheading its proliferation in its quest of establishing a new world order. Yet, just because it became the dominant global political ideology does not mean that liberalism is global in its nature, nor is it absolute. The events that gave rise to liberal thought were Western in origin. The theories that were formulated to explain these events were inspired by European Enlightenment era philosophy. With its origin and evolution restricted to a limited territory, how can one expect it to be embraced and owned by the entire world?
To call for the establishment of a liberal world order is to standardize the world along Western experiences. To expect the world to adhere to a system that took centuries to take root in the West itself — and whose efficacy is questionable today — is to ignore the fact that humanity is not a monolith but a diverse set of cultures and values, incompatible with an externally imposed political system. This is the reason why the United States’ efforts to install democratic governments abroad fail more often than not. Liberalism is not a one-size-fits-all global ideology but just one of many ideas that have originated in one of many regions in the world.
While it is unlikely that a truly liberal world order would ever come into existence in a multicultural world, its propagation does serve the interests of liberal democratic countries. Postmodernists have rightly pointed out that there exists a nexus between knowledge and power whereby knowledge and power reinforce each other. By setting their democratic system as an ideal standard, democratic countries create international norms that put them at an advantageous position and under which non-democratic countries are perpetually playing catch-up. Imagine Iran sanctioning the United States for its racial discrimination record citing that it is against Iran’s Islamic system. While this thought seems far-fetched, the United States has often sanctioned countries based on similar reasons. In his book Orientalism, theorist Zia Uddin Sardar aptly observes that: “The real power of the West is not located in its economic muscles and technological might. Rather, it resides in the power to define. The West defines what is, for example, freedom, progress and civil behavior; law, tradition and community; reason, mathematics and science; what is real and what it means to be human. The non-Western civilizations have simply to accept these definitions or be defined out of existence.’ Given that the global proliferation of liberal values provides the West with the power to dictate norms, the call for a liberal world order becomes nothing more than a realist exercise in a self-righteous disguise.
Understanding that the notion of a liberal world order is based on a false premise, states around the world are now aware that they have to chart out their own political course based on their indigenous realities. The only world order compatible with humanity’s immense diversity resembles a mosaic of disparate political thoughts, not a white canvas of imposed ideals. Proponents of a liberal world order can either adapt to global changes by embracing the reality of multiculturalism or they can continue pursuing their flawed goal of shaping the world in their own image.
A variant of this article was originally published by TRT World, a Turkish media outlet covering global affairs.
