Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The Liberal International Order, founded in large part through the United States leadership by anchoring multilateral alliances and extending military power in the post WWII years, led to international institutions, organized around economic trade, security cooperation, and democratic solidarity. The current U.S. withdrawal from global leadership has caused chaos throughout the West as to what type of leadership will replace it. This paper documents four periods of presidential elections (Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump). First, we explore Clinton’s creation of N.A.F.T.A. and the beginning of the withdrawal from U.S. led global governance. Second, we address the Bush post-9/11 period of American existential crisis. Third, rather than a departure, we situate Obama as a continuation of isolationism. Fourth, we seek to rectify conventional wisdom that the 2016 election of Trump is an aberration, whereas it is the logical conclusion to the narrative of American exceptionalism and policies put in place starting in 1992. The great irony exposed here is that the unraveling of the Liberal International Order and the current international crisis we face has not been in spite of American policy, but precisely because of it. We end with an argument for why we need international institutions built on trust and mutual respect, in coordinating international state interactions. American exceptionalism has now come to its end. The configuration of the new Liberal International Order is now something we have to confront as more than a problem to be solved, but as something that we must create anew.