Liberalism has structural advantages over authoritarianism, but domestic commitment is key.
Duedney and Ikenberry 21 – Daniel Deudney is a professor of political science, international relations, and political theory at Johns Hopkins University. G. John Ikenberry is Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University.
Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “Getting Restraint Right: Liberal Internationalism and American Foreign Policy,” Survival, vol. 63, no. 6, 2021, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2021.2006452.
Success in competition between liberalism and authoritarianism is going to depend, as US President Joe Biden has stressed, on whether the United States and other democracies can show that democracy works. This will require strenuous domestic efforts. Just as FDR’s New Deal programme in the 1930s provided the foundation for success against fascism and then communism, Biden’s neo-Rooseveltian domestic agenda – embracing more equitable tax policies as well as increased funding for research and development, infrastructure, education and decarbonisation – is now vital for both domestic renewal and successful grand strategy.Footnote77 As in the great struggles of the twentieth century, the libertarian agenda of dismantling the modern liberal state is a recipe for the historic failure of liberal democratic capitalism.
There are good reasons that a liberal-internationalist strategy can succeed. While China has formidable assets, the tendency of states, regardless of regime type, to balance against proximate and growing threats to their independence is an enormously powerful force in world politics that works against China. The fact that the United States is geographically distant helps assure its allies that their independence will not be jeopardised by American encroachment. Individual freedom from arbitrary power, accountable government and free expression are also powerful and appealing forces favouring the liberal-democratic model of modernity. Furthermore, in governing technologically complex modern societies, dictatorships are unlikely to be as adaptive, resilient and innovative as pluralistic, open and accountable liberal democracies.