Contending liberalisms in world politics : Ideology and power

The ending of the Cold War prompted a lively debate on the opportunities and dangers that were unexpectedly opened up on on the nature of the new international milieu. These was flurry of colourful images: "the end of history," "a boarderless world," "the clash of civilization," and "global apartheid,"to name only some of the most dramatic. They were polarized between extremes of optimism and pessimism: on the one hand, unparalleled peace and prosperity;on the other, genocide and environmental catastrophe. Few, however, really assumed that the future was predetermined, and the leading. Western governments sought to establish ground rules for a new kind of international order they hoped would enable them to keep development under control. The purpose of this book is to examine the nature and prospects of that projected order. It is depicted as the realization of the liberal vision of a world of peaceful democracies, but the means by which it is being constructed, day by day, are economic: the rules policed by international institutions in which Western governments have the controlling voice, in particular the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. This is without historical precedent: earlier attempts to establish international order relief mainly on political and military means, the economic remaining in the background. The ideology that guides and justifies this world order project is commonly referred to as neoliberal.