Be it resolved, the liberal international order is over…
Since the end of World War II, global affairs have been shaped by three broad trends: the increasing free movement of people and goods, international rules setting, and a broad appreciation of the mutual benefits of a more interconnected, interdependent world. Together these factors defined the liberal international order and sustained an era of rising global prosperity and declining international conflict. But is this order now being supplanted by a new global reality; one defined by the assertion of national borders, national interests and protectionist trade polices? More fundamentally, is liberal internationalism a historical aberration; the product of a unique set of forces that are now in retreat? Or, can it survive these challenges and remain the defining rules-based system of the future?
The twentieth semi-annual Munk Debate, held on April 28th, 2017, pits prominent historian Niall Ferguson against CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to debate the future of liberal internationalism.
Niall Ferguson is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of numerous bestselling books, including The Ascent of Money. A prolific commentator on contemporary politics and economics, Ferguson is a contributing editor for the Financial Times and senior columnist with Newsweek.Fareed Zakaria is host of CNN's flagship international affairs program, Fareed Zakaria GPS, which won the 2012 Peabody Award. He is also the editor-at-large of Time, contributing editor at The Atlantic, a Washington Post columnist, and a former editor of Newsweek International. He is the author of the international bestsellers, The Future of Freedom and The Post-American World: Release 2.0. He was described by Esquire as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation” and was included on Foreign Policy’s list of “Top 100 global thinkers.”