Description
Book SynopsisCountering our divisive times, this innovative book makes the conservative case in favor of international organizations and cooperation. Dalibor Rohac persuasively argues that far from undermining national sovereignty, the mechanisms of international cooperation have been instrumental to humankind’s freedom, prosperity, and peace. Moreover, he shows that unlike the caricature of international cooperation as a top-down imposition, in reality it is characterized by extreme institutional diversity. Its structures have typically emerged from the bottom up, in response to concrete challenges transcending national borders. Moving beyond empty political rhetoric, Rohac's meticulous research and clear analysis assess and explains the strengths, flaws, and relevant trade-offs of different forms of global governance. A powerful rebuttal to the temptations of nationalist populism, his work is a call to arms for thoughtful people on the center right to defend the central tenets of the post-WWII international order.
Trade ReviewDalibor Rohac offers conservatives a warning: their ‘marriage of convenience’ with nationalists will end in disaster. He also offers them a way out. An alternative, cosmopolitan, internationalist conservative tradition has long been dormant on the political right, and his new book is an important attempt at reviving it. -- Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist, London School of Economics and Political Science
It has become fashionable lately to decry ‘globalists’ and ‘globalism’ for all manner of ills. With facts and logic, Dalibor Rohac argues the benefits of free trade, open societies, and democratic alliances, courageously taking on his fellow conservatives, who, whether out of opportunism or a misplaced deference to ‘the people,’ have abandoned all three. -- James Kirchick, Brookings Institution; author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age
Table of ContentsChapter 1. Global governance as an abstraction and reality Chapter 2. Sovereignty and the conservative agenda Chapter 3. Sovereignty, polycentrism, and ‘global governance’ Chapter 4. ‘Global governance’, peace, and freedom: lessons from history Chapter 5. Economics of harmonization, institutional diversity, and trade Chapter 6. Ethics of cosmopolitanism and nationalism Chapter 7. The way forward
