How and why has the liberal promise of the post-Cold War world not been realised? Where is the world now heading? Is the post-Cold War era over?

In 1989 the Cold War ended. American pundit, Francis Fukuyama, confidently announced the end of history with the complete victory of liberalism word-wide. Globalisation and democracy represented the wave of the future. But thirty year later the tide of history appears to have turned. Fukuyama now talks bleakly of the crisis of democracy and the possible demise of the liberal order. Book after book proclaims the return of a ‘new’ Cold War between Russia, China and the West. And globalisation itself is in question. 

John Ikenberry is Albert G Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University.

Mary Kaldor is Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit, Department of International Development, LSE.

Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Head of the Department of International Relations and Director of the US Centre at LSE.

Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History and author of The Idea of Russia: The Life and Work of Dmitry Likhachev.

Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE.

LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. We connect academic knowledge of diplomacy and strategy with the people who use it.

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