Liberal world order and its critics: civilisational states and cultural commonwealths

Liberals blame the retreat of the liberal world order on populists at home and authoritarian leaders abroad.

Only liberalism, so they claim, can defend the rules-based international system against demagogy, corruption and nationalism.

This provocative book contends that the liberal world order is illiberal and undemocratic - intolerant about the cultural values of ordinary people in the West and elsewhere while concentrating power in the hands of unaccountable Western elites and Western-dominated institutions.