Reconstituting the Global Liberal Order: Legitimacy and Regulation

The events of September 11, 2001 were a significant watershed in the emerging global order. However, the nature and consequences of this changing global order remain unclear.

This book argues that this new order is as much the result of issues relating to the evolving methods and forms of governance, as of the new role and position of the United States in the world system. Using an innovative framework, derived from the work of Carl Schmitt, Kanishka Jayasuriya explores the nexus between domestic political and constitutional structures and the global order, and examines how the post-war framework of international liberalism is crumbling under the new pressures of globalization. As well as looking at the implications of 9/11 for the global order, this new study:

• relates the events of 9/11 to the deep transformations of the post war global order
• emphasizes the importance of the rise of the new regulatory state
• examines the new politics of fear in liberal democracies including the US, UK and Australia
• studies the appropriation of the 'language of the left' by conservative forces
• explores the illiberal outcomes of actions undertaken in the name of liberalism.

This unique and timely study will be of great interest to students and researchers of international political economy, globalization and international political theory.

Kanishka Jayasuriya is Principal Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University. His most recent publication is Asian Regional Governance: Crisis and Change (ed.) (Routledge 2004).