Civilizational States and Liberal Empire
The present era is a transitional one in which different frameworks for establishing global order are attempting to displace one another. While the United States has struggled in its attempt since the end of the Cold War to establish the universal legitimacy of liberal democracy, the resistance to this model coming from China, Russia, and the Islamic world has led to a focus on the idea of competing civilizations as a new basis for sovereignty rooted in cultural values. Meanwhile, the defense of Ukraine is part of an attempt to maintain the nation-state as the basic underlying political unit in world politics, upsetting the aspirations of those who seek to forge larger political entities. In this special issue of Telos on Civilizational States and Liberal Empire, we attempt to better understand each of these conflicting perspectives on global order in order to evaluate their goals and prospects.
Introduction
David Pan
The Polemics of China’s Counter Cosmopolitanism
Eric Hendriks-Kim
China Shakes the World: A Revolutionary Remaking of the International Order
Gordon G. Chang
Escape from Civilization’s Predicaments
Miles Yu
The Kyoto School’s Wartime Philosophy of a Multipolar World
John W. M. Krummel
Civilizations, Autonomy, and War
Richard Sakwa
A Tale of Two Monsters and Four Elements: Variations of Carl Schmitt and the Current Global Crisis
John Milbank
Russia, the Ukraine War, and the West’s Empire of Secularization
Matthew Dal Santo
Renewing the West’s Unique Universalism
Adrian Pabst
Empire, State, Nation: Glory to Ukraine
Russell A. Berman
