Roosevelt, West Russia, Wilson discussed on podcast – Lawyers, Guns & Money
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
Always bought was kind of at the core of what i'm trying to do. Wilson in many ways was conceiving of the liberal international project at a moment when liberal democracies seemed to be on the move every country west russia. After in one. Thousand nine hundred. Ninety was some kind of parliamentary system. there was a sense that in his own mind but also others around him and cross european in north america. A a space since liberal democracy was on the march and so in some sense what wilson was doing was leveraging matt that that movement of liberal democracy to to try to build a better international order so in some sense a liberal democracy was the glue that was going to hold the international order together whereas in roosevelt's time everything the rehearsing that liberal democracy is is experiencing a maybe even an extension moment. It looks like it's not working other models other dirty projects are in the offi. Germany was in various quarters in the united states and elsewhere at least into the middle thirties was seen as providing some kind of answers to the problem. The great depression around and the kind of of industrial society at that moma a so there was a sense of liberal. Democracy is really On the roads and that the international order that we need to build will provide this. Why it's the reverse wilson vision international order that is neat glue that will hold liberal democracies together so this is an important reason why returning to the roosevelt had conception is so important because it really gets us to this view that construction that ecosystem of of states that are working degree a a kind of higher level set of institutions and responsibilities and capacities and thorny relationships so that these joel and vulnerable and conflicted and today polarized liberal democracies and can a liquor wounds and rebuild their institutions kind of so. It's very much roosevelt. You'd think of biden you the reconstruct. It infrastructure infrastructure. Bill is something but it's also a metaphor for ability back the infrastructure of liberal democracy. And the send us of of a working. International order problem solving pragmatic roosevelt. Was as keynes wrote in what was a wonderful little piece published a letter in the new york times In the late birdies basically grazing roosevelt or for his a pragmatism and effort to kind of willingness to re imagine liberal democracy and industrial society or these much more difficult times but it was very much a pragmatic roosevelt was not sees particular vision. It was more you know. We're entering eight a period where we don't quite know what all the moving parts are so we're going to kind of move here see if this works in a does will keep moving. Not real will turn around. We'll try something else so kind of casting exercise in problem solving and learning that you see throughout this period that that seems to be they. That's that's the liberal internationalism that that i think is what those who want to keep keep it to redeploy who want to see that it has another cycle that kind of world.