American elections and the global (dis)order

Abstract

Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the presidential elections came as a great shock to liberal internationalist circles in the US and abroad. Whether Trump will string the liberal order that the US has largely created is without a plain answer. It is clear, though, that there is already significant erosion in the basic architect of global order. Detritions to the fabric of global order can be observed with respect to four interrelated developments: the exacerbation of security challenges due to proliferation and diversification of the regional and global destabilizing actors, the reversal of democratic and liberal values in the West, rise of illiberal democracies and competitive authoritarianism elsewhere, and finally, a UN system mired with serious shortcomings in representation, capacity and legitimacy. The international society must address this erosion of global order and the first step in that regard is coming to terms with the fact that "the world is bigger than five" not only in terms of the re-alignment of major powers, but also of the distribution of power along state/non-state spectrum.