The shock of Donald Trump’s election caused many observers to ask whether the liberal international order—the system of institutions and norms established after World War II—was coming to an end. The victory of Joe Biden, a committed institutionalist, suggested that the liberal order would endure. Even so, important questions remained: Was Trump an aberration? Is Biden struggling in vain against irreparable changes in international politics? What does the future hold for the international order?
The essays in Chaos Reconsidered answer those questions. Leading scholars assess the domestic and global effects of the Trump and Biden presidencies. The historians put the Trump years and Biden’s victory in historical context. Regional specialists evaluate U.S. diplomacy in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Others foreground topics such as global right-wing populism, the COVID-19 pandemic, racial inequality, and environmental degradation. International relations theorists reconsider the nature of international politics, pointing to deficiencies in traditional IR methods for explaining world events and Trump’s presidency in particular. Together, these experts provide a comprehensive analysis of the state of U.S. alliances and partnerships, the durability of the liberal international order, the standing and reputation of the United States as a global leader, the implications of China’s assertiveness and Russia’s aggression, and the prospects for the Biden administration and its successors.
Contributions by: Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Chaudoin, Susan Colbourn, Martin Conway, James Goldgeier, Richard H. Immerman, Robert Legvold, Anthony Dirk Moses, Sarah B. Snyder, Jennifer Spindel, James Stocker, John A. Thompson, Christy Thornton, Thomas Zeiler, F. Gregory Gause III, Randall Schweller, Dayna Barnes, Frank Ninkovich, William Hitchcock, Jonathan Monten, Elizabeth Economy, Matthew Evangelista, Lindsay Aqui, Audie Klotz, Joshua Busby, Jonathan DiCicco, William Glenn Gray, Samuel Zipp, Angela Stent, Michael Barnett, Deborah Avant, Emma Ashford, Ryan Irwin, Nicholas Mulder, Tanvi Madan, Kathryn Statler, Jason Ludwig, Rebecca Slayton, Nivi Manchada, Helen V. Milner, Dustin Tingley, George N. Georgarakis, Robert Shapiro, Alessandro Brogi, Lawrence Freedman, Charles S. Maier
