The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order

Owen makes a powerful case that the fate of American democracy hinges on the health and welfare of other democracies. One of the oldest insights in the liberal internationalist tradition, voiced by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and many others, is that democracies are most likely to survive and thrive in a world of open trade and multilateral rules where liberal democracies hold sway. In exploring this proposition, Owen likens democracies to what biologists call “creators,” or keystone species in a biological ecosystem that actively seek to organize the environment to suit their purposes and needs. Democracies do the same by shaping the world around them to reinforce domestic liberal values and institutions. Owen’s best example of this sort of “ecosystem engineering” comes from the early postwar era, when U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his successors pursued New Deal–oriented reform at home and liberal internationalism, ushering in a golden era when democracies flourished and reinforced one another. Today, this ecosystem has degraded for two reasons: the neoliberal turn, since the 1970s, in the United States and Europe and a consequent erosion of economic security; and the rise of China and Russia, authoritarian states that seek to build their own overlapping ecosystems.