Valdai Club

Though recent public opinion surveys find that 60% of Americans have confidence in Biden’s foreign policy, there are reasons to suspect that the US domestic environment will not be as supportive of Biden’s re-engagement with global primacy and the liberal international order as in previous eras of US foreign policy where domestic politics was divided, writes Alexander Cooley, Director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected global perceptions about the transformation of the liberal international order? Over the past year, we have seen a number of analytical pieces by researchers and policymakers declaring the current pandemic a critical turning point in international relations, one which marks the end of the US-led liberal international order and the ushering in of a more multipolar and decentered world, where states struggle to cope with the transnational changes, face rising nationalism, and must manage the economic shocks of sudden economic de-globalization.