Alexander Cooley
LightNews LightNews
cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social
Alexander Cooley
@cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social
250 followers 31 following 1 posts
Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and current Vice Provost for Research and Academic Centers. Eurasia, International Order, and Geopolitics & the Academy.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Alexander Cooley
alexdukalskis.bsky.social
And here’s a write-up:
Podcast: Rising authoritarianism, Kneecap and Eurovision
An expert in international relations has told RTÉ's Behind the Story podcast it is "extremely alarming" that Donald Trump has the full force of the US government behind him for another three years.
www.rte.ie
September 26, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Alexander Cooley
dhnexon.bsky.social
And I talk about it towards then of @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social and my essay on the crisis of liberal order. (sorry, I know I've posted this stuff before).
An excerpt from our 2022 article. It reads: "U.S. officials who sincerely wish to defend the liberal order will need to choose sides, both domestically and in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. In doing so, they will blur the distinction between liberal and illiberal practices. They will need to break domestic norms, such as not modifying the size and jurisdiction of the federal judiciary because of its ideological disposition. They will also need to back away from post–Cold War norms, such as limiting favoritism toward political factions in and among major democratic allies. And they will need to do so with the clear understanding that these actions could backfire and provide rhetorical cover for illiberal and antidemocratic practices at home and abroad." The second excerpt reads: "Grappling with domestic illiberal threats remains a thorny exercise. Of course, the defense of liberal democracy has produced terrible excesses in the past, including ugly repression and horrific violence. U.S. officials adopted decidedly illiberal policies during the Red Scare that followed World War I, when the specter of Bolshevism loomed large. In trying to stem the rising right-wing extremist tide today, the United States risks returning to those dark times. But the alternative of inaction-Western liberalism's failure to beat back fascism in the 1930s—remains a dangerous prospect. History is an imperfect guide. Fascism was defeated — at least for a time—on the battlefields of World War II. Had Hitler been less interested in military conquest, fascist states might be a perfectly normal part of the current global landscape. The Soviet Union, for its part, collapsed because of a combination of the inefficiencies of its command economy, nationalist pressures, and policy choices that turned out very poorly." The final excerpt reads: "The United States cannot really contemplate defeating its current authoritarian challengers in a total war, as that would likely produce a catastrophic nuclear exchange. Its most important authoritarian challenger, China, is a totally different kind of polity than the Soviet Union was. China is wealthy and relatively dynamic, and although it has its share of structural problems, it is not abundantly clear that it hortcomings are any worse than those of the United States. In short, neither of the historical routes to the ideological victory of liberalism seems likely. This means that liberal democracies really do need to assume that they will not retake the catbird seat of the international order anytime soon. And so the question becomes not whether the liberal order will change but on whose terms."
September 16, 2025 at 4:55 PM