The state after the New World Order – liberal dreams and harsh realities

This paper will ask a series of hopefully interlinked questions that will re-emerge throughout: Firstly, what is the legacy, positive and negative of the process that I would argue has dominated the last one hundred years, that of the creation of a just and peaceful international order? Secondly, how does this fit into the debate that has emerged since the end of the Cold War about the state? Thirdly, how does this in turn fit into the debate about ‘globalisation’? Finally, where does this leave our notion of order and justice for ordinary people and the international system as a whole? Can we be, cautiously optimistic or just plain pessimistic about the New World Order or the liberal ideas that I would claim underpin it?