Twenty Years of Institutional Liberalism

Conclusion 

With respect to moralism, legalization and legalism, Hegel’s Owl of Minerva indeed flies 

at dusk. Moralism, legalization and legalism reflect the fusion of power and social pur­

pose represented by the dominance of liberalism since 1991; but we only see them in 

their fullest extent as one of the conditions for their expansion – the fusion of social 

purpose with overwhelming Western power – is beginning to slip away. They are inher­

ent in liberalism and are most evident when we see Institutional Liberalism in its purest 

form. But my third phenomenon – the decreasing coherence of international regimes – 

seems to me to reflect the anticipated rise in power of the newly strong countries, as well 

as the obstacles that domestic politics places in the way of farsighted adaptation. In other 

words, the decline in regime coherence stems from a divergence of interests, a diffusion 

of power, and the difficulties of persuading domestic democratic publics to bear the costs 

of adjustment. 

At the beginning of this essay I asked whether moralism and legalism, legalization, 

and declines in the coherence of international regimes reflected intrinsic qualities of 

liberalism or the impact of changes in structures of power. My answer is mixed. I attrib­

ute increased legalization, moralism and legalism to intrinsic features of liberalism and 

to the dominance since 1991 of liberal states. But I attribute declines in the coherence of 

international regimes to the anticipated as well as actual diversification of power and 

interests in world politics as well as the inhibitions on learning built into domestic poli­

tics in most countries in an era of slow economic growth and increasing economic ine­

quality. Collapse is avoided because, as Joseph Nye and I wrote in 

Power and 

Interdependence,

 ‘a set of networks, norms and institutions, once established, will be 

difficult either to eradicate or drastically rearrange’.

33

 But progress toward more coher­

ent and comprehensive regimes has also come to a halt. 

So we see the persistence and in some areas the expansion of legalization, coupled 

with legalism and moralism, at the same time as urgent problems no longer generate the 

creation of multilateral regimes. Contradictory patterns continue to appear. 

My own liberalism has little in common with either laissez-faire economics or with 

the notion that liberals are optimists about human nature. It has much more in common 

with Judith N. Sklar’s concept of the ‘liberalism of fear’.

34 

As I implied at the beginning 

of this article, I share much of James Madison’s political philosophy. I am a liberal not 

because I think people are good and easily ruled, but because I think that unchecked 

power is dangerous and that power-holders therefore need to be held in check. Institutional 

Liberalism offers not the promise of continuous progress but a source of hope for 

improvement coupled with institutional checks against retrogression. 

Power continues to be important but institutions can help to tame it, and states whose 

leaders seek both to maintain and use power must be attentive, as E. H. Carr recognized, 

to issues of legitimacy. At the moment, legalism and moralism thrive, but the compre­

hensiveness and coherence of multilateral institutions are suffering. We need at this time 

less to profess and preach legalism and moralism than to figure out how to form coali­

tions that will build and maintain coherent multilateral institutions to address the major 

challenges of our time. The fact that these institutions are not foolproof is less a counsel 

of despair than a motivation to build them on as firm foundations as we can. 

---

Keohane

137 

Notes 

1 John Gerard Ruggie, ‘International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded 

Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order’,