EPIIC 2017-18 Overview

 

The 2017-18 Sherman Teichman EPIIC Colloquium

IS THE LIBERAL WORLD ORDER ENDING?

EXP 0079 XF • Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:00-5:30pm
Dr. Abi Williams
Director, Institute for Global Leadership
All interested students must come to the first class on Tuesday,
September 5, 3:00pm, Lane 100

This courses counts as an elective in the Peace and Justice Studies major; Fletcher students can also take this course for credit.

The question of liberal world order, and its current challenges and deficiencies, is one that the 2017-18 Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) colloquium will explore and grapple with over the course of two semesters. It is at the heart of the Institute for Global Leadership’s (IGL) mission to prepare new generations of critical thinkers, and effective ethical global leaders who can comprehend the world’s most challenging global issues. As world events confound traditional tools and institutions, it is also a question which demands urgent answers.

We can see the faltering of global order in the realm of international security, where the international community has stood by – largely impotent – as a devastating civil war has ripped apart Syria, unleashing the worst humanitarian crisis in the young 21st century. The conflict in Ukraine has challenged international norms of territorial integrity and raised the specter of great power conflict in Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

In other domains, too, the lack of global order has troubling consequences for wider human security aims, including development, sustainability and political freedom.

Looking across a range of issues, from the international trade regime to intervention in humanitarian crises, major states seem to be bypassing the United Nations and other international institutions more than ever. Does this fragmentation of the global order spell the end of the liberal international system that emerged after the end of World War II?

Some of the other questions this year’s EPIIC course will address include:

  • What are the core principles and values of liberalism (as distinguished from liberal-left politics)?
  • What are the tensions and contradictions inherent in a liberal vision of world order?
  • Do attempts to implement liberal principles simultaneously generate illiberal forces?
  • What are the forces, such as populism, challenging the liberal world order?
  • Can, and should, the United States continue to uphold world order?
  • What are the perspectives and approaches of China and of Russia to world order?
  • What should be the roles of international institutions, such as the the United Nations on peacekeeping and human rights?
  • Can/should multilateral institutions established to provide governance over security, trade and finance be reformed?

 

Download the 2018 EPIIC brochure

SEE DR. ABI WILLIAMS' TED TALK