Thanks to William Scheuerman for his thoughtful and stimulating comments on my book. It is certainly true that the crisis of liberalism in general and of the liberal world order in particular is not a new subject. Then why take it up again? For two reasons: first, many of the previous and contemporary critical analyses of the liberal world order tend to be prejudiced by theoretical and/or political convictions that serve to predetermine their view of the subject. I consider myself a skeptical liberal in the sense that the progress which most liberals talk about is possible and desirable, but it cannot be taken for granted and the obstacles to progress are much more serious than many liberals think. Differently put, there is no end of history, no secure path to modernity for all, no safe, upward arrow towards progress. “History has no libretto,” as Alexander Herzen said.

The seccond and major reason for looking critically at liberal world order is that such an order is always an ongoing project which has to confront the concrete challenges and specific circumstances of each phase of historical development. Liberalism, as I clarify in the book, is a complex set of principles that “developed dramatically over time in the hands of many different theorists and practitioners, and in relation to shifting material conditions” (p. 70). Scheuerman is off the mark, then, when he ascribes to me a view of liberalism as “a historical constant.” The book is about the ways in which liberal theory and liberal politics handle, or do not handle, current challenges. That is the substance of a “liberal world order in crisis.”

Scheuerman further underlines a distinction between liberal theory and liberal politics, and writes that the ties between them are “untidy.” That is certainly true; I take pains to emphasize the distinction but I also demonstrate the connections between theory and politics. These distinctions are especially prevalent in the case of liberalism. It is a major point in the book that liberal democracies which pursue some version of liberal order are confronted with current versions of liberal dilemmas that grow out of liberal theory.

Scheuerman finds that my analysis of liberalism's latent contradictions “seems underdeveloped” and ascribes it to my use of Berlin's separation of negative and positive liberty, which he finds unconvincing. I do spend some considerable time discussing that separation (pp. 38–43). I also submit that my distinction between a Liberalism of Restraint and a Liberalism of Imposition is an attempt to summarize a much larger liberal debate into “two major modalities of a liberal posture” (p. 43). My aim is not to fully portray every aspect of the liberal deliberations on these issues, but to present major liberal tensions in a way which is relevant and appropriate for the analysis of strains in the current liberal world order.

Finally, Scheuerman is skeptical about my view that—since no one else can, or will, shoulder the task—the creation of a stable world order is up to the “leading democracies.” He rather wants to first create “a sufficiently mature global society, along with robust worldwide political institutions capable of making sure that general rules and policies can be consistently enforced against the strong as well as the weak.” That sounds promising, but it is, by any standard, an awesome task. If this is the undertaking that should animate those of us interested in a world of liberty, welfare, and security for all, Scheuerman owes us at least some indications about how this would be a feasible project in any foreseeable future.