Originally published on January 8, 2024 (Episode 345)
Introduction
Some animals—like beavers, nesting ants, bees, and humans—actively reshape their environments to make them more favorable for their own species. My guest today believes the same is also true of nations. This, he argues, is the true meaning of Woodrow Wilson’s phrase “to make the world safe for democracy.”
But animals also change as they are adapting their environment. John Owen argues that liberalism has evolved in ways no longer conducive to its own survival; meanwhile autocratic governments in Russia and China are actively reshaping the international environment to favor autocracy. He believes that the way to ensure democracy’s survival in the United States is to reimagine liberalism—to view it as less about disruption and perpetual openness, and more about commitment, community, and country.
About the Guest
John M. Owen IV is the Ambassador Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. His latest book is The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (Yale, 2023), and it is the subject of our conversation today.
For Further Investigation
John M. Owen IV, The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (Yale, 2023)
—, Confronting Political Islam: Six Lessons from the West’s Past (Princeton, 2015)
—, The Clash of Ideas on World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change, 1510-2010 (Princeton, 2010)
Woodrow Wilson’s “Making the World Safe for Democracy” speech (April 1917)
💬 Listen & Discuss
Is liberal democracy capable of adapting to survive in a world reshaped by authoritarian powers? Or does democracy’s future depend on reimagining its own principles? Share your thoughts in the comments and pass this episode along to someone following today’s global power struggles.
