Home | About Us | Contact Us | Site Map | FAQs

¹Department of Political Science, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252, USA. E-mail: lbishai@towson.edu

This article traces the recent discussion of the United States (US) as a developing empire. Noting that both the pro and con sides of the argument assume that the US acts with benign intentions, it argues that the Liberal Empire has more coercive features than are generally acknowledged. The liberal virtues of toleration and pluralism are becoming imperial gestures that employ repressive tactics to achieve a consensus. The irony of this development is that the liberal empire must control and contain difference in order to preserve the forms of difference deemed acceptable. Difference may only be encountered amidst known conditions ¾ conditions of recognized universal truth. However, post 11 September, 2001, the American liberal model has been deeply challenged as not being universal. Contrary to the expected model of moderation and the struggle for acceptance, the American liberal response to terrorism has been a reversion to a singular understanding of identity and truth. Terrorism has been essentialized, its context reduced to the American experience, and any attempt to historicize it has been categorically denounced as irrational. The Liberal Empire, unlike historic empires, assumes the morality and truth of its mission. It thus manifests itself in intolerant and narrow-minded ways.

Journal of International Relations and Development (2004) 7, 48-72. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jird.1800001

American liberalism; difference; empire; liberal; pluralism; toleration