The Effectiveness—and Limitations—of the Concert System

Contemporary world politics has no shortage of naysayers and doom-mongers. The main cause of despondency stems from the malaise that infuses Western international order, whether this is found in the inequalities fostered by its financial system, the crises of its forums of governance, or in increasingly polarised debates over immigration, race, and sexuality. A transnational movement of anti-establishment groups, present in much of Europe and North America, is but one barometer of a general atmosphere of discontent that permeates liberal societies. And this discontent travels well beyond the West. In world politics writ large can be found war, famines, terrorism, refugee and migrant crises, and more. Nuclear proliferation, climate change, and the shocks and aftershocks prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic serve as an intensely precarious operating environment. The world, it seems, is mired in crisis.