American Exceptionalism and Global Governance: A Tale of Two Worlds?

Abstract

Discussions of US foreign policy have become intensely politicized. Especially in an election year, few safe havens remain for reasoned discourse that seeks to reflect on current and past practice solely to draw lessons for the future. I am pleased to be in such a venue today, and am immensely grateful to Goldman Sachs for enabling us to exchange views on issues of national and global concern - and to honor, thereby, the memory of Michael Mortara. My subject today is American unilateralism and its relation to the world of global governance. I am not interested in routine unilateral acts, which are a universal practice of states. By unilateralism I refer to the currently held doctrinal belief that the use of American power abroad is self-legitimating: requiring no recourse to the views or interests of others, and permitting no external constraints on its self-ascribed aims. And by global governance I mean the shared norms, institutions and practices by which the international community seeks to manage common challenges. Are the United States and global governance on a collision course? If so, how did that come to be, and what are its consequences - for the US and for the international community?