Renderli simili o inoffensivi. L'ordine liberale, gli Stati Uniti e il dilemma della democrazia By Gabriele Natalizia, Carocci editore, 2021, Rome, Italy, 168 pp., £ 20,00

Abstract

The 4 years of the Trump administration have represented a litmus test as dynamics that have already been underway over the past few years have manifested blatantly. In fact, during the Trump tenure, there has been a definitive reorientation of the American strategic posture which has embarked into the renewed great power competition against revisionist powers. These revisionist powers such as the Russian Federation (RF) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are willing to disarticulate the so-called Liberal International Order (LIO). Moreover, the authoritarian challenge they pose has thus been linked with a gradual decrease of the overall number of democratic regimes throughout the world. This trend has been defined as a crucial challenge towards one of the main pillars of the LIO led by the US, which is the high quota of democratic countries that populate the international arena. On the other hand, the global democratic footprint has allegedly suffered an even more serious challenge from within the LIO, namely the foreign policy carried out after the Trump presidential election win in 2016. Terms like nationalism, isolationism and economic protectionism have crowded Trump administration’s international stance. It is due to this fact that many commentators hailed the Trump tenure as the final blow to the LIO which was already in decline given that its main sponsor, the US, claimed to no longer be willing to sustain it. The expected outcome was thus the overall decrease of the global democratic grip that was fatally destined to end because of the two abovementioned reasons. Firstly, the rise of authoritarian revisionist great powers in the international stage and secondly, the withdrawal of the US from its pivotal role in spreading democratic values worldwide. Conversely, the newly elected democratic administration of President Joseph Biden has been hailed by many analysts as the return of the US to a more orthodox approach in international affairs; the same role prevalently played since World War II. According to this interpretation, the Biden presidency will likely feature a return to a more traditional liberal internationalist course. Hence, unlike President Trump, the new American administration is thought to be committed to the global struggle against the rise of revisionist challengers by reinforcing a values-oriented agenda that aims to reverse the democracy decreasing trend. Following this explanation, the US’s swinging commitment to their global duties as the main architect of the LIO should be examined according to the individual preferences of each American president, affected by his own political and cultural background and the related constituency which elected him. Gabriele Natalizia’s volume has the merit to innovatively challenge this belief by presenting a theory-rooted and empirically tested work that takes into consideration both the alternative phases of democracy promotion and retreat, sponsored by the hegemonic and main architect of the LIO, the US. This volume has the credit to debunk the assumption that the American domestic political landscape and the individual preferences of the American presidents play a