Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order

Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord, Paul Tucker lays out principles for how democracies can approach relations with China and other illiberal states without sacrificing their deepest political values or recklessly risking their safety. 

Combining history, economics, and political and legal philosophy, Tucker offers a new account of international relations. Rejecting intellectual traditions going back to Hobbes, Kant and Grotius, and deploying instead ideas from David Hume, Bernard Williams and modern mechanism-design economists, Tucker describes a new kind of political realism that emphasizes power and interests without sidelining morality. Incentives must be aligned with values if institutions are to endure. The connecting tissue for a system of international cooperation, he argues, should be legitimacy, creating a world of concentric circles in which we cooperate more with those with whom we share the most and whom we fear the least. Avoiding wishful thinking about the security of our way of life, and drawing on three decades as a domestic and international policy maker, Tucker applies the book’s principles to the international monetary order, including the role of the U.S. dollar, trade and investment regimes, and the global financial system. 

The event featured a discussion with the author, and a panel of three speakers: Richard Bellamy (Professor of Political Science at UCL), Jeff King (Professor of Law at UCL) and Juliet Samuel (Columnist at The Telegraph).