‘자유주의’ 국제질서 위기: 제국주의로 다시 보기

초록

The debate over the crisis of the U.S.-led “liberal” international order has become central to both the study and practice of international relations. In this unfolding discourse, the main lines of argument have largely been developed from either realist or liberal theoretical perspectives. Despite their theoretical differences, both realist and liberal approaches to the liberal international order share a common starting premise: that the contemporary world is constituted by a sovereign state system that has transitioned from an earlier imperial order. This article disputes that premise and instead advances an alternative interpretation—namely, that imperialism continues to operate within the ostensibly sovereignty-based liberal international order. To substantiate this claim, the article first shows that territoriality—the core constitutive element of the sovereign state system—has historically been intertwined with imperialism and continues to reproduce imperial logics in the present. It further argues that although empires as formal entities have largely disappeared, imperialism as an operating logic and set of practices persists. This condition, conceptualized as “imperialism without empire,” is then examined through the case of the United States, the principal architect of the twentieth-century liberal international order. Through a comparative analysis of U.S. administrations before and after Trump, the article demonstrates the persistence of a shared imperial “civilizing mission” that transcends partisan and ideological divides. Since 1945, imperialism has functioned as a powerful internal operating principle of the U.S.-led order, sustaining its self-identity through processes of representational reconfiguration. From this perspective, “Trump’s America” can be understood as a dialectical outcome of a liberal international order in which imperialism remains structurally embedded.

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