To Save Global Liberalism, Time to Look Beyond Government

Governments confront numerous challenges in 2017, ranging from a struggle to grow economies and create jobs to combatting terrorism, controlling refugees fleeing from terrorism and managing climate-related disasters. China, Russia and the United States jockey for power on the global stage. “But it’s precisely because governments are distracted or incapacitated that there is a role for non-state actors,” explains Peter Westmacott, former British ambassador to the United States and a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “America always has a wealth of talented people waiting in the wings, or in thinktanks, while a president of the opposing party occupies the White House. Out of office, they undertake specialist missions, sometimes solo and sometimes in bipartisan groups, to address the big foreign and security policy issues of the day.” He urges those who embrace liberty, equality and a philosophy of liberalism to connect globally. Think tanks, universities, associations and ordinary people – can nurture global connections and resist nationalism, fear and populism. – YaleGlobal