Liberal Democracy Faces Competition

TW: We have remarked on this before. Western nations have been ascendant since the Renaissance. Liberalized democracies were ascendant throughout the 20th century albeit not without competition from the Soviets and various fascists. With the collapse of the Soviet Union folks felt pretty arrogant about Western liberalized democracies having become the world's predominant power structure.

As history has evolved over the past several years, however, this view is suffering. The Western liberalized democracy has stiff competition from alternative forms of governance. The GDP numbers above bear this out. The ramifications are immense.

Aspiring nations will have viable alternative governance models to which to benchmark their nations. China is the obvious alternative model but hegemonic regimes amongst the oil rich will also hold significant power.

The silver lining is the value of competition. The increasingly sclerotic governance processes by which Western nations and institutions seek to govern may be improved by exposure to significant international competition. The insular nationalistic tendencies of Americans may require some re-thinking. Will these changes occur without a major international crisis to force the absorption of change? We shall see.
http://blogs.cfr.org/setser/2009/07/31/geoeconomics-in-pictures/