Liberalism, Imperialism, and Empire

Abstract

State action and intervention is approached from a different angle by David Long, who examines the work of two liberal thinkers writing a century apart — J.A. Hobson and Michael Ignatieff. While both wrote on liberalism and liberal internationalism, Hobson was a critic of imperialism whereas Ignatieff is a proponent of Empire. In comparing the two, Long argues that Ignatieff's, and liberal, universalism understands difference as lack or absence of Western values, rather than as the presence of a particular history and structure; it precludes an approach based on specific knowledge and openness to alternatives. It also obscures Western state's role in the creation of the problems they seek to solve through imperial intervention.