Liberalism, Balance of Power, or Belonging? Alternatives for the Twenty-First-Century Global Order

This article develops the Philosophy of Belonging as an alternative conceptual foundation for global order. It argues that the conventional opposition between liberal internationalism and realism is theoretically incomplete. Liberalism correctly emphasizes autonomy, rights, markets, pluralism, and institutional cooperation but underestimates belonging; realism correctly emphasizes power, security, national interests, and strategic uncertainty but underestimates interdependence. Both, however, underestimate institutional diachronicity: the permanent problem created by the fact that institutions stabilize relations while the material, technological, economic, ecological, and political realities they organize continue to change. Drawing on the four principles of the Philosophy of Belonging—being is belonging; belonging is always imperfect; reality is stratified; and existence is simultaneously synchronic and diachronic—the article develops an institutional conception of global order that preserves differentiation without isolation and interdependence without fusion. It proposes differentiation, interdependence, reliability, repairability, and adaptability as criteria for global institutional design. The central thesis is that global order is not an equilibrium to be discovered but a relationship to be continuously institutionalized.