The latest episode of The President’s Inbox is live! Last week, Jim sat down with Peter Trubowitz, a professor of international relations and director of the Phelan U.S. Center at the London School of Economics. They discussed the rise of anti-globalization in the West and what it means for world order.

Here are three highlights from their conversation:

1.) The liberal international order—which took form in the early 1950s—is inherently linked to domestic politics. Peter noted that it “rested on assumptions and domestic institutional arrangements that helped ensure support for policies like free trade and institutionalized cooperation in the form of things like NATO or the IMF and the World Bank in Western democracies.” In short, domestic policies provided social and economic protections for workers, which in turn shored up political support for multilateralism.

2.) The Cold War had a “disciplining effect on domestic politics inside Western democracies.” It fortified centrist parties, making it difficult for far-left or far-right parties to gain political momentum. The way Peter put it, “If you were too far left, you were seen as being too soft on communism...And if you were too far right, you were seen as too belligerent and risky to be kind of basically given the keys to the car.” At that time, Peter argued that “western democracies required international security.” But to get “a commitment to support liberal internationalism in those Western democracies, those governments had to guarantee that they had people's backs in terms of social protection and economic inclusion and economic security.” When the Cold War ended, it became easier for Western democracies to abandon social welfare and embrace free trade.

3.) Anti-globalism sentiment is on the rise across Europe and in the United States. Peter diagnosed the root of the problem as “the combination of [Western governments] doubling down on international openness and institutionalized cooperation through supernational institutions on the one hand and an erosion of domestic supports of protections on the other.” As economic protections faded and jobs disappeared, too many people felt that their governments left them behind. Looking for a reason, they blamed globalization for their predicament.

If you’re looking to learn more about global trade, check out “A Turning Point for Global Trade” by CFR’s Why It Matters podcast team.