ABSTRACT
Liberal internationalism, the liberal strand of normative interpretations of international affairs, includes theories of democratic peace and theories of cosmopolitan governance. These subsets lie on a common normative ground, which consists of a universalistic reading of the interaction-dependent theory of justice. They thus enlarge the scope of applicability of political justice in comparison with the theories of political communities, but remain limited by being anchored to a conception of justice that is tied to the idea of interaction and reciprocity. This prevents them from conceiving a truly global implementation of the democratic ideal, and instead limits them to a fundamentally intergovernmental system.
