Mainstream accounts define globalization as two connected processes. The first is the relentless increase in the interrelation of economic actors. The second is growing recognition of the superiority of “market forces” over state intervention in the economy. Free markets are seen as “natural” forces or “iron laws” of economics that only the economically illiterate or perhaps the insane would limit. Among the many impressive contributions made by Steven Slaughter is the distinction between what he calls “globalization” and “economic globalization.” The former, he argues, is the growing interdependence of economic actors that appears to be an inherent aspect of capitalist development. The latter, however, denotes the contingent victory of free market ideology, or “neoliberalism” over other forms of liberalism. For Slaughter, economic globalization is not the inevitable victory of “natural” and efficient markets against the state. Economic globalization is a form of “governance” that involves state policy, relations between states, and norms and everyday practices. This governance was the creation of state policy and international agreements. Slaughter's argument constitutes an updating of Karl Polanyi's famous claim in The Great Transformation (2001) that nineteenth-century “lasissez-faire” economics was an invention.

Slaughter argues that starting in the 1970s, neoliberal governance replaced the postwar “embedded liberalism” governance of Keynesian state intervention and international bargaining between states. He defines economic globalization in terms of three processes. “Deregulation” is the increasing dismantling of “political” impediments of the markets (p. 43). “Privatisation” is the process by which public functions are given over to the private sector or the sale of “state assets” to private actors (p. 43). Finally, “liberalization” concerns how the state stops limiting the so-called flow of trade and capital movements.

The heart of his book is Slaughter's claim that neoliberalism contradicts the liberal principles of liberty and security. During the governance of embedded liberalism, states guaranteed necessities and a “social minimum” to individuals. The state sought to protect individuals from the instability of markets and negotiated with other states to protect its inhabitants from international market forces. Neoliberal governance means that the state does not protect the liberty of the individual from the turbulence of markets.

Slaughter examines three contrasting alternatives to contemporary neoliberalism. He discusses Kenichi Ohmae's desire to reconstruct the concept of the nation-state in order to further limit the capacity of the state to regulate markets. In the work of Robert Reich and Anthony Giddens, Slaughter examines what he calls “contractual nationalism,” which aims to increase state action to protect the individual from the market and to enable the individual to better adapt to market changes. Contractual nationalists advocate increases in the minimum wage, investment in training and education, and regulation that demands better corporate behavior and protection of labor interests. The author discusses the “cosmopolitan governance” of Richard Falk and David Held, in which the international market is controlled through global democracy and not by individual states.

Slaughter finds these solutions lacking and turns to “neo-Roman republicanism” mediated through Machiavelli and Montesquieu, and developed by contemporary writers Philip Pettit, Maurizio Viroli, and others. Here he finds the path to redress the limits of neoliberalism. He defines neorepublican freedom as nondomination. The republican state promotes nondomination by protecting the individual from the domination of other individuals and from economic forces. The state is not, as in liberal theory, a form of oppression only, but a source of “antipower” that reduces private domination. For Slaughter, republicanism promotes an enlightened patriotism and civic engagement because the republican citizens recognize the collective nature of their freedom. Republican freedom concerns the expansion of private choice. However, it is political because it requires the collective spirit of the state to exist. He examines a number of domestic and international policies that would promote this republican freedom.

One of the central contributions of this book is its excellent introduction to important bodies of thought, including theories of globalization and neo-Roman republicanism. Slaughter is a confident and adept writer and the book is well organized with helpful summaries. Readers interested in placing globalization in the context of contemporary political theory will be rewarded by a close study of this work.

The book does suffer from a number of gaps. Slaughter is a good writer but tends towards a too-abstract language. His account of economic globalization would profit from a concrete case study of the imposition of neoliberalism in one country. In addition, he devotes a long chapter to the “consequences of economic globalization.” This chapter is not well organized. The author does not clearly identify the costs and balances of economic globalization, as he fails to weigh the increase of overall global wealth (which he believes to be a result of economic globalization) against increases in inequality and instability. Further, he needs to take a clearer stand on the relationship of economic globalization to world poverty. Another problem is that his well-developed conception of republican freedom is not set against a considered idea of neoliberal freedom. It would be very interesting to set republican theory against, say, the notion of freedom found in the work of F. A. Hayek. Finally, Slaughter does not adequately demonstrate how the neorepublican state, purportedly a source of antipower, might, like any state, become a source of domination itself.

Despite all that, Liberty Beyond Neo-Liberalism deserves a wide readership, if only for its insightful use of republicanism in exploring globalization theory. More substantially, Slaughter provides a number of important reminders. He demonstrates the weaknesses of the theory that globalization constitutes the death of the state. Since state action was instrumental in the creation of neoliberal governance, the state can also take action to create a new global order more conducive to the liberal values to which neoliberals claim loyalty. Perhaps most vitally for a U.S. audience, he demonstrates that human freedom is not a “natural” fact whatsoever. Humans are not naturally free, and then subsequently exchange some freedom for benefits provided by the state (such as personal security). Instead, Slaughter demonstrates that freedom is always “constructed,” that is, a social creation that requires the most comprehensive state activity. If globalization constitutes the “end of the state,” it means that the liberal dream of liberty and security has come to an end. He amply demonstrates that the former is not true and the second need not be.