Chapter 6 uses the liberal perspective to explain and understand major events in international politics since the end of the Cold War.  Liberal accounts focus on the integrating forces of international institutions and economic interdependence.  The 1990s, according to the liberal perspective, provides extensive examples of the role of international institutions in collective security, legitimizing intervention into the affairs of other states. Specifically, the chapter focuses on the success of collective security in the international response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwaitt in 1990. The cause of terrorism, for the liberal perspective, can be traced back to the failures of diplomacy, particularly in the Middle East; in addition, the liberal perspective believes that the unilateral actions of the United States have served only to exacerbate the problem.  The Oslo accords are discussed as a modest success for the liberal notion of diplomatic negotiations as a means to limit conflict.

The chapter includes extensive discussion of major international organizations that are sometimes relegated in other texts to a chapter just on that topic.  Here, the United Nations, NATO, the European Union are discussed in some depth.  The chapter includes a section which introduces the basic rules of international law, and it also includes a discussion of the major examples of judicial decision making at the international level, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court.  The Bretton Woods organziations, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization are also discussed in this chapter as examples of the liberal perspective.  The chapter also includes a discusion of ASEAN.  Each of these institutions is understood in their proper theoretical context as examples of Kantian regulatory liberalism.