The conceptual backdrop for the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the impending struggle among three ideologies that would shape the emerging modern international order:  liberalism, nationalism, and the far-from-spent forces of monarchical legitimism. Religion played a role in these ideological contests, while socialism and economic radicalism waited in the wings. Today liberalism, nationalism, modernized forms of autocratic rule, religious identity politics, and radical critiques still contend and recombine in new, revitalized forms.  

While the bicentennial of the Congress provides an occasion to reflect on possibilities for debate and deliberation on international order, close analogies to or direct lessons from that historical turning point should not limit our thinking about contemporary problems of global order.  Among the questions that this workshop took up were: 1) whether ideological differences today and in the foreseeable future will complicate the achievement of durable international stability and global governance, and 2) how to manage relations among states (and social movements) that embrace different social and political ideologies?