The article addresses the following question: if an extensive period of globalization and also democratization after the fall of the Berlin Wall has been followed by populism (protectionist nationalism in the West and authoritarian nationalism in the Global South), does this mean that there is something wrong with liberalism itself? Must liberalism be substituted by alternative economic and political concepts? The article presents three alternatives to liberalism that are supposed to counter populism: a new communitarianism, a renewal of the democratic project as much as novel conceptions of social justice. However, it takes also into account positions that address the current crisis from within the liberal framework itself.