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international relations theory of liberalism
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The review article "Liberal International Theory: Common Threads, Divergent Strands" by Mark W. Zacher and Richard A. Matthew outlines the five different strands of liberal theory- republican, interdependence, cognitive, sociological, and institutional. Each distinctive theory can be analyzed in terms of the conceptions of structure and agency and the three levels of analysis. In other words, each strand can be studied in terms of whether there are influences or institutions limiting the choices and opportunities available or if the individual has the capacity to act independently and to make their own choices. In terms of analysis, an ideology can be studied on whether they look at the individual, the domestic sector, or the system as a whole. …show more content…
Different from republican liberalism, military liberalists argue that military technology and interdependencies are creating greater international interests in peace and cooperation and that a reduction in the threat of military violence facilitates international economic cooperation. The revolution in nuclear war technology paired with the superpower relations that formed after the Cold War, military liberalism had gained a major surge in popularity. This increase in arms from the fear of war is referred to as a “security threat,” which is a structural dilemma because the influences of other countries are influencing how your country responds with respect to military force. Likewise, this strand is revealing systemic analysis because it is evaluating relations among nations and how actions of certain nations affect the actions of other nations and how they will act within the …show more content…
This ideology is referred to as sociological liberalism. Sociological liberalists accept that communication flows influence people’s cultures, political identity, and international political integration. The growth in international communications, the rising interest in cultural patterns, and the globalization of businesses are sure to be future points of interest for sociological liberalists. These changes tend to be gradual and their influence difficult to realize. This specific ideology is the most ambiguous because it shows signs of both agency and structure. It shows evidence of structure in the fact that communication patterns and other nongovernmental factors affect a person’s identity, but also agency in the fact that the results are hard to study because of ever-changing human nature and the fact that the changes tend to be gradual. This strand is also ambiguous in the level of analysis that it follows because it studies individuals and how they are affected by nongovernmental aspects, which would be at the third individual level, but also how globalization and international communication affects
By the end of the Cold War the literature focusing on strategic studies has highlighted transformational changes within international system that affected and altered the very nature of war. As a result many security studies scholars have renounced traditional theories of strategic thought. Clausewitzian theory, in particular, has taken a lot of criticism, regarding its relevance to modern warfare. (Gray, How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War?, 2005)
In conclusion realist and liberalist theories provide contrasting views on goals and instruments of international affairs. Each theory offers reasons why state and people behave the way they do when confronted with questions such as power, anarchy, state interests and the cause of war. Realists have a pessimistic view about human nature and they see international relations as driven by a states self preservation and suggest that the primary objective of every state is to promote its national interest and that power is gained through war or the threat of military action. Liberalism on the other hand has an optimistic view about human nature and focuses on democracy and individual rights and that economic independence is achieved through cooperation among states and power is gained through lasting alliances and state interdependence.
Although it already existed long before through primitive trade and migration, globalization has become a major factor in the world organization since the twentieth century. With the creation of transnational companies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, political and economic associations appeared new powerful actors that cannot be left apart in states’ decisions and whose influence may, according to some, threaten the authority of nation-states. Indeed it can be thought that globalization is causing the end of borders between countries and what is more that it is creating a sort of universal society in which states’ sovereignty is not the main authority anymore. However this essay will try to demonstrate that globalization is not undermining state sovereignty but that it is in fact leading to its transformation and to a new variety of nations. In order to prove it I will first define the main key words and will then focus on the different arguments about the effects of globalization and finally I will demonstrate that globalization has led to a transformation of the concept of state sovereignty.
The liberalism and the realism approaches the international relations from very different perspective, and even though many of its views contrast from each other, the ...
The creation of the study of international relations in the early 20th century has allowed multiple political theories to be compared, contrasted, debated, and argued against one another for the past century. These theories were created based on certain understandings of human principles or social nature and project these concepts onto the international system. They examine the international political structure and thrive to predict or explain how states will react under certain situations, pressures, and threats. Two of the most popular theories are known as constructivism and realism. When compared, these theories are different in many ways and argue on a range of topics. The topics include the role of the individual and the use of empirical data or science to explain rationally. They also have different ideological approaches to political structure, political groups, and the idea that international relations are in an environment of anarchy.
However, the structure and process of international relations, since the end of World War II, has been fundamentally impacted through an immense growth of a variety of factors at multiple levels, which leads to the liberalist theoretical perspective of global complex interdependency. The complex interdependency is constructed from the liberalist theoretical perspective emphasizing interdependence between states and substate actors as the key characteristics of the international system (Ray and Kaarbo 7), which means that cooperation can be made more te...
To define any perspective in International Relations, one must understand its’ origin and primary authors, including the context in which they were writing in. Liberalism is one of the more loosely defined perspectives as it has had a number of authors throughout history. Primarily, liberalism relies on the positive aspects of human nature. One of the most prominent liberal authors was Kant- who often wrote of the anarchical nature of international relations- referring to it as “the lawless state of savagery.” He also wrote of three primary routes to obtaining peace within this system, namely treating all aspects of human life with humanity, allowing for a federation of states and most importantly republican constitutionalism.
To start, Liberalism traces its roots back to the Enlightenment period (Mingst, 2008) where many philosophers and thinkers of the time began to question the established status quo. Such as the prevailing belief in religious superstition and began to replace it with a more rational mode of thinking and a belief in the intrinsic goodness of mankind. The Enlightenment period influenced Liberalism’s belief that human beings are thinkers who are able to naturally understand the laws governing human social conduct and by understanding these laws, humans can better their condition and live in harmony with others (Mingst, 2008). Two of the most prominent Liberal Internationalists of the Enlightenment period were Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham who both thought that international relations were conducted in a brutal fashion. It was Kant who compared international relations as “the lawless state of savagery” (Baylis and Smith, 2001, pp 165). It was also Kant who believed nations could form themselves into a sort of united states and overcome international anarchy through this (Mingst, 2008). This was probably the beginning of a coherent belief in a sort of union of sovereign states. Toward the end of the seventeenth century William Penn believed a ‘diet’ (parliament) could be set up in Europe, like the European Union of today (Baylis and Smith, 2001). We can see much of this liberal thinking today in organizations such as the United Nations.
It is further pertinent to mention that policy makers look for information that reinforces the pre-existing beliefs about the world, assimilate new data into familiar images, equate the decisions with what one knows and believes and deny that contradictions the information one knows and most of the time rely on intuition than analysis (Kegley and Blanton, 2010). However culture is merely the aggregate the individual disposition and its meaning and significance are limited to the behavior (Street, 1997). It is because of its culture upon which the politics of United States is built and dominates the global politics. World politics follows accepted legal conventions about distinction which is powered by the culture of population around the world that perform various day to day activities who compete with each other because frequently they have different goals and objectives (Kegley and Blanton, 2010). Kegley and Blanton (2010) further elaborates the importance of culture in global politics mentioning the chronicle of interactions among states that remain the dominant political organizations in the world wherein the world affairs are also influenced by the new, big players in international affairs. The global level of analysis is one of the major factors affecting global politics which refers to the interactions of states and non state actors on global stage whose behaviors ultimately shape the international political system and the levels of conflict and cooperation that characterize world politics. Kegley and Blanton (2010) further presents the liberal and constructivist perspectives on war and peace, armed aggression and international security which are fundamentally shaped by the importance attached to shared ethics and morality in world politics.
Liberal Internationalism is a foreign policy principle that claims that states should interfere in other sovereign states to permit the liberal objectives. For instance, “open markets, international institutions, cooperative security, democratic community, and the rule of law”- these remain as features of the liberal vision that had made radical changes throughout the past centuries. Moreover, an outline of liberal internationalism argument has been sectioned into three models of liberal international order – version 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 based on G. John Ikenberry approach on the “Liberal Internationalism 3.0: America and the Dilemmas of Liberal World Order”. The concept of liberal internationalism is “first associated with the ideas of Woodrow Wilson”, hence sometimes being mentioned as ‘Wilsonianism’, the second is the Cold War liberal internationalism of the post- 1945 periods, and the third form is the post- hegemonic liberal internationalism that has incompletely emerged and whose complete shape and logic is still undefined. Ikenberry has established a set of elements that let to categories various logics of liberal international order and classify variables that will outline the movement from liberal internationalism 2.0 to 3.0.
Why and how did globalization occur? Different perspectives have different explanations as to why and how globalization evolved. Realists argue that international trade is most effective when there is hegemony in the world market, whereas liberalists believe that it is a matter of how countries use the idea of reciprocity in their decision about trade. I agree with the realist perspective because hegemony allows the global economy to enhance and international trade functions the best when a hegemon dominates the world market.
Liberalism assumes that the war and can be policed by the institutional reforms that empower the international organizations and law.
Krain, Matthew (2005), “AP Comparative Government and Politics Briefing Paper: Globalization,” [http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap05_comp_govpol_glob_42253.pdf], accessed 15 May 2012.
The study of international relations takes a wide range of theoretical approaches. Some emerge from within the discipline itself others have been imported, in whole or in part, from disciplines such as economics or sociology. Indeed, few social scientific theories have not been applied to the study of relations amongst nations. Many theories of international relations are internally and externally contested, and few scholars believe only in one or another. In spite of this diversity, several major schools of thought are discernable, differentiated principally by the variables they emphasize on military power, material interests, or ideological beliefs. International Relations thinking have evolved in stages that are marked by specific debates between groups of scholars. The first major debate is between utopian liberalism and realism, the second debate is on method, between traditional approaches and behavioralism. The third debate is between neorealism/neoliberalism and neo-Marxism, and an emerging fourth debate is between established traditions and post-positivist alternatives (Jackson, 2007).
Another trend in world politics that gives legitimacy to Professor Squibwell’s viewpoint is the importance of trade. Annually, close to $5 trillion of trade takes place internationally, making up 15% of the globe’s economic activity. (Goldstein, 351) While mercantillists take the standpoint that it is not the pl.ace of international organizations to set up plans for mutual gains in terms of trade, liberalists hold more practical views on the issue. They believe that states should not be looking at their own, short-term gain as if in competition with the rest of the world, but instead that states should find ways in which to fulfill the long-term, mutual gain of nati...