Liberalism And Liberalism: A Key Aspects Of International Relations

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This essay shall be discussing a key aspect of international relations – Liberalism. This is a large school of thought within international relations. This essay will firstly place liberal thinking into context and how it can be applied in international relations. It shall then go on to define and identify its criticisms. It shall also cover fictitious democracies. Thirdly, democratic peace theory will be defined and discussed in regards to how its used in modern politics. Democratic peace theory will also be criticised with relevant examples. Lastly, this essay will discuss whether democracies truly are peaceful, examples will be provided to both prove and criticise the argument of democracies being peaceful. Finally, there will be a reflection …show more content…

Liberalism was first found in the Enlightenment period of the eighteenth century (Mingst and Arreguin-Toft, 2014, 87). As an ideology it focuses on the positives of human nature and the natural rights of humans within society. Liberalism expands within international relations; they argue that it is entirely possible for interdependent states to live in a state of harmony as long as they all find this as a common interest. They also believe that this can be aided with the use of an international institution such as the United Nations to help upkeep peace amongst states. Democratic peace theory is a liberal theory that is consistently used within international relations, it is still discussed and debated in contemporary international relations.
Before posing the question of ‘do democracies go to …show more content…

Democracies have a history of commonly going to war with other countries that are not a liberal democracy, for example, Britain declaring war with Nazi Germany in 1939 (Bbc.co.uk, 2018). Also, democratic peace theory mainly accounts for war between different states, but fails to take into consideration a civil war within a democratic country. This is an issue that could not be solved by an outside force such as the League of Nations or the United Nations as it is purely an internal issue. It would then only require the need of outside security if another democratic country became involved in the civil war, however this has not happened with a democratic country. Moreover, there has been a civil war within a democratic country – the American Civil War of 1861. America in 1860 was technically a democracy – however it was not an equal democracy that we know today as voting was only available to those that were white and male (Behrens et al, 2003, 560). America went to war in 1861, the Union states fighting for slavery to be abolished, meanwhile the Confederate states fought for slavery to stay. Although it is argued by some that the original cause of the civil war wasn’t slavery but a scramble for power within the Senate (Formby,

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