Liberalism

• Liberals


  • States are independent and connected
  • It is best for states to cooperate and work with intergovernmental organisations to achieve goals
  • Democracy and human rights are essential to liberalism
• Human nature (in liberalism)


  • Inherently optimistic
  • Like liberty and freedom
  • Working in partnership is important as is international cooperation
  • Impose order through international war
• Conflict (in liberalism)


  • UN provides a forum for conflict resolution
  • We can and should use international courts
  • Conflict can be avoided
  • We should seek to prevent mass atrocity
  • Economic cooperation reduces likelihood of conflict
• Power (in liberalism)


  • Soft and smart power is fundamental with hard power as a last resort
  • Military power can be counterproductive
  • Economic power and free trade assists a state to become stable
  • Equal power-sharing creates stability
• Sovereignty (in liberalism)


  • Can undermine in the event of a r2p
  • Assists a state to make decisions
  • Interdependent
• IGO (in liberalism)


  • Opportunity
  • Provides and promotes peace through rule of law
  • Improves wealth- economic integration
  • Establishes world order
• Society of states

  • liberal realism
  • despite anarchy on a global scale, "when two or more have sufficient contact between them, and has sufficient impact on one another's decisions to cause them to behave as part of a whole."
  • when states interact with one another this leads them to become connected without formal authority, so decisions are made with other states in mind
• Liberalism


  School of International Relations that developed as a reaction to deficiencies in realism in the latter half of the 20th century
• Decline in conflict


  Undermines the realist argument that conflict is inevitable
• In 1951, there were 600,000 battle-related deaths in war; in 2006, there were only 10,000
• Most conflicts today are intra-state (within different factions of a state)

  Challenges the realist tenet that states are unitary actors, and that conflict is generated by a security dilemma between states
• Growth in world trade

  State economies are becoming increasingly interdependent and most economic activity now takes places between states rather than within states
• The total value of world trade was $629,000,000 ($629m) in 1960; in 2010, it was $30,000,000,000,000 ($30tn)
• Growth in democracy


  More states are moving towards 'peaceful' liberal-democratic models, which disfavour war as a method to pursue power and instead endorse diplomacy and political debate as a means to achieve their goals
• Growth in democracy


  Undercuts the realist assumption that states always act amorally and have no aversion to the use of violence if this helps them to secure their aims
• Liberals believe


  Human nature is fundamentally altruistic and co-operative and that we can achieve more power working in concert than fighting over a (wrongly-perceived) limited amount of power
• Rousseau: 'Two hunters lie in wait for a stag, which will feed them both amply. If they make a lot of noise, the stag will escape. The hunters are reasonably sure that the stag will eventually cross the path of their hiding place. Meanwhile, a rabbit appears on the path. If one hunter leaps out and kills the rabbit, he will eat; but the noise will scare off the stag and the other hunter will starve. The rabbit is guaranteed but the fear is the stag will never come. Both hunters would agree to wait for the stag, because they will both have more than enough food from it, but the rabbit is a paltry prize.'
• Stag Hunt


  Illustrates that there is an inherent risk in cooperation (what if the other actor betrays you?), but that since the benefits of cooperation far outweigh the risk, that most rational actors would choose to cooperate
• Hume: 'Rowing a boat down the river with the two boatmen holding an oar on opposite sides. In this instance, only by cooperating can individuals achieve a scenario which is in their mutual benefit.'
• Liberals would argue that human nature is inherently altruistic, and therefore that states also have the capacity to act in a moral, rational and altruistic way
• Like realism, liberalism claims to be a positivist theory – describing the world empirically 'as it is'
• Kantian Triangle


  The foundation of modern liberal theory in International Relations
• Conflict is not impossible, but it can be made less likely or avoided by pursuing certain cooperative mechanisms
• Peace is not the default, but it is achievable
• Mechanisms referenced by liberals

  • Democracy
  • International organisations
  • Economic interdependence
• Democracy


  • The 'nature' of a state is not fixed, and the state is not a unitary actor
  • A state's interest reflects the plurality of interests in a state, and the interests of a state may differ according to which political groups control the government, to public opinion, or even pressure-group activity
• Example of democracy affecting state behaviour

  • The Vietnam War was brought to an end partially by massive anti-government protests in America from the working class, civil rights activists and students
• Constitutional organisation


  • Whether a state has mechanisms that uphold human rights or provide for judicial oversight of the executive government
• Political organisation


  • Whether a state is a democracy or an autocracy; whether internal differences and disputes are settled via the bullet or the ballot
• Human beings, in the liberal sense, are generally rational, altruistic and cooperative
• If all humans in a state have a say in political decisions through democracy

  The state will act in the same way
• If the political decisions of the state are made by a small group of individuals


  Hostile and non-cooperative behaviour becomes more likely
• Democratic peace theory


  • States have a choice, and adopting liberal-democratic models of government make a state more inclined towards cooperation, harmony and balance in the international arena
• Liberal theory on state behaviour is not necessarily utopian, but it is optimistic
• Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs)


  International organisations made up of governments
• Non-governmental organisations (NGOs)


  International organisations not made up of governments
• The number of international organisations has grown exponentially since the Second World War
• Without international organisations, many modern challenges such as climate change are unsolvable
• Power and gains are not zero-sum

  There is far more to be gained by cooperating
• Examples of international organisations

  • League of Nations
  • United Nations and its sub-bodies (e.g. World Health Organisation)
  • Regional organisations (ASEAN, African Union, NAFTA, EU, Arab League)