liberalism

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Liberalism
Key Units
institutions, transcending states

Core Concern
Institutionalizing peace

Major Approach
International law, international organization,
democratization

Cont..
Outlook on Global Prospects
Optimistic/progress

Motives of Actors
Collaboration, mutual aid, meeting human needs

Central Concepts
Collective Security, world order, law, integration,
international organization

Prescriptions
Institutional reform

Immanuel Kant
Major Work: Perpetual Peace, 1795
Reason is key
Peace requires:
All states to be representative democracies
International law (not world government)
Free movement of people and free trade

Idealism
Response to World War I, a failure of balance of
power politics
Decreasing incentives for war
increasing costs of war
New technologies (mustard gas & machine guns)
Increasing economic interdependence

mobilizing public opinion

Resolution through international institutions

League of Nations

Utopian liberalism approach

the early study of IR
WW1 was the decisive occasion for the IR as
separate discipline..how?
Millions of causalities, mass destruction
vague Justification for war
No rational purpose for unprecedented causalities

Desire emerged to avoid such mistakes

Millions are being killed, Europe is mad a thinker
said
Britain, France, Russia- Germany, Austria, turkey

 Why they want to war?

What were the reasons?
Liberalism tried to explain & interpret the
phenomenon
It was the short sighted, egoistic miscalculations
of autocratic leaders
Alliance system lead all the Europe to war

 Liberals sought to reform, the theory of

balance if power and alliance system to avoid
war in future
Woodrow Wilson promoted ideas of liberal
democracy at the end of war
WORKING FOR THE GOOD
Democracy would not go for war against
democracy..popular will

Collective security
Free trade
Global institutional governance
Democracy, self determination
LON framed, later failed(1920-46)

Realist Approach
Liberalism proved to be a bad intellectual guide in
1930s
LON failed, no economic development
Expansionist and authoritarian governments
prevailed (Germany, Italy, Japan)
Realist mindset tried to explain the phenomenon
using the language of Thucydides, Machiavelli
ww II happened

 Liberals misread the facts of history and world

politics
It is the system of conflict of interest, not
harmony of interest
Human nature is bad, greedy, power hungry
and aggressive (Hitler, Mussolini)
World politics is an international anarchy
struggle for power and survival between
haves and have-nots .balance of power
maintained peace and prevented war

liberalism
International law
International
organization
Interdependence
Cooperation
Peace

realism

Power politics
Security
Aggression
Conflict
war

Peace, Trade, and IOs

Some evidence suggests that
pairs of states that trade with each other more are less likely to go to
war with each other, because the trade they would lose out on makes
war too costly.
states that have more common IO memberships are less likely to go to
war with each other, because they have non-violent means to resolve
their conflicts.

Critiques of Neo-liberalism
Democratic peace is coincidence, not causation.
Common Cold War interests, not democratic
institutions, explain peace.

Overly optimistic (All good things go together.)

Imposes a value system while pretending
neutrality.