Liberal Internationalism

Liberal Internationalism

• Focuses on the role of international cooperation, institutions, and diplomacy in regulating state interactions.
• International organizations, treaties, and norms can mitigate power politics.
• States can advance economic prosperity, peace, democracy, and human rights through cooperation.
• Emphasizes multilateralism instead of self-help, rule of law instead of power politics, and peaceful resolution of disputes instead of using force.

Core Assumptions and Beliefs

• International collaboration is both feasible and sustainable, which aids in reducing conflict and rivalry.
• Multilateralism enhances cooperation among nations, decreasing transaction costs and addressing shared challenges effectively, promoting stability and peace, exemplified by agreements like UNCLOS 1982 and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
• Transnational issues, like economic and environmental concerns, can be tackled through multilateralism.
• A strong correlation exists between institutions, economic collaboration, and peace.
• Globalization, which enhances interconnectedness, fosters mutual interdependence and positively impacts states' behavior.
• Prosperity and peace are mutually reinforcing.
• Prioritizing human rights, democracy, and individual freedoms within international institutions is crucial for attaining global peace.
• International law and institutions serve as tools to create peace and order in international relations.
• Increased transparency reduces uncertainty about the intentions of others, reducing conflict and competition.
• Economic interdependence, created by international commerce, plays a key role in cooperation among states.
• It fosters mutual trust and economic reliance, which increases the costs of conflict for both sides, making war less likely.
• The World Trade Organization (WTO), or OMC, was created in 1995.
• It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland regulating global trade to ensure it flows smoothly and freely.
• With 164 member countries covering 98% of world trade, it administers trade agreements, facilitates negotiations, resolves disputes, monitors trade policies, and supports developing nations.
• The WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947 and collaborates with organizations like the IMF and World Bank to maintain economic stability.
• Emphasizes the importance of international institutions and non-governmental actors in influencing state preferences and decisions, going beyond power dynamics or system structures/power distributions.
• State power is not the only variable determining international relations outcomes, as the search for peace, prosperity, and justice also drive outcomes, Non-proliferation Treaty, UNCLOS, Geneva Conventions on War, etc.
• Absolute and relative gains

Liberal Internationalism vs Structural Realism

• Shares with realism
• The system is anarchic but disagrees on the extent to which it determines state behavior.
• Hierarchy in international politics and force can be used, but the risk is lessened by cooperation.
• The state is the main actor but not the only one that counts.
• Self-interest exists, but interdependence means states value absolute gains, not just relative gains when cooperating.
• Relative gains: how gains are distributed among participants, if one state's gains are more > they will become stronger > partners more vulnerable through zero-sum gain.
• Absolute gains: common interests, long-term peace and prosperity for all, NPT, Paris CCA.
• Prisoner's dilemma illustrates how cooperation can be more beneficial for both parties.
• Converges with structural realism in that it perceives the international system structure as anarchic;
• However, challenges structural realists' emphasis on the conflictual nature of the international system and the central role of the state as a unitary actor.
• Rejects power politics as the only possible outcome of international relations: cooperation is possible and can be beneficial for all > states can move beyond power politics focusing on common interests.
• Emphasizes international institutions and treaties, while realists see them as secondary to the power dynamics between states.
• Emphasizes diplomacy, negotiation, and peaceful conflict resolution, while realists see conflict as inherent and military power as a crucial tool.
• Emphasizes the positive role of economic interdependence, while realists are cautious about it and focus on power considerations.
• Rejects dominant security principles of realism, stating that states seek other goals too, like wealth, prosperity, and justice.
• Self-interest is balanced by common interests for mutual benefit and absolute gains.
• Assumption: plenty of room for peace and cooperation = absolute gains for everyone.
• Achieving lasting peace and cooperation in international relations, of normative character, is of central importance.

Three Waves Of Liberal Internationalism

• Founding ideas of 19th-century liberal internationalism

• The natural order has been corrupted by secret treaties and outdated policies, like the balance of power.

• The problem of war can be solved through the development of a body of international rules and laws constraining the self-interest of states.

• Trade and other cross-border flows will facilitate more peaceful international relations.

• Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

• Argued that 'perpetual peace' could be achieved through republican constitutionalism, a liberal state.

• Liberal states are inherently pacifist in their international relations with other liberal states.

• Republican governments > executive power checked by legislature.

• A federal contract among states to abolish war.

• A state of peace would result from the federation of states committed to international order and security.

• Increased commerce between states is incompatible with war.

• Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) invented the term 'international' as opposed to Law of nations.

• Argued for a new concept of international jurisprudence based on the equality of sovereigns.

• He believed that international systems should be places where states follow the rule of Law and further moral principles.

• He argued that federation of states subject to the same laws would make war less likely.

Modern Extensions of These Founding Ideas

• Michael Doyle revived Kant's claim in the 1980s stating liberal states are pacific in their international relations with other liberal states, calling it the democratic peace theory.
• Empirical evidence seems to support the democratic peace thesis; however, it has important limitations because liberal states are just as aggressive as any other kind of state in their relations with authoritarian regimes and stateless people.
• Francis Fukuyama famously celebrated the triumph of liberalism over all other ideologies in 'The End of History' 1989.

Internationalism and Institutionalism: Peace Through Law

• The First World War challenged the idea of a natural harmony of interests in international political and economic relations because Germany and Britain went to war, despite their high degree of economic interdependence.
• Liberal thinking shifted toward a recognition that peace is not a natural condition but is one that must be constructed.

The League of Nations

• Woodrow Wilson '14 points' advocated for the creation of a League of Nations to regulate international anarchy through the exercise of collective security by collective response to aggression.
• The League's constitution also called for self-determination of all nations.
• However, practical and moral problems limited its implementation.
• The League was a disaster because states continued to pursue their self-interests with impunity, like in 1931 when Japan occupied Manchuria; in 1935 Italy>Ethiopia; in 1936 Nazi Germany>Rhineland.
• This marked the end of the 'idealist moment' and flawed thinking of the inter-war period.
• E. H. Carr critiqued "The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1939"
• He believed that inter-war thinkers overlooked the distribution of power and interests in the international system and failed to understand that values and purposes were inextricably linked to power, tying the future of the League to the dominance of international society by European colonial powers.

Challenges Confronting Liberal International Order

• John Ikenberry (1999) identified three phases of liberalism influence in world order:
• The first, Lib Int 1.0 was the Idealist moment of the inter-war period where there was a failed attempt to replace the old Balance of Power with the rule of law.
• The second, Lib Int 2.0, from 1945-2002, was the American-led liberal international order with liberal principles embedded in international regimes and institutions after WW2.
  • The US was the most powerful, taking the greatest share of upholding the rules and institutions of the system.
• The third, Lib Int 3.0 from 2003 onward, is a crisis of liberal international order.
• The return to might makes right, citing the US invasion of Iraq without UNSC approval, is causing growing discontent.
• The US is weakening, and is no longer capable of sustaining this order.
• The rest of the world no longer wants an order led by a hegemon because of double standards and liberal imperialism causing sovereign equality under threat.
• There has been a change in the distribution of power in China, Russia
• What will be the fate of Liberal International Order relating to global institutions over sovereign states?
• Current challenges include:
• The diminishing relative power of the United States reduces its capacity to deal with global risks.
• Rising powers' demands for a greater share of authority
• Europe's inability to serve as a second superpower that could promote liberal internationalist rules and values.
• The Global South is banding together to denounce the double standards and inequality reproduced by the liberal world order.
• Western institutions lack legitimacy, as they benefited the West and created inequality.
• If they are preserved, how do we curb 'liberal imperialism' tendencies/How do we ensure economic and social justice on a global scale?
• It is unclear what alternative configurations of liberal internationalism exist, such as a return to a form of state sovereignty that rejects intervention on internationalist grounds, or the emergence of truly multilateral governance institutions reconstituted according to more just distributive principles.

Constructivism

• Not a theory concerned with who the main actors are/main problems in international relations, or solutions, but rather an ontology set of assumptions about the world, human motivation, and agency.
• Constructivism does not counter either realism or liberalism, but rather, opposes rationalism because decisions are not simple products of cost-benefit analysis, but mediated by ideas, identity, and persuasion – social constructs
• In the 1980s, scholars began to draw from sociological and critical theories to argue for the importance of norms, ideas, identity, and rules in shaping international relations.
• The failure of existing theories to explain the end of the Cold War created space for a new approach, and a meteoric rise of constructivism began in the 1990s.
• It is now amongst the mainstream approaches in international relations.
• Constructivism's key tenets are that ideas are > identity is > than interests.
• Constructivism is about human consciousness and the construction of reality
• It emphasizes the role of ideas in world politics, and is very important.
• Key Assumptions
• Ideas influence states' identities, like democracy and Human Rights lead states to be > liberal.
• Identities mold interests and consequently shape state behavior.
• Ideas and beliefs of elites in power are particularly important
• Global politics are a social construct
• Symbols, rules, concepts, and categories shape how individuals construct, interpret, and act upon their world.
• The identities and interests of actors are not rational objective facts, but rather, they are socially constructed.
• Social facts are built through practice, namely nation, sovereignty, and Human Rights.
• Human Rights do not naturally exist: they require human agreement.
• Change can occur over time.
• For example, the German identity went from Nazi identity in 1930–45 to being a major recipient of refugees in 2000–2010.
• There must be a focus on the social context of international relations emphasizing the role of ideas, identity, beliefs, and social norms in international politics, like how the West and Global South have different understandings of the Liberal International Order, involving sovereignty and Human Rights.
• Variables of international relations, military power, trade relations, and international institutions are important because they have social meanings for players - which is constructed from a mix of history, ideas, norms, and beliefs.
• For example, how the US and South Africa perceive the economic and military rise of China.
• Emphasis is on the role of transnational actors NGOs, Corporations like in altering states' beliefs and behavior regarding land mines through lobbying, persuasion and shaming, and of international organizations not tools of state but pursuing their own agendas around free trade, Human Rights.
• Constructivism focuses on the interplay between structure and agency.
• Institutionalized ideas, exemplified by the Geneva Conventions on War which are > structure, condition global politics dynamics as we know it and shapes states behavior.
• Actors can construct, reproduce, and transform structures through the power of ideas through practices such as the old practices of rivalry and war-making that may be changed through institutionalization of sets of rules, norms, and practices.
• Exemplified by state sovereignty and non-intervention Vattel 1758, subsequently enshrined in successive treaties, and gradually became a norm observed by most.
• Wendt says absence of political authority in the international system forces states into self-help behavior.
• Self-help is not a structural feature, but a subjective understanding about self and others reinforced through practice "Anarchy is what states make of it" - "Alter and ego on a desert island".
• The only reason one might be in a self-help system is because perceptions and practices made it that way 1992:407, and the system is not structurally conflictual!
• Practices can 'un-make' a 'conflictive' culture.
• NATO and EU are examples of these 'un-makings."

Unmaking of Conflict: EU

• After WW2, Europe set out to reconstruct itself and appease tensions by bringing economies closer. R. Schuman, a French Foreign Minister, said it would "make war materially impossible."
• In 1951, the Treaty. of Paris created the European Coal and Steel Community which neutralizes competition over national resources>between Bel, Fr, Ger, It, Hol, and Lux.
• In 1957, the Treaty. of Rome created the EEC: established a customs union + Euratom for coop in nuclear energy
• By 1967, all institutions merged into the EEC
• Gradually, 22 other countries joined the EU from eastern Europe after the Cold War.
• To become a member, nations must meet the Copenhagen criteria 1993: have a stable democracy, respect for Human Rights, rule of law, have a functioning free market economy, acceptance of EU law.
• Nine candidates are Albania, B&H, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
• The UK dropped out of EU.

Constructivism Key Tenets: Practices

• Contrary to rational choice theorists, constructivists talk about actors' practices rather than behavior - and fixed preference and strategic calculation of costs benefits.
• Practice as patterns model of action with social meaning, learn by doing, demonstrates membership, competence -- i.e. states providing humanitarian action.
• Practices capture how things are done within a social context.
• Wendt's claim that 'anarchy is what states make of it' calls attention to how different beliefs and practices generate divergent patterns and organization of world politics.
• Regulartive rules regulate pre-existing activities such as order and constrain behaviour.
• Shape behaviour Constitutive rules create the very possibility for those activities which creates new actors, interests or categories of actions, for example, sovereignty does not merely regulate how states interact, it constitutes what a state is + HR regimes – DO not only regulate state behaviour but creates new categories of actors(violators) and responsabilities).
• Shape identities and possibilities
• Rules vary in terms of their institutionalization and can be changed by actors with agendas and identities thus change again practice.
• The world isnt not just material but also normative.
• The Norm's efficacy states why actors comply and conform.
• Realism and Liberalism
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Material benefits
• Constructivism's key tenets are meaning and power.
• Constructivists also attempt to identify the meaning actors give to their practices and social facts.
• Culture informs the meanings that people give to their practices and the objects they construct, meaning that different perspectives and varying views emerge. e.g. sovereignty, development, HR, security, humanitarian intervention – different understanding West x GS
• The fixing of meaning discursive dominance power is an accomplishment that is the essence of politics allocases differential rewards and capacitites and thus power and power brokerage. E.g. US x China normative discourse on HR Power can be measured with ideational component instead of economic and military might.

Constructivism - Key Tenets: Two Logics

• The logic of consequences attributes action to anticipated costs and benefits.
• The logic of appropriateness highlights how actors are rule-following and worry about the legitimacy of their actions and act in accordance with social norms.
• The two logics are not necessarily discrete or competing, but rather, the same, and can apply to both.
• States engage in behavior not just for maximizing interests but also for enacting roles within a system societal norms.
• States are influenced by reason and emotion.
• Using these approaches, constructivism can question what is otherwise taken for granted through logic of consequences.

Constructivism and Global Change

• Constructivists criticize neo-realists and neo-liberal institutionalists failing to explain contemporary global transformations.
• Westphalian norms do not appear as robust or timeless as has been suggested Sovereignty appears to be conditional on how a state treats its citizens and how it is percieved.
• Changing understandings of what constitutes a legitimate international order is more reasonable explanation than just great power preferences current contest to word order

Constructivism And Global Change: Socialization

• Socilization
• How states change so that they Come to identify w/the identies, intrests & manners of the Exisiting members of the Club wish to join. E.g eu Candidats - georgia ukraine
• How states, Accordingly change ther Behvaiors. That it is consitent With Tha Of The groups Example China-un There ways to soliziation Micking social.
• CAN base on rational Cost Benift Calcuation Or. -more cunstruvies in nature intarization in norms to become responaible state
• Diffusion is how particular models, practaes, norms, stratgies, beliefs spread wition paipulation

Institutional Isomorphism

• Oberses that Orgs that Shaws the same Evriminent Resmeblw each other
• Ethier becuase Beliwe to Be more eficant or for Leigmay and Pressige
• difsuions via coercion
• Compitoon stateagly
• pressures to Secure resouces.
• And Professiobal Asscocastion Expert Comuintes.

Construtrisim - "THE lifc cyce Norims

• Norms evolove thought defferwnt stages Norms emergne is Pushed Often By norms the fram isues to promtae ideas use for Campigh and the use landlines in conflitcus is902 is pushed norms by norms
• Norm cascsac occurs norm duffses often becuare or PResure of Comformnity Dires to Leader quest For Self
• Norm internaionally to become more respetc for is Ecaolition of SLamvery but stil rums has not sigend the mbit.

US Coalitonal of 2003

• USA was Veyr instested in the terrrisims at the time
• The us saw Arark for sterith theat
• Irak - masyor Produces