GOVT 2060 2024 Liberalism PDF

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES ST. AUGUSTINE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCES GOVT 2060 International Relations: Theories and Approaches...

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES ST. AUGUSTINE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCES GOVT 2060 International Relations: Theories and Approaches Fall 2024 Topic 2 Liberalism This session explores the background of Liberalism, the first major paradigm in International Relations that emerged in the interwar years. It identifies its key authors, assumptions, strengths and weaknesses, and analyses the validity of this perspective for analyzing contemporary International Relations. 1/30  Course content  The History and Evolution of the International System  Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy POSITIVIST THEORIES MAINSTREAM STRUCTURALIST APPROACHES APPROACHES  Liberalism  Classical Marxism  Realism  Dependency Theory  Neorealism  Structural Imperialism  Neoliberalism  World System Theory  International Society Theory (The English School) POST-POSITIVIST THEORIES  Constructivism  Postmodernism  Critical Theory  Feminism 2/30 Readings (generously made available by the Caspian Sea University, in Turkmenistan): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1_Z5ACd6MBPNGJDSUJLX2t4ZG8?resourceke y=0-ZQcvRcZSaE_zqP4DuJKFYA&usp=sharing (if clicking on the link does not work, copy it and paste it in the address bar of your Internet browser) John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: an Introduction to International Relations. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2008 (4th edition), Ch. 6 Robert Jackson and Georg Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations. Theories and Approaches, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013 (5th edition), Ch. 4. Paul R. Viotti, Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations Theory, Glenview, IL: Pearson Education, 2012 (5th edition), Ch.3. Juanita Elias and Peter Sutch, International Relations. The Basics, N.Y.: Routledge, 2007, Ch. 4. 3/30  Theory and Paradigm Theory a plausible or scientifically acceptable a coherent group of tested general general principle or body of principles propositions, commonly regarded as correct, offered to explain phenomena that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962): Scientific paradigm universally recognized scientific a philosophical and theoretical framework of achievements that, for a time, provide model a scientific school or discipline within which problems and solutions for a community of theories, laws, and generalizations and the researchers experiments performed in support of them are formulated Alternating periods of The model of the reversed pyramid normal science = one dominating model revolution = the model undergoes sudden drastic change IR has never experienced one dominating model debates 4/30 5/30  The Great IR Debates Alternative names Alternative contenders First IR Realism - Great Liberalism Debate (or Utopian Liberalism or Idealism) Second IR Traditionalism - Great Behaviouralism Debate The Intra- The Inter- The Third The first Neorealism - Neorealism - Paradigm Paradigm IR Great stage of the Neoliberalism Neoliberalism [- Debate Debate Debate Third Great Radical Theories] Debate The Third The The second Positivism - Post- IR Great Fourth IR stage of the Positivism Debate Great Third Great Debate Debate 6/30  First IR Great Debate: Realism - Liberalism Utopian (Marxism-Leninism) Utopian liberalism Realist response 1920s 1930s-1950s Focus: Focus:  International law  Power politics  International organizations  Security  Interdependence  Aggression  Cooperation  Conflict  Peace  War Robert Jackson, Georg Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p.44 7/30 8/30 2. Liberalism ('Pluralism')  cooperation  peace  non-state actors John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: an Introduction to International Relations. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2008 (4th edition), Ch. 6 Robert Jackson and Georg Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations. Theories and Approaches, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013 (5th edition), Ch. 4. Paul R. Viotti, Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations Theory, Glenview, IL: Pearson Education, 2012 (5th edition), Ch.3. Juanita Elias and Peter Sutch, International Relations. The Basics, N.Y.: Routledge, 2007, Ch. 4. Liberalism: John Locke (human nature=selfish people establish a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way) Forerunners Jean-Jacques Rousseau (social contract) Immanuel Kant ('Perpetual Peace', free republics) Adam Smith (economic liberalism) 9/30 John Locke (1632-1704) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) 10/30  Immanuel Kant "Toward Perpetual Peace" (1795) Steven Pinker on Perpetual Peace (Kant) (1min15) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1qltxF-xFc 11/30 IR vision Optimistic 'How the world ought to be' reason, universal ethics  Peace international organizations, law  Cooperation = possible despite anarchy Importance of economic exchanges (trade brings peace) States=important, but Primary unit of analysis = the individual Importance of non-state actors In most cases, institutions are needed to enforce cooperation Main Locke: satisfy their needs 'social' relations at international element level relative harmony 12/30 Created in American and British universities 18th-19th c. Liberals: rejection of war  preconditions for a peaceful world order Peaceful vision: Utopian liberals (‘Idealists’) Norman Angell - The Great Illusion (1911) Rival states with common economic interdependence war=obsolete interests  Alfred Zimmern (contributed to the International law founding of the League of Nations) Democracy International organizations Woodrow Wilson - 'Fourteen Points' (1918) Capitalism Collective security (League of Nations)   Civilized and peaceful relations International organizations achieve permanent  peace Long-lasting universal peace Francis Fukuyama - The End of History and the Last Man (1992) 13/30 Norman Angell (1872-1967) Alfred Zimmern (1879-1957) 14/30 Original Fourteen Points speech, January 8, 1918. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) 15/30  Woodrow Wilson - 'The Fourteen Points' 1. Abolition of secret treaties 2. Freedom of the seas 3. Free Trade 4. Disarmament 5. Adjustment of colonial claims (decolonization and national self-determination) 6. Russia to be assured independent development and international withdrawal from occupied Russian territory 7. Restoration of Belgium to antebellum national status 8. Alsace-Lorraine returned to France from Germany 9. Italian borders redrawn on lines of nationality 10. Autonomous development of Austria-Hungary as a nation, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved 11. Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and other Balkan states to be granted integrity, have their territories deoccupied, and Serbia to be given access to the Adriatic Sea 12. Sovereignty for the Turkish people of the Ottoman Empire as the Empire dissolved, autonomous development for other nationalities within the former Empire 13. Establishment of an independent Poland with access to the sea 14. General association of the nations – a multilateral international association of nations to enforce the peace (League of Nations) The League of Nations: Wilson's League for Peace (10min04) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ldr18Rnho, http://vimeo.com/9989564#at=0 16/30 Utopian liberals: 19th century belief = inevitable progress of mankind WW I = unprecedented horrors → discredited power politics doctrine of balance of power = rejected history ≠ guide to the future ↓ extend citizenship to include membership of the global community of nation states Collective security: concepts and practices of domestic society IR ↓ Emergence of IR as a discipline 1918 the first chair in IR at Aberystwyth, University of Wales Liberalism - Assumptions states are the most important IR actors 17/30   impact of ideas on behaviour, equality, liberty and dignity of the individual  need to protect people from excessive state regulation The individual = seat of moral value and virtue People = ends, not means 18/30  Comparison: Liberalism Realism  ethical principles  pursuit of power  int. organizations  states  ideas/economic welfare  military capabilities  int. politics=a struggle for  int. politics=a struggle for power and consensus prestige  democracy  elitism / aristocracy  free trade  autarky  collective security  balance of power system war: war ≠ inevitable war ≠ product of human nature war = result of misunderstandings by politicians (WWI) war = a global problem controlled through collective or multilateral efforts, not national ones wars frequency = reduced by institutional arrangements  End secret diplomacy  Self-determination, statehood 19/30 "cooperative anarchy" International organizations ↓ ↓ states work together even without a world create a social structure government ↓ mitigate the problems of anarchy cooperation → satisfy people’s needs → ↓ power not so important → states matter less less world conflict moral values: Ideas → shape state institutions compassionate ethical concern for → foreign policy  the welfare and security of all people  fundamental human concern for  human rights and civil liberties others' welfare → progress is ↓ possible need of inclusion of morality in  evil human behaviour = product of statecraft evil institutions ↓ need of reforms: ↓ 20/30  ↓ international society states ↓ ↓ eliminate the institutions that make democratic governance and civil war likely liberties ↓  protect human rights  help pacify relations among states ACTIONS Promote: education → public opinion against warfare free international trade, NOT economic competition between states "open covenants, openly arrived at" (not secret diplomacy) end of interlocking bilateral alliances and their balance of power self-determination (nationalities → voting → independent states) more domestic democratic institutions → peace (Democratic Peace theory) 21/30 End of the first great debate: 'utopian' liberals = peace WW2 (relative) victory of realism Yet, Francis Fukuyama - The End of History and the Last Man (1992)... Francis Fukuyama (b. 1952) 22/30 Liberalism = very diversified Other liberal schools: Transnational relations: Cross-border flows (at micro-level = individuals) - communications 1st - transactions Karl stage  Deutsch 1950s 1. common values and identities Sociolo-  gical security communities liberalism (ex. - the Western security community) Addition of the macro-level = human 2nd populations: James stage Rosenau 1990s Individual transactions  23/30 better-informed and more mobile individuals  more complex world  states' capacity for control and regulation decreases  state-centric multi-centric world  An increasingly pluralist world = more peaceful 24/30  The billiard ball (realist) model and the cobweb (sociological liberal) model: One country - two images Transactions stimulate Robert 2. cooperation, peaceful relations Keohane Interdependence and 1970s liberalism (complex Post-WWII : Joseph interdependence) 'High politics' (security) = no Nye priority over 'low politics' 25/30  (economic and social affairs) coalitions both within governments and across them; NGOs, transnational corporations, international organizations primary goal of states = welfare, not security (the complex interdep. of the 1970s was an early stage of globalization)  3. Institutional International institutions, Robert 1980s liberalism (NEO- regimes Keohane LIBERALISM) 26/30  Liberal democracies live in peace with each other (democracies do not make war Michael 4. to each other) Doyle Republican liberalism B. Russett - Grasping the 1980s- (Democratic peace Democratic Peace (1993) 1990s theory) (Ancient Greece / today) Bruce - cultural-normative model Russett - structural-institutional model A theory of European 5. integration Andrew 1990s- Liberal - preferences of groups and Moravcsik 2000s intergovernmentalism states - interdependence among states Robert Jackson, Georg Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.49-50 27/30  Liberalism/Neoliberalism Strengths Weaknesses Optimistic view of IR based on Neglects power politics cooperation Fails to explain conflict Promotes free trade, democracy Ignores competition within int. Attempts to avoid war institutions Can explain change in the int. system It is not a cohesive approach (many Considers social changes diverging branches) Emphasis on agency over structure  Voluntarism = peace is prevented mainly by bad leaders / governments 28/30  A One Minute Guide to International Relations Liberalism vs. Realism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NCwwtxLxcM 29/30  TUTORIAL QUESTIONS Topic 2 Liberalism 1. Discuss the historical conditions that are compatible with Liberalism. 30/30