Liberal Theory Essay

This memo outlines the big progress to theorizing multinational relations. Like realism, institutionalism, or non-rational come outes, it is a name attached to a family of related theories of foreign relations. Here it go away not be use of goods and servicesd, as m or so(prenominal) use it in supranational relations, to deputise theories that stress the greatness of internationalist institutions. Nor to designate theories that stress the vastness of universal, altruistic or utopian values of a wide sort, such(prenominal) as human rights or democracy.Nor to designate theories favored by left-wing ( good- find outing) g everyplacenmental parties or policies in the US. Instead, it is a hypothesis that stresses the habit of the varied companionable interests and values of introduces, and their relevance for earthly concern governmental science. self-aggrandizings argue that the universal curb of world politics is globalization. renders be, and always have been , embedded in a national helpated and transnational society, which induces fillips for economic, kindly and cultural interaction across borders. State indemnity whitethorn ease or block such interactions.Some interior(prenominal) groups whitethorn benefit from or be harmed by such policies, and they pressure government accordingly for policies that ease realization of their goals. These favorable pressures, transmitted through interior(prenominal) political institutions, correct asseverate taste sensations that is, the set of real complaisant purposes that motivate foreign insurance constitution. State orientation courses circulate governments an underlie stake in the international issues they face. Since the home(prenominal) and transnational neighborly context in which recounts ar embedded varies greatly across space and time, so do realm preferences.Without such social concerns that slide by express borders, e enunciates would have no rational i ncentive to engage in world politics at tout ensemble, but would simply devote their resources to an autarkic and single out existence. To motivate conflict, cooperation, or e very former(a) dear(p) foreign policy action, evokes must possess sufficiently penetrative farming preferences. The resulting globalization-induced innovation in social demands, and and so show preferences, is a cardinal manage of stir deportment in world politics. This is the exchange insight of boastful international relations theory.It corporation be expressed colloquially in several(a) ways What librates more or slight is what states want, not how they get it. or- Ends argon more important than agent. Liberal theory is characteristic in the temper of the variables it privileges. The all-inclusive focus on fun in socially-determined state preferences distinguishes big(a) theory from early(a)wise theoretical traditions realism (focusing on variation in controlling indicant re sources), institutionalism (focusing on education), and or so non-rational approaches (focusing on patterns of beliefs about appropriate means-ends relationships).In explaining patterns of fight, for illustration, liberals do not look to inter-state imbalances of military unit, bargaining failure receivable to private information or un accreditedty, or picky non-rational beliefs or propensities of individual leaders, societies, or organizations. Liberals look preferably to conflicting state preferences derived from hostile nationalist or political ideologies, take exceptions over appropriable economic resources, or exploitation of un pretended political constituencies.For liberals, a necessary condition for war is that social pressures lead unmatched or more aggressor states to possess revisionist preferences so natural or risk-acceptant that other states argon unwilling to submit. triple detail variants of liberal theory ar be by particular types of preferences, thei r variation, and their impact on state behavior. Ideational liberal theories link state behavior to varied designings of desirable forms of cultural, political, socioeconomic order. Commercial liberal theories stress economic mutualness, including many variants of endogenous policy theory.Republi stand liberal theories stress the component part of domestic good example institutions, elites and leadership dynamics, and executive-legislative relations. Such theories were first conceived by prescient liberals such as Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, thaumaturgy Stuart Mill, John Hobson, Woodrow Wilson, and John Maynard Keynes-writing well before the complicated causes ( autarkic variables) they stress (e. g. democratization, industrialization, nationalism, and welf be provision) were widespread. This essay introduces the liberal approach in three steps. It presents 2 distinctive assurances central and distinguishing liberal theories.Then it further explicates the three variants of li beral theory that follow from these assumptions. Finally, it reviews well-nigh distinctive strengths that liberal theories tend to sh be vis-a-vis other types of international relations theory. Two Unique Assumptions central Liberal Theory What basic assumptions underlie the liberal approach? Two assumptions liberal theory receive argon the assumptions of anarchy and rationalness. Specifically, states (or other political actors) exist in an anarchic environment and they generally act in a broadly rational way in making decisions. 2The anarchy assumption means that political actors exist in the distinctive environment of international politics, without a world government or any other authority with a monopoly on the let use of force. They must engage in self-help. The rationality assumption means that state leaders and their domestic supporters engage in foreign policy for the instrumental purpose of securing benefits provided by (or avoiding cost imposed by) actors removed of their borders, and in making such calculations, states traink to deploy the most cost-effective means to carry out any(prenominal) their ends (preferences) may be.Liberal theory shargons the first (anarchy) assumption with almost all international relations theories, and it shares the bite (rationality) assumption with realism and institutionalism, but not non- rationalist abut theories. Liberal theories are distinguished from other rationalist theories, such as realism and institutionalism, by two unique assumptions about world politics (1) States represent social groups, whose views be state preferences and (2) Interdependence among state preferences influences state policy. Let us escort all(prenominal) in turn.Assumption One States Represent societal Preferences The first assumption divided up by liberal theories is that states represent some subset of domestic society, whose views constitute state preferences. For liberals, the state is a representative institution ce aselessly subject to capture and recapture, construction and reconstruction, by domestic social coalitions. These social coalitions define state preferences in world politics at any microscope stage in time the tastes, ends, basic interests, or fundamental social purposes that underlie foreign policy. politicianitical institutions constitute a critical transmission belt by which these interests of individuals and groups in civil society enter the political realm. All individuals and groups do not wield personify influence over state policy. To the contrary, their power varies widely, depending on the context. Variation in the accurate nature of representative institutions and practices helps define which groups influence the national interest. Some states may represent, ideal-typically, the preferences of a single tyrannical individual, a Pol Pot or Josef Stalin others afford opportunities for broad elective participation.Most lie in between. The precise preferences of social gr oups, weighted by their domestic power, shape the underlying goals (state preferences) that states pursue in world politics. Sometimes, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other actors may form transnational alliances to assist social forces. State-society relationsthe relationship between a state and its domestic (and transnational) society in which it is embeddedlies at the center of liberal theory. 3Liberals believe that state preferences cannot be reduced to some simple metric or preference ordering, such as seeking security department or wealth. Most modern states are not Spartan They compromise security or sovereignty in order to achieve other ends, or, indeed, just to save money. Nor do modern states uniformly seek wealth. Instead they come sooner strike complex and varied swap-offs among economic, social and political goals. Nor, in conclusion do they seek power in the mother wit of domination Many countries would clearly rather dribble money on butter rather th an guns. To see how consequential the variation in goals can be, one contend look no further than the implications for international relations of Germanys evolution from Adolf Hitlers preference for militant nationalism, fascist rule, autarky, and ruthless exploitation of German Lebensraum under Das Dritte Reich to the social compromise underlying the postwar Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which favored capitalist democracy, expanding German exports, and sedate reunification.Similarly one can look at the striking change in policy between Maoist and post-Maoist China, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Imperial and post-Imperial Japan, and so on. Assumption Two Interdependence among State Preferences Influences State Behavior The second core assumption shared by liberal theories is that the interdependence among of state preferences influences state behavior. Rather than treating preferences as a fixed constant, as do realists or institutionalists, liberals seek to explain variation in pr eferences and its significance for world politics.The precise scattering and nature of the stakes explains disaccordences in state policy and behavior. States, liberals argue, orient their behavior to the precise nature of these underlying preferences compatible or conflictual, aggravated or weak, and their precise scope. States require a social purpose a perceived underlying stake in the matter at hand in order to profits any attention to international affairs, let merely to provoke conflict, inaugurate cooperation, or take any other significant foreign policy action.If there is no such interdependence among state objectives, a rational state will conduct no international relations, satisfying itself with an isolated and autarkic existence. Conflictual goals plus the incentive for of political disputes. Convergence of underlying preferences creates the preconditions for peaceful coexistence or cooperation. The critical theoretical link between state preferences, on the one hand, and state behavior, on the other, is the concept of policy interdependence.Policy interdependence refers to the dispersion and interaction of preferencesthat is, the extent to which the pursuit of state preferences ineluctably imposes costs and benefits (known as policy externalities) upon other states, independent of the transaction costs imposed by the specific strategic means chosen to obtain them. Depending on the underlying pattern of interdependence, each(prenominal) of the qualitative categories above, the form, substance, and understanding of conflict and cooperation vary according to the precise nature and intensity of preferences.The existence of some measure of diverging fundamental beliefs, scarcity of material goods, and inequalities in domestic political power among states and social actors renders inevitable some measure of pluralism and competition among and indoors states. Unlike realists such as Waltz and Morgenthau, liberals do not get in these diverg ent interests are uniformly zero-sum. At the equivalent time, liberals reject the utopian notion (often attributed to them by realists) of an reflexive harmony of interest among individuals and groups in international society.Nor do liberals argue, as realists like Morgenthau charge, believe that each state pursues an ideal goal, oblivious of what other states do. Liberals argue alternatively that each state seeks to realize distinct preferences or interests under constraints imposed by the different interests of other states. 4 This distribution of preferences varies considerably. For liberals, this variationnot realisms distribution of capabilities or institutionalisms distribution of informationis of decisive causal importance in explaining state behavior.A few examples illustrate how liberal theories differ from realist, institutionalist or non-rational ones. We have already encountered the example of war in the introduction, in which liberals stress states with aggressive pre ferences, rather than imbalances of power, incomplete information, or non-rational beliefs and processes. Another illustration is deal out policy. Economists widely agree that dislodge take is captain eudaimonia-improving policy choice for states, yet trade protective covering is often practiced. To explain protectionism, liberals look to domestic social preferences.An important factor in almost all countries is the competitive position of affected economic sectors in global markets, which generates domestic and transnational distributional effects Protectionism is generally backed by producers who are globally uncompetitive free trade by producers who are globally competitive. Moreover, even if the state is a interlocking beneficiary from free trade, domestic adjustment costs may be too high to assume politically, or may endanger other countervailing domestic social objectives, such as domestic social equality or environmental quality.Certain domestic political institutions , such as non-parliamentary legislative systems, which governed US trade policy before 1934, grant disproportionate power to protectionist interests. This differs from realist explanations of trade protectionism, which tend to stress the role of hegemonic power in structuring trade liberalization, or the need to defend self-sufficient national security within the prevailing zero-sum geopolitical competition, perhaps by maintaining self-sufficiency or by aiding allies at the disbursement of purely economic objectives.Institutionalists skill cite the absence seizure of appropriate international institutions, or other means to manage the complex informational tasks and collective action problemsnegotiation, dispute resolution, enforcementrequired to manage free trade. Those who focus on non-rational theories ( mental, cultural, organizational, epistemic, perceptual or bureaucratic) might stress an ideological disposition to accept mercantilist theory, shared historical analogies, a nd the psychological predisposition to avoid losses.To further illustrate the importance of patterns of policy interdependence, consider the following three hazard zero-sum, harmonious and mixed preferences. In the representative of zero-sum preferences, attempts by superior social groups in one state to realize their preferences through international action may necessarily impose costs on dominant social groups in other countries. This is a case of zero-sum preferences, similar to the realist world. Governments face a bargaining juicy with few mutual gains and a high potential for interstate tension and conflict.Many ancient cities and states, including those of antediluvian patriarch Athens, often imposed imperial tribute on defeated neighbors or, in extremis, killed the male population, cast women and children into slavery, and repopulated the townsfolk with their own citizensa built in bed approximating zero-sum conflict. Today, it might noneffervescent be argued that t here are certain casestrade in agricultural goods by industrial democracies, for examplewhere entrenched national interests are so starchy that no government seriously considers embracing free trade.In the case of harmonious preferences, where the externalities of unilateral olicies are optimal (or insignificant) for others, there are strong incentives for quietude coexistence with low conflict and (at most) simple forms of interstate coordination. For example, advance industrial democracies today no longer behold waging war on one another, and in some areas governments have agreed to mutual recognition of certain legal standards without controversy. One case of mixed preferences is bargaining, where states can achieve common gains (or avoid common losses, as with a war) if they agree to coordinate their behavior, but may disagree strongly on the distribution of benefits or adjustment costs.Under such circumstances, one of the most important determinants of bargaining power is t he intensity of the preferences of each party the more intense their preference for a beneficial settlement, the more likely they are to organise concessions (or employ arrogant means) in order to achieve it. Another situation of mixed motives is a situation where interstate coordination can avoid significant risks and costs, as in agreement to avoid naval incidents at sea, or to share information on infectious diseases. In such situations, institutional pre-commitments and the provision of greater information can often improve the welfare of all parties.Liberals derive several distinctive conceptions of power, very different from that of realism. One form of international influence, for liberals, stems from the interdependence among preferences that Keohane and Nye (Power and Interdependence) call asymmetrical interdependence. All other things equal, the more interdependent a state is, the more intense its preference for a given exit, the more power others potentially have ove r it while the less a state wants something, the less a state cares about outcomes, the less intense its preferences, the less power others have over it.Situations of asymmetrical interdependence, where one state has more intense preference for an agreement than another, create bargaining power. In trade negotiations, for example, smaller and poorer countries are often more dependent on trade and thus benefit more from free trade, and thus tend to have a weaker position and make more concessions in the course of negotiations. Enlargement of the European Union is a recent instance. Relative preference intensity can also influence the outcome of war, but in a different way.Nations are in fact rarely prepared to owe their entire economy or military in conflict, so their power depends not on their coercive power resources, but on their resolve or will. This is why smaller states often prevail over larger ones. Vietnam, for example, did not prevail over the US in the Vietnam War because it possessed more coercive power resources, but because it had a more intense preference at stake. From Assumptions to TheoriesTaken by themselves, these liberal assumptionsthe international system is anarchic, states are rational, social pressures define state preferences, interdependence among preferences dictates state behaviorare thin. They exclude most existing realist, institutionalist, and non-rational theories, but they do not, taken by themselves, define very hardly the positive content of liberal theory. Some might rightly complain that simply pointing to state preferences opens up an unmanageably wide function of hypothetical social influences on policy.Yet, in practice, research has shown that, in practice, the range of viable liberal theories that test out empirically are relatively few, focused, and sinewy. Three broad variants or categories of liberal theory exist ideational, commercial, and republican liberalism. At the core of each lies a distinct conception of the social pressures and representative institutions that define state preferences, and the consequences for state behavior. Some of these have proven, empirically, to be among the most powerful theories in international relations. Let us consider each in turn.