1. Liberal international relations theory
Paul Bacon
SILS, Waseda University

2. Liberalism - modernization
The liberal tradition in IR is closely connected with the emergence of the modern liberal state.
The liberal intellectual revolution placed great importance on human reason and rationality.
The process of modernization generated by the scientific revolution led to improved technologies, and more efficient ways to produce goods and master nature.

3. Liberalism and reason Liberals have a positive view of human nature.
Liberals believe in the power of human reason, and believe that rational principles can be applied to international relations.
Of course, people are self-interested and competitive up to a point. But they also share many interests in common, and cooperative social action is therefore possible.
This is true both domestically and internationally. Conflict and war are not inevitable – human reason can triumph over human fear and the lust for power.

4. Liberalism, progress and individualism
Modernization increases the need for cooperation.
In the long run, cooperation based on mutual interests will prevail.
Belief in progress is also a core value for liberals.
But how much progress? Robert Keohane is a cautious liberal optimist.
Fukuyama believes that we have reached the ‘end of history’, as we will see later in this course.
Progress means progress for individuals, or for groups of individuals.
According to John Locke, states exist to protect the rights of their citizens, and to allow them to live their lives and pursue happiness without interference by other people.

5. Liberalism and the separation of powers
For realists, the state is a concentration of power.
For liberals the state is a constitutional organization, where power is separated.
The state establishes the rule of law and enforces it. It respects the rights of citizens to life, liberty and property.
Bentham believed that such constitutional liberal states would respect and tolerate each other. This is because it is in the rational interests of constitutional states to obey international law.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant supported this view. He argued that constitutional states which respected and tolerated each other would eventually establish ‘perpetual peace’ in their international relations.

6. Four strands of liberal thought
Jackson and Sorensen, and several other writers, identify four different strands of liberal theory. These are:
1. Sociological liberalism
2. Interdependence liberalism
3. Institutional liberalism
4. Republican liberalism

7. Sociological liberalism 1
Realism was the dominant theory of international relations for much of the twentieth century.
After WWII and during the Cold War, the military competition between the two superpowers was at the center of attention.
Realists, as we have seen, focus on the relations between sovereign states.
Sociological liberals believe that this approach is too narrow and one sided. They believe that international relations is not only about state-state relations.

8. Sociological liberalism – the normative argument
Sociological liberalism addresses an old idea in liberal thought.
This is the belief that people are usually more cooperative and peace-loving than governments, and that there should be more contact between peoples from different societies.
Transnational relations can often therefore be just as important as state-state relations.
Transnational relations involve relations between individuals, groups and organizations from different countries.
There are many different types of transnational actors and transnational relations (examples?).

9. Definitions of transnational relations
Rosenau defines transnationalism as
‘the processes whereby international relations conducted by governments have been supplemented by relations among private individuals, groups and societies that can and do have consequences for the course of events’.
Bacon - ‘Relations across state boundaries that take place between two or more actors, at least one of which is not a government actor’.

10. Security Community 1
Karl Deutsch was an influential sociological liberal during the 1950s.
He developed the idea of a ‘security community’.
He argued that in a security community, a group of people have become ‘integrated’, which means that a sense of community has developed.
In such communities, conflicts can be resolved without fear of violence.

11. Security Community 2
For Deutsch, extensive transnational ties, lead to peaceful relations, which create the conditions for a security community.
Deutsch argued that a security community had been created in the North Atlantic area by the western countries.
It is because of Deutsch’s work that it became common to suggest that European countries would never fight each other again.
Discussion point – do US/Japan relations count as a security community?

12. Security Community 3
Deutsch argued that security communities are established as the result of a number of different factors:
1. Increased social communication
2. Greater mobility of people from countries within the security community
3. Stronger economic ties
4. Greater range of mutual human transactions
(A realist would also suggest that a shared common threat is important)

13. Cobwebs and billiard balls 1
The realist model argues that states are like ‘billiard balls’.
This means that they are independent, self-contained units.
This phrase was suggested by Arnold Wolfers, who was a prominent realist during the 1950s.
John Burton, however, argued that transnational relations between people from different countries create new forms of society.
These exist alongside or in competition with the system of states.
He claimed that all nation-states contain individuals and groups which share contacts and interests with external groups, such as religious groups, business groups, labor groups, etc.

14. Cobwebs and billiard balls 2
Burton argued that we should map actual patterns of communication and transaction between people, groups and organizations around the world.
This way, we would get a much more accurate account of what is happening in the world, because we would be mapping actual human behavior.
Burton famously argued that if we do this, then we would end up with a ‘cobweb’ of dense transnational interactions.
We do not get the simple billiard ball model that realism wants us to see. (This can be seen in the diagram on page 110 of Jackson and Sorensen).

15. Identity and membership 1
Realism suggests that we always prioritize our national identity and our state membership.
But this is often not true.
Sometimes different aspects of our identities are more important than others.
For example, many of you in the room today have more in common with each other than you do with many people from your home countries.
Sociological liberals argue that people have many different identities and memberships (aspects of identity?).

16. Identity and membership 2
For example: gender; age; nationality; race; education; occupation; hobbies; political beliefs; rural or urban identity; and local, national or cosmopolitan identity.
Sociological liberals argue that patterns of human relations are driven more by mutually beneficial cooperation than by conflict.
Because individuals have interlocking memberships of many different groups, and share the same values, conflict will be reduced. (But note, Huntington and Walzer)

17. Interdependence liberalism
Transnational relations are increasing in frequency.
This means a higher level of interdependence, and therefore, to some extent, dependence.
Interdependence means mutual dependence – in the sense that peoples and governments are increasingly affected by what happens in other countries.
Examples include terrorism, AIDS, and environmental degradation.
An important idea here is interdependence sensitivity.

18. Is major war obsolete? 1
Since the 1950s, modernization has seen the emergence of several large industrialized countries.
A number of authors, such as Mueller and Rosecrance, argue that states have changed their attitude to war in the past 50 years.
Historically, states have used military force to achieve territorial expansion.
In the past, wars have been winnable at comparatively low cost, and clear objectives have been met.
However, highly industrialized states can now achieve power and prosperity more cheaply and with less risk through other methods, such as economic development, and foreign trade.

19. Is major war obsolete? 2
The costs of using force have increased, and the benefits have declined.
Trade is increasingly beneficial for states.
This is because of the changing basis of modern economic production.
Before, territory and resources were the key.
Now, the most important things for success are a highly qualified labor force, access to information, and financial capital.

20. Interdependence reduces violence
In support of this claim, two of the most successful countries of the postwar period, Germany and Japan, have been ‘trading states’.
These countries have not prioritized high military expenditure and economic self-sufficiency in the way that realist/mercantilist theory suggests that they ought to.
Instead, they have intensified the international division of labor supporting their economic success, and increased their interdependence.
A strong division of labor in the international economy increases interdependence between states, and discourages and reduces violence between them.
Violence is likely to be costly in relation to the other options which are open to advanced economies.

21. Complex interdependence
In Power and Interdependence (1977) Keohane and Nye suggest that the advanced economies are living in a state of complex interdependence (CI).
CI, they argue, is qualitatively different from earlier and simpler forms of interdependence.
In the past, international relations involved state leaders dealing with other state leaders.
The use of military force was always an option.
There was a distinction between the ‘high’ politics of security and survival (realism) and the ‘low’ politics of economic and social affairs.

22. Complex interdependence - definition
Keohane and Nye argue that this is no longer the case. Under conditions of CI:
1. Transnational actors are increasingly important. States are often not coherent units
2. Military force is less useful than in the past. Economic and institutional instruments are often more useful.
3. Military security is less important, and welfare issues are seen as increasingly important.

23. Complex interdependence and co-operation
Keohane and Nye argue that under conditions of complex interdependence, international relations will be much more friendly and cooperative than realists believe.
1. Transnational actors such as non-governmental organizations and transnational corporations will pursue their own separate goals relatively free from state control.
2. The importance of international organizations will increase. This is because they provide opportunities for weak states to act, and also allow for coalition formation and agenda-setting.

24. Complex interdependence - scope
Keohane and Nye argue that CI can be dated to ‘the long-term development of the welfare state’ which began in the 1950s.
Conditions of CI apply to the relations within and between the countries of western Europe and north America, Japan, South Korea Australia and New Zealand.
The conditions of CI develop as modernization develops.
Discussion point – could relations of complex interdependence develop between Japan and China?

25. Complex interdependence - caveats
It should be noted that realism is not obsolete.
Realism is still useful for helping us to understand international relations between countries which are complexly interdependent, and countries which are not.
Liberalism supplements realism, rather than replacing it.
It is also possible, if highly unlikely, that force could be used to settle a dispute between complexly interdependent countries in the future, if the stakes were high enough.
Keohane and Nye are much less idealistic than other writers such as Deutsch.
Samuel Huntington argues that interdependence increases cultural friction.

26. Institutional Liberalism
Institutional liberals argue that international institutions make cooperation easier and far more likely.
An international institution is an international organization such as NATO or the European Union.
It can also be a set of rules which govern state action in particular areas, such as aviation or shipping.
These sets of rules are often called ‘regimes’. Often the two go together – the international trade regime is primarily shaped by the WTO.
However, sometimes, there are regimes without formal international organizations, such as the law of the sea.

27. Regime theory 1 A regime is defined by Krasner as
‘a set of explicit or implicit principles, norms, rules, and decision making procedures around which actors expectations convergence in a given issue-area’.
This definition is intentionally broad, and covers human interaction ranging from formal organizations (i.e. OPEC) to informal groups (i.e. major banks during the debt crisis).
Note that a regime need not be composed of states.

28. Regime theory 2
International institutions promote cooperation between states and help to reduce the lack of trust and fear
These are two of the biggest problems associated with anarchy.
Regime theory states that cooperation in anarchy is possible without a hegemon because there exists a ‘convergence of expectations’.

29. Regime theory 3
Keohane argues that international regimes can therefore increase the probability of cooperation.
1. Regimes provide information about the behavior of others by monitoring the behavior of members and reporting on compliance.
2. By institutionalizing cooperation, regimes can reduce the cost of future agreements. By reducing the cost of reaching an agreement, regimes increase the likelihood of future cooperation. (e.g. GATT)
3. Regimes generate the expectation of cooperation among members. By creating the belief that interaction will continue for the foreseeable future, regimes increase the importance of reputation and allow for the employment of complex strategies.

30. Republican Liberalism
Liberals believe that there are basically only two different types of state in the international system.
These are democracies and non-democracies.
If this is true, it follows that three types of dyadic relationship are possible.
1. Non-democracy – non-democracy.
2. Non-democracy – democracy.
3. Democracy – democracy.
Can you give me examples of wars for each of these dyadic types of international relations?

31. Democratic peace 1
Republican liberalism is based on the claim that liberal democracies are more peaceful than other types of political system.
Republican liberals argue that democracies do not fight each other.
This is known as the “democratic peace” theory.
This argument was first made by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. More recently, writers such as Dean Babst, Michael Doyle and Bruce Russett have updated the theory.
Because of democratic peace theory, liberals are optimistic about the long-term prospects for world peace.

32. Democratic peace 2
War is one of the most serious problems in the international system.
If democratic peace theory is true, then it provides us with a way to break the realist cycle.
This also suggests that domestic politics DO matter. – The domestic politics of a state dictate the international relations which that state is capable of engaging in.
Moreover, the number of democracies in the world is increasing, and, if democratic peace theory is correct, this suggests that the number of conflicts will reduce.
Theoretically, if all of the countries in the world became democratic, then the threat of war would disappear.

33. Reasons for the democratic peace 1
According to Doyle, there are three reasons why democracies do not fight each other.
1. Democracies have domestic political cultures based on the principle of peaceful conflict resolution.
Democratic governments are controlled by their citizens, who will not support the idea of war with another democratic country.
2. Democracies hold common moral values which lead to the formation of a “Pacific Union” or a “zone of peace”.
This is based on the common moral foundations of all democracies.

34. Reasons for the democratic peace 2
2. continued… Peaceful conflict resolution at the domestic level is seen as morally superior, and this attitude is transferred to relations between democracies.
Freedom of expression and free communication promote mutual understanding across political boundaries.
3. Peace between democracies is strengthened by economic cooperation and interdependence.
The economies of countries in the zone of peace are complexly interdependent (Keohane and Nye).

35. Paul’s 6 arguments about democracy:
Democracies do not fight wars against each other.
Democracies do not experience famines.
Democracies do not commit democide.
Democracies have better human rights records than non-democracies.
Democracies have higher living standards than non-democracies.
Democracies are more economically productive than non-democracies.

36. Prospects for the Zone of Peace
The end of the Cold War contributed to what Samuel Huntington has referred to as the “third wave” of democracy.
This led to initial post-Cold War optimism.
Most liberals argue that there is a democratic zone of peace among the consolidated liberal democracies of Western Europe, North America Japan, South Korea and Australasia.
However, the continued expansion and consolidation of this zone is far from assured.
There are many interesting debates about how best to promote democracy. (My later classes).