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Understanding the Global Community - Liberalism/Neoliberalism

So moving on to other forms of international relations theory, let's look at liberalism and neoliberalism. Liberalism is actually one of the earliest forms of international relations theories. It was created shortly after the First World War, what was then called the great war to prevent another, when scholars, thinkers and decision-makers got together and decided to question, what can we do to prevent another great war. So they started to focus on issues like common interest. How can we emphasize common interest among great powers, among global actors? How can we perhaps promote democracy as a way to prevent war? This leads us to a more contemporary notion that we call the democratic peace. Today. Theorists suggest that democracies don't fight one another. This is the closest we come to a law and international relations. There are very few, if any, cases of democracies actually going to war with one another. So why, why does democracy matter? There are two factors that matter when we talk about the democratic peace. Democratic institutions like checks and balances, elections, separations of power. Those types of factors help us prevent or mitigate against decisions to go to war. Democracies can't just willy nilly decide one day I'm going to go to war. They have to go through a process. Elections elected leaders allow the electorate who of course pays the cost of war and suffers the consequences of war, allows the electorate to determine whether their leaders are, are fit to make those decisions. Separations of power. The fact that, that both the President and the Congress have to play a role in decision-making when it comes to war with suggests that they check and balance each other, right? So the separation of power, a check and balance that comes with that, and the ability to elect democratic leaders really all work against, or at least mitigate in some way against decisions to go to war. That doesn't mean that democracies are less war prone. It just means they have to go through a process. It isn't as easy as non-democracies or a non-democratic leader to choose to go to war. The other factor that matters in the democratic peace or Democrat, we call democratic norms, particularly the norm of a peaceful resolution of conflict within democratic societies, particularly stable democratic societies, we resolve our conflict peacefully. What do we do? If we have a problem with our neighbor? We have a problem with somebody that's that we believe has harmed us in some way. We sue them, right? We use our court system, will in the global community, that type of process doesn't necessarily exist where it certainly isn't stable enough to prevent war. So this democratic institution of the peaceful resolution of conflict is something that works against decisions to go to war. So these two factors working together, democratic institutions like elections, checks and balances and separation of powers, and democratic norms of the peaceful resolution of conflict. Those really matter and are part of this liberal international relations theory. Now, democratic peace theory is not without its critics. As I mentioned before, democracies are not necessarily less war prone. They're just less war prone with each other. So there's this dyadic effect of democratic peace. It usually means to democracies are more than one democracy working together. Democracies and non-democracies actually still do go to war together far too often. So that's one criticism of the democratic peace theory. Other suggests that the process of democratization is extremely bloody. So democratic peace theory would lead us to a policy of democratization. We would seek to, to establish democracy around the world, suggesting that it'll be a more peaceful world. The more democracies we have. Yet that process of democratization transitioning from non-democracies to democracy, as we've seen in far too many cases, is a very difficult and bloody process. So democratic peace theory, it's useful and it's used often to help us understand the global community, but it's still fraught with challenges. So newer forms of liberalism, what we might call neo-liberalism, emerged as an indirect response as a critique of realist theory. Neoliberal is believed that realists are actually too narrow in their focus. They focus strictly on great powers and issues of power relations. This to a neoliberal, misses a lot of international relations. If we're going to understand the global community, we need to understand more than just military security relations. We need to understand social relations, economic relations, scientific and technology exchange. There's a lot more going on in the global community, according to a neoliberal scholar. More specifically, neoliberal suggests that states often do cooperate a lot more than a realist might suggest. We're realists tend to focus on conflict and the global community. Neoliberal tend to focus on cooperation and the ways in which states come together to mutually resolve common problems. To do that they'll develop international organizations, international laws, international treaties. These mechanisms allow states to mutually address their common interests and their individual self-interest through collective action. Now the rules and regulations that emerge at the international level through this process actually create expectations for behavior. They layout standards of how states should operate. Think about treaties regarding protecting the seas and pollution in the sea, or pollution in the air, or any other kind of environmental agreement, any other type of collective international agreement that addresses a problem that transcends borders. This is a way that states create expectations and constrain each other's behavior. Now, of course, a realist response. What do you do if somebody breaks the rules? How do you enforce these rules? Therein lies the problem. Nonetheless, neoliberal are concerned that we need to capture all of the global community when we look at international relations and not just small aspects of it. Not just power relations, not just military security, but larger issues like economics, prosperity, science, technology, social relations, environmental concerns. They are much more varied in their agenda. States are much more varied in their agenda. And neoliberal capture that. So as we've done before, now that we've explored liberal, a neoliberal theory, put on those sets of lenses and look at the global community and see how you view issues like democracy promotion and Afghanistan. How would you understand that if you are a liberal or a neoliberal and wearing those sets of lenses, how might you view global economic crisis or specifically economic crisis in Europe? If you're a liberal or a neoliberal looking at it with those sets of lenses. And then finally, how about piracy, maritime security? How would you view the regulations and the various laws and treaties that had been emerging in that issue area. If you're a liberal or neoliberal, what do you think?

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