Liberalism

Question 0

What are the three tenets of liberalism?

Answer 0

1) economic interdependence
2) institutionalism
3) democratic peace

Question 1

What does liberalism emphasize?

Answer 1

• Most of the time, most of the states at peace (realists would concede this, say it is the 2 or more states fighting that is worrisome).
• Faith in cumulative progress, reason over passion. Rejects balance of power politics.
• -the 1941 Atlantic Charter embodies liberalism: self determination, liberal trade, –>became UN and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Question 2

Explain economic interdependence

Answer 2

Stephen Brooks: nature of wealth has changed, cannot profit from conquest.
-globalization of production, MNCs, FDI, mobility of workers…

Thomas Friedman cites “Mutually Assured Economic Destruction.” Nature of “interest” has changed.

English author Norman Angel (1910): Europe so interdependent, can’t go to war.
–>Jack Levy in “Domestic politics and War” that liberal democracies prefer to trade w/each other

Question 3

Explain institutionalism

Answer 3

The longer institutions exist, the more authority they accrue.
Focus on regimes: R2P, treaties, which condition expectations.
-reduces xaction $, ⬆️transparency
-capacity to monitor behavior (IAEA)
-arbitration (WTO w/trade)
-Ikenberry: allows for voicing opps to diminish a-symmetries
-“sticky” institutions lock states in

Question 4

Explain democratic peace theory

Answer 4

DPT traces to Kant, who made a list of conditions for permanent peace
-civil constitution of each state:
–republican/freedom
–equality before law
–citizens have say in gov’t, can only go to war if all agree
—>Wilson’s Fourteen Points
Russet: “Fact of Democratic Peace,” a) democracies rarely each other b) other means of resolving conflict c) normative - perceive should not fight each other

Question 5

What are some critiques of democratic peace theory?

Answer 5

Mansfield and Snyder: countries transitioning to democracy more belligerent b/c of pressure among elites and mass ‘hyper’ politics.

• problem of tautology
• Public opinion doesn’t always stop wars
• democracies can remove all morality when survival at stake
• democracies are facets of individual culture. Non/dem parties can win.

Question 6

What is the constructivist critique of liberalism?

Answer 6

Alexander Wendt: an unwillingness “to transcend, at the systemic level of theory, the individualist assumption that identities and interests are exogenous.”

I.e., process over system. Liberals still buy into the anarchic system, but try to reform it