Transcript Share Assumptions of Realisms and Liberal Institutionalism

Shared Assumptions of Realisms
and Liberal Institutionalism
• Shared assumptions with Realism
– The state is key actor in international relations
– States pursue their selfish interests
• They have no confidence that other states can be expected to
support their interests
• They lack reliable information to predict the real intentions and
behavior of other states
– Military power is the final arbiter of state conflicts
under conditions of an anarchical state system
International Institutions and International Actors
Facilitate Cooperation and Constrain Conflict
• 1) States seek multiple aims, not just security: economic
growth, environmental protection, human rights, etc.
• 2) The ceaseless competition of aims and interests checks
focused pursuit of state power, security and survival
• 3) States are obliged to rely on multiple intergovernmental
and non-governmental organizations to achieve their
multiple aims and interests
– Hard power (military and economic) and soft power (shared values
and aims) are both indispensable for state achievement of its
objectives
– Voluntary agreements on security (arms control/disarmament) are
possible to regulate conflict (Axelrod and English School)
– The effective and efficient workings of global markets depend on
voluntary agreements
Examples of Important IGOs:
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United Nations
World Trade Organization (WTO)
World Bank
International Monetary Fund
European Union
• 25 states delegate key state powers to the
European Union
– Common Trade Policy
– Common Agricultural Policy
– 12 of 25 members use a common currency and banking
system: Euro
– Regulation of integrated market transactions and
policies: EU law supercedes state law when inflict
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Banking
Corporate market practices
Environmental policy
Movement of EU populations across state boundaries
Protection of human rights and civil liberties
Institutions of the European Union to
Ensure State Compliance
• Commission: The Executive of the EU
• Council of Minister: The Principle Decision-Making Body
• European Court of Justice; The court decides whether
states are complying with EU directives
• European Parliament: Elected directly by the European
peoples (425 million), it has limited but important powers,
but is subordinate to the Council of Ministers
• European Council: This is composed of the Heads of State
or Government and provides over-all direction to the other
bodies
Why Are Institutions Important
to Explain State Behavior?
• Remember states do not trust (have
confidence in) other state
• They also lack information about what these
states intend to do that might harm another
state or the material capabilities (military
forces) that might harm them
Institutions (like the EU) perform
these functions
• 1) They establish rules and norms of behavior that provide
some confidence in predicting the behavior of states who
are members of the institution (e.g. WTO, UN, etc.)
• 2) Knowledge about the likely behavior of states provides
important information that is not available to state leaders
if the institutions did not exist
• 3) The rules and norms of an institution provide two
outcomes that makes state behavior less likely to lead to
conflict and war
– The institution enlarges the power and capability of the members
(e.g. The EU increases trade and economic growth of EU
members)
– The institution also puts limits on the unilateral use of a state’s
power
Implications of Liberal
Institutional Theory
• In contrast to realists, institutional theorists, like
Joseph Nye, expect cooperation between states,
not conflict
• Other actors, IGOs and NGOs, not only influence
and limit unilateral use of state power, but they are
indispensable in realizing state objectives: security,
the material welfare of their populations,
ecological protection, the advancement of civil
liberties and human rights
Key Assets of NGOs for States
• The economic welfare of the state’s
populations
– Global markets are an instrument of state policy
– Multilateral corporations (Toyota, Honda,
General Motors) ensures the workings of global
markets
– Both are necessary conditions for states to
respond to the material needs and demands of
their populations
NGOs are also Instruments for
Civil Liberties and Human Rights
• NGO organizations provide information about
state abuses
• NGOs also provide significant humanitarian aid to
failed states and peoples under stress of civil war
or starvation
– For example, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross,
Religious groups providing humanitarian assistance -food, health services, shelter, etc.
Can Liberal Institutionalists Explain the Beginning,
Evolution, and End of the Cold War?
• Like realists, liberal institutionalists expect
conflict between states, as the principal actor in
international relations
• They also agree that military power is the final
arbiter of conflicts between states
• The Cold War and the US-Soviet struggle for
global hegemony is consistent with realist/ liberal
institutionalist theory and expectations
Liberal Institutionalist and the Evolution
of Cold War/Superpower Cooperation
• Institutionalists expect cooperation in
security
– Based on rational actor assumptions of behavior,
rival states are predicted to cooperate in
constructing an international security regime
that limits the choice of war or use of force
• Arms control and disarmament accords: Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks: SALT and START
(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)
Liberal Institutionalist and the Evolution
of Cold War/Superpower Cooperation
• Liberal Institutionalists also expect cooperation in
non-security areas: economic growth and
development
– United States supports European Union at economic
expense to end state conflict
– United States and Europeans support global markets
and open trading system (with Japan) to facilitate
economic growth and technological development
– Mutual confidence and transparency between liberal
democratic states facilitates cooperation and overcomes
traditional conflicts: France and Germany resolved
security and economic interests within NATO and EU
Weaknesses of Liberal
Institutionalist Theory
• Failure to anticipate fundamental change in the
Soviet Union within the scope of Institutionalist
Theory
• Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev acts contrary to
realist/liberal institutionalist expectations:
– The Soviet Union unilaterally cuts nuclear and conventional forces
in Europe in pursuit of glasnost (openness) and perestroika
(economic reform on a market model)
– Gorbachev announces that the Soviet Union will not intervene to
protect Communist party rule in the Warsaw Pact nations
– These moves undermine Soviet control of Eastern Europe and
leads to the unification of Germany under Western control
Weaknesses of Liberal
Institutionalist Theory
• Institutionalists fail to exploit the power of global
markets as a positive force on the Soviet Union for
economic reform
• The demand by Russians for greater economic
growth pressures the Communist Party to
implement economic reform
• These same pressures also apply to Communist
China, which implemented economic reform but
unlike the Soviet Union resisted political reform
and liberalization.
Weaknesses of Liberal
Institutionalist Theory
• Principal weakness of realism/neorealism and
liberal institutionalism and security
– No understanding of the force of nationalism as the
basis for the legitimacy of government and the state
– The Soviet Union implodes for three reasons related to nationalism
• The Russian people rebel against the costs of maintaining an empire -Control over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Republics, and client states
around the world, many of which are among the most underdeveloped
in the world (e.g. Vietnam, Ethiopia, etc.)
• The demands for national self-determination of the East European
satellite states in the Warsaw Pact
• The demands for national self-determination of the peoples of the
Soviet Republics