IR Lecture 11 Liberalism In Theory 20 Century American IR Theory o 1919 39 Liberalism In the ascendance o 1939 69 realism was dominant realists mock earlier liberals as idealists o 1970 s discovery of transnational relations interdependence gives rise to Neoliberalism o 1979 89 heyday of the Neo Neo debate Little s Three Key Discoveries by Neoliberals in the 1960s and 70s o State Fragmentation 1 State Fragmentation US society seen as fractured into congeries of hundreds of small special interest groups with incompletely overlapping memberships widely differing power bases and a multitude of techniques for exercising influence Next pluralists started chipping away at realist images of the coherent state itself as a rational actor because of the importance of bureaucratic politics Under what circumstances if any can the state be considered a unified rational actor Does the answer vary by country or by state What difference does the answer make for realism exactly o Transnationalism A new generation of IR theorists began paying systematic attention to MNCs transnational media operations jet air travel cross border pollution and eventually NGOs o Interdependence Its discovery demonstrated the inadequacy of the Realist assumption that states are autonomous actors in an anarchic world Again Billiard Balls realist View Neoliberal View tied together Neoliberal also developed the concept of the global commons defined as natural assets outside national jurisdiction such as the atmosphere oceans outer space and the Antarctic Two Points Global Cooperation Area Ex Provided By Satellites Moravicsik s Three Hard Core Assumptions Of Liberal IR Theory o 1 Fundamental Actors in international politics are individuals and groups not states o 2 States represent only a subset of domestic society not a presumed national interest Questions Does the liberal conception of state society relations seem accurate What exactly are the implications for realists views on IR o 3 Combined societal pressures determine state preferences which in turn shape the state s international behavior o Moravcsik Policy Interdependence Policy Interdependence refers to the set of costs and benefits created for specific groups in Country B when dominant groups in Country A try to realize their preferences and their desire normative goals values pursued that can be beneficial or damage in the international realm by influencing their state s foreign policy Public Transportation Normative Liberalism o The world can be remade fundamentally as a better place o International institutions can contain or deter state policies rooted in an evil human nature o Institutions can also mitigate the socializing effects of anarchy such as the security dilemma o In sum progress is possible Zeb Mous o Democracies don t fight because they have common national interests with each other o Democracies tend to be more powerful than other type of state mutually deterring war Constructvist Critiques of the democratic peace hypothesis o it s the coincidental participation in a common cultural project that makes war less likely among the democracies o Its not democracy per se but the construction or portrayal of another state as democratic that deters war India weapon example in which U S doesn t worry if a country becomes a democracy
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