Liberalism

1
Liberalism

• And foreign policy analysis
• January 14, 2014

2
Overview

• Liberalism
• Liberal foreign relations
• Mitigating trade-offs

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Liberalism

• Focused on the importance of the freedom of the
  individual, liberalism rests set of three key
  rights
• Freedom from arbitrary authority
• Freedom of conscience, free press, free speech,
  equality under the law, and the right to hold and
  exchange property
• Negative rights

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• Freedom for social and economic rights
• Equality of opportunity in education, rights to
  health care and employment
• Positive rights
• Freedom of democratic participation or
  representation

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Liberal foreign relations

• Look inside and beyond the state
• Liberalism highlights how individuals, their
  ideas and ideals, social forces and political
  institutions can have a direct effect upon
  foreign relations
• Liberal approaches to foreign policy contrast
  with neorealists about the constraints of anarchy
  and state homogeneity

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Liberalism and foreign relations

• Liberalism opens the box of state action,
  allowing for the effects of varying ideas,
  interests and institutions
• It permits better foreign policy predictions

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• 1. The liberal zone of peace (peace among
  liberals)
• Near absence of war
• Peaceful restraint generally works exclusively
  in liberals relations with other liberals
• Increasing number of liberal states brings
  possibility of a self-enforcing global peace

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• 2. Imprudent aggressiveness (imprudent vehemence
  towards non-liberals)
• Aggression against non-liberals (liberal
  imprudence). Liberal states have fought many wars
  against non-liberal states

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• Liberal states have also missed opportunities to
  negotiate rather than fights with non-liberal
  states (in both developed and developing worlds),
  failing to construct schemes of accommodation to
  prevent the outbreak of war.
• Many wars, however, have been defensive and thus
  prudent by necessity. Liberal states have been
  attacked and threatened by non liberal states.

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Aspirations for peace

• In President Obamas Nobel Peace Prize lecture in
  December 2009, he outlined his aspirations for a
  just and lasting peace in words that resonated
  with liberal theories of foreign policy.
• War as sometimes necessary
• International law and just war doctrines of
  self-defense as applicable to all states

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Aspirations for peace (cont.)

• Just wars such as humanitarian interventions
• Never war against a democracy by US
• Lasting peace must be bolstered with economic
  security and opportunity

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Just War Doctrine

• Right to go to war (Jus ad bellum)
• Right conduct in war (Jus in bello)

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Right to go to war

• Just cause
• Comparative justice
• Competent authority
• Right intention
• Probability of success
• Last resort
• Proportionality
• Self-defense or defending another

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Just conduct in war

• Distinction
• Proportionality
• Military necessity
• Fair treatment of PoWs
• No means malum in se
• Geneva Conventions

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• Liberal republics in 1900 and 2000

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• 3. Complaisance (towards threats) and
  isolationism
• Failure to support allies
• Failure to oppose enemies (also manifests as
  complaisance in reaction to excesses of
  interventionism
• Complaisance characterizes declined or not quite
  risen liberal states

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• Rational incentives for free-riding on the
  extended defence commitments of the leader of the
  liberal alliance, also induce complaisance.
• During much of the nineteenth century the US
  informally relied upon the British fleet for many
  of its security needs. During the Cold War, the
  Europeans and the Japanese, according to some
  American strategic analysts, failed to bear their
  fair share of defence burdens.

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Liberal foreign policy analysis

• First Image Lockean human nature
• Second Image Commercial societal
• Third Image Kantian republic internationalist

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Liberal foreign policy analysis

• Three features of liberal foreign relations
• Representative, republican government (elected
  legislative, separation of powers, rule of law)
• A commitment to peace based upon a principled
  respect for the non-discriminatory rights that
  all humans can rightfully claim

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• The possibility of social and economic
  interdependence (trade and social interaction,
  with material incentives for cooperation)
• Taken together an explanation of peaceful
  accommodation among fellow liberals and suspicion
  towards non-liberals

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Mitigating trade-offs

• Preservation
• Liberal foreign policy should work to preserve
  the liberal zone of peace. Liberal states will
  need to work across ideological divides and
  strengthen multilateral institutions such as the
  UN, IMF, World Bank and the WTO.

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• Expansion
• Foster the stability, development, and spread of
  liberal democratic regimes
• Inspiration
• Liberalism stands as an example to emulate (the
  City on a Hill)

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• Intervention
• Means other than military intervention must be
  considered
• Intervention must minimize casualties

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Discussion Question

• Use a liberal perspective to argue for or against
  the US invasion of Iraq
• Objective consider when a liberal foreign policy
  perspective would military intervention
• Discuss in small groups with the people sitting
  next to you
• Be sure that you can explain your reasoning

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Conclusion

• Strong tendency for peace among liberal states
• However, same factors that help create peace
  among liberal states makes them suspicious of
  non-liberals
• More aggressiveness with non-liberals
• Liberal states still have to deal with issues and
  problems of international competition and
  cooperation - have not solved these