Kakei 1

Cooperation among states practical and probable

By: Saeed Kakeyi

April 22, 2007

This assay will analyze the practicality and, under the right conditions, the probability of
cooperation among states which are bound by rational norms of human beings. The main
focus of this assay will explore the viability of cooperation with liberalism, including its
variations, and the liberal democracies.
Studying some aspects of realist tradition in the field of international relations, we
have learned that realism considers human nature to be a pessimistic, relentless and most of
the time aggressively seeks to control power in order to feel secure. Within this environment,
realists claim that states formed by such individuals inherent their aggressive characters and
consequently international anarchy dominates their relations. Yet, we have also learned that
contrary to much of the centuries old realist tradition, liberalist tradition with almost all of its
variations; idealism, legalism, moralism, scientism and utopianism do consider human beings
as rational beings seeking cooperation in order to live in relative peace and harmony (Week
05, 1). Therefore, “liberalism can be considered a challenge to the dark vision presented by
realists, an alternative way to conceive of human nature and the possibilities for overcoming
the most competitive and destructive aspects of state behavior” (Kaufman et. al: 2004, 159).
Now, how is possible for cooperation to bring-about peace and harmony to
international politics which many liberalists claim it can?
Classic liberalists like John Locke claimed that “human beings are economic beings
interested in acquiring property” (Week 05, 1). This need for acquisition requires work, and
the latter needs, in one way or the other, some form of cooperation to be accomplished. In
other words, we have to have a civil society which consents to social contract with which
forms a civil regulatory by which governments and adjudications function in cooperative
order.
Immanuel Kant (1720-1804) envisioned an idealist state based on law and the concept
of perpetual peace. He argued that “politics is compatible with [collective] moral principle
both within a state and among states.” Kant clarified that “[A] peace treaty nullifies all
existing causes of war, even if they are unknowing to the contracting parties, and even if they
are assiduously ferreted out from archival documents” (165). Hence, a treaty of any kind
cannot be in place without some form of cooperation between the warring parties. That is to
say that every security dilemma most have a solution by which individual rights, competing
parties and the rule of engagements are respected; democratic norms and accountabilities to
be held high.
For this reason, it is said that democracies seek peace more than any other non-
democratic states, because their people who elected them seek wealth to enjoy and not
violence to live in fear. This is not to say that the liberalists do ignore the importance of the
security imperative. Rather, unlike the realists who constantly argue for the accumulation of
more power than the others; balance of power, the liberalists seek crucial security through
alternative means. By the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson argued that
“humans could be enlightened enough to create a new cooperative system to achieve a more
stable and lasting peace without great power war” (160). Wilson described his new
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cooperative system to be “[A] general association of nations…for the purpose of affording

mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states
alike” (178). Thus, the League of Nations (LN) was formed and then followed by the United
Nations (UN) in order to restructure the unregulated balance of power.
Although sounded promising, Wilson’s idealism which was structured by the
American non-colonial liberal tradition, weighed no value vis-à-vis the British and French
colonial liberalism. Otherwise, why didn’t we see his “signpost” fully be taken into
considerations? Especially, point twelve of his fourteen points in which he emphasized the
rights of the minorities under the Turkish rule for an “absolutely unmolested opportunity of
autonomous development…” (178).
However, to facilitate such cooperative system or union of nations, one has to
understand “why do states do what they do and what causes conflict and cooperation among
states.” According to Kaufman, Inis L. Claude, Jr. notes that “the permanent features of the
behavior of states…include the urge for order as well as the lust for power, and the desire for
cooperation as well as the bent for rivalry” (351). This idealist notion is shared by many
liberalists who consider morality, cooperation and perfection as fundamentals for any
democratic state. And, in order to preserve correlation between these three fundamentals,
collective security is required. Yet, how to create collective security, Claude explains; by
establishing “a legal and structural apparatus capable of giving institutional expression to its
basic principles” within which can prohibit aggression and commit its member states to
cooperate in the containment of violence and provide an international organization with
needed authority to sanction any state which may endanger(s) the collective security of
others (364).
Given the existence of such legal and structural apparatus; the imperfect UN with its
Security Council, the Collective Security Theory clearly has demonstrated its profound value
beyond any arguable discourse, particularly in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990.
Preserving the status quo in the Persian Gulf region, the UNSC, after series of warnings,
voted unanimously to evict the Iraq by force from Kuwait, and in order to disarm Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and to contain the threats of its totalitarian regime, the
UNSC passed controversial resolutions which were implemented by cooperation among its
member states as a mean in the containment of aggressive fascist regime.
Similarly, when the Taliban regime in Afghanistan provided sanctuary to Osama Bin-
Laden and his Al-Qaeda terror organization, the UN mandated the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) to remove the Taliban regime and establish democratic institutions for
the people of Afghanistan.
Now, since liberalists and especially modern liberalists commonly say liberal
“democracies almost never fight each other,” then one might ask: why the Second World
War did happen? Why Turkey invaded Cyprus in mid 1970s?
Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) responds that “there are qualitatively different
international relations within the community of liberal democracies” (375). In other words,
civilized liberal nations never fight each other. In the case of WW II, although Germany was
a civilized nation, but its Nazi regime was illiberal and its powerful domestic military actors
were casting their needs and interests beyond their national boundaries. Such ambitions,
which were the reasons for the onset of WW II, eliminate any hopes for cooperation and
eventually lead to war as it happened. Similarly, the Turkish military’s autocracy and
consequently the constantly watched Turkish state institutions, despite some signs of
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intellectual liberalism, should not be considered democratic at all simply because they lack
rational and cooperation among all of their domestic actors.
Bruce Russett’s insightful analysis of politics within a democracy can truly be seen as
a “nonzero-sum enterprise.” Explaining his findings, Russett furthers that “by cooperating,
all can gain something even if all do not gain equally, and the winners are restrained from
crushing the losers” (377).
When cooperation is strengthened between democratic institutions; nationally and
internationally, democracies can easily share their common institutions to make alliances and
have a peaceful atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the European Community (EC) was founded
on the motives of binding together the formerly aggressive states as a way to unable them to
fight each other anymore (378). Moreover, transnational institutions and organizations which
form the web of economic interdependence by means of cooperation to generate more wealth
promote peace and prosperity among states.
To this end, one must not forget the alternative frameworks of decision-making which
influences states or their policy-makers vis-à-vis cooperation among states. The lack of
information regarding any cooperative issues will result in stressful challenges on policy-
makers which they have to bare. Thus, they need to identify “the basic frame of reference…
when thinking about foreign affairs,” and by highlighting, magnifying and revealing, they
can understand why only a particular decision made among other possibilities (652).
Similarly, one has to take into considerations that in cooperation, sometimes decisions made
of a “less-than-optimal course of action” due to the stressful decision-making situations in
order to keep the cooperation at optimum (653).
Finally, we should not ignore the durable cooperation among states in realistic
international relations which by anarchy is characterized. Understanding that “cooperation
remains scarce relative to discord,” Robert Keohane cautions IR students not to “wait for
cooperation to become the rule rather than the exception before studying it, for ignorance of
how to promote cooperation can lead to discord, conflict and economic disaster before
cooperation ever has a chance to prevail” (487).
In summary, theories of cooperation in the field of international relations are practical
means to defuse conflicts and they can be attained by intergovernmental and translational
organizations fixed to achieve collective security, alliances, wealth and peaceful prosperity.

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Reference:
"Week Five: Theory and the International System." Welcome to Week 05: Liberalism 1-Classic Liberalism.
21 Feb 2007. Norwich University - Diplomacy. 22 Apr 2007.
<https://norwichwebct6.embanet.com/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/mdy_sem1_content/lectu
res/mdy_s1_wk5_lecture.pdf>.

Kaufman, Daniel, Jay Parker, Patrick Howell, and Grant Doty. Understanding International Relations: The
Value of Alternative Lenses. 5th. Boston: Custom Publishing - McGraw-Hill, 2004.