Liberalism

In International Relations Theory

Dmitry Pobedash
Ural State University
 Outline
 Major figures
 The first IR paradigm
 It takes all sorts to make the liberalism
 Key concepts
 A success story?
 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
“Leviathan” created to avoid war of all
against all Individual sovereignty
surrendered to preserve
individual rights
The best solution –
monarchy!
 John Locke (1632-1704)
All men are born free and equal
in rights to life, liberty, estate.

In civil society everyone surrenders

its sovereignty to community ruled
by separate executive and
legislative powers.

If the ruler breaks the social contract –

down with him!
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

 Utilitarianism
 “between the interests of nations
there is nowhere a real conflict”
“establish a common tribunal and the
necessity for war no longer follows
from the difference of opinion”

American Confederation,
Swiss League, German Diet
 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
 Contemporary IR – “Lawless state of
savagery”
 Transformation of individual consciousness
 Republican constitutionalism
 A federal contract between states to
abolish war – a permanent
peace treaty rather than a
superstate actor or world
government
 Richard Cobden (1804-65)
 The Apostle of Free Trade
 Improve education, decrease military
spending, lower taxes
 National hero for Corn Law, 1846
 Traitor for campaign against the
Crimean War
 Anglo-French Commercial Treaty,
1860
 Herbert Spenser, (1820-1903)
 Social Darwinism
 The Organic Analogy, but
 Differences between Society and
Body
 Social Evolution
 Military society – compulsory cooperation of
members
 Industrial society – voluntary
 Ethical state – common resources to perfect
human character
 The Happy Gang
 John Atkinson Hobson
 Norman Angell
 Alfred Eckhardt Zimmern
 James Thomson Shotwell
 Pitman Potter
 The Birth of a Discipline
The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by...

justice to all peoples and

nationalities, and their right
to live on equal terms of
liberty and safely with one
another, whether they be
strong or weak.

The first Chair of International Relations,

in University of Wales, Aberystwyth
 Woodrow Wilson
 The only President with a Ph.D.
 President of Princeton University,
1902-10
 The 14 points – address to Congress,
January 1918
 The first sitting President to visit
Europe
 Women and blacks are excluded
 14 points
1. Open covenants openly arrived at
2. Freedom of the seas in peace and war

3. Remove all economic barriers to trade

4. Reduction of national armaments

5. A readjustment of all colonial claims

6. Leave Russia alone

7. Evacuate and restore Belgium

8. Restore France, return Alsace-Lorraine

 14 points
9. Readjust Italian frontiers along national
lines
10. Self-determination for peoples of
Austria-Hungary
11. Redraw boundaries of Balkan states
along historically established lines of
nationality
12. Self-determination for peoples under
Turkish rule
 14 points
13. Independence for Poland with free
access to the sea guaranteed by
international covenant
14. Form a general association of nations
under specific covenants to afford mutual
guarantees of political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small
states alike.
 Three Images
 Individual
 State

 System
 The Three Images
Images Who, when Causes of war How to make
peace
Human R. Cobden Govts intervene at Indiv. liberty, free
nature mid-19thc. home and abroad, trade, prosperity,
disturb natural interdependence
order
The state W. Wilson Undemocratic National self-
early 20th nature of intntl. determination,
politics, esp. foreign open govts
c. policy and balance respond to public
of power opinion, collective
security
Structure J. Hobson Balance of power World govt. with
of system early 20th system powers to mediate
and enforce
c. decisions
 Liberalism in
• Economics
• Domestic politics
• International relations:
– Liberal internationalism
– Idealism
– Liberal institutionalism
 Liberal Internationalism
 A law-governed international society
can emerge without a world govt.
 The progress of freedom depends on
maintenance of peace, spread of
commerce and diffusion of education
 Human society can be based on natural
order
 Liberal Internationalism
 Natural harmony in relations by ‘the
invisible hand’ of laissez faire economic
principles
 By pursuing self-interest actors
inadvertently promote public good
 Capitalism is natural and inherently
pacific
 Economic interdependence fosters peace
 Idealism
 Peace is not natural but must be
constructed
 Domestic analogy – international
governance must use the same
procedures
 Collective security rather than alliance
system (collective defence)
 Teaching what ought to be and not
just what is – Wilson Chair
 Liberal Institutionalism
 Transnational cooperation needed to
resolve common problems
 Cooperation in one sector would
extend range of collaboration
 Growing integration increases the
‘cost’ of withdrawal from cooperative
ventures
 Pluralism of actors
 Key Concepts of Liberalism
 Collective security
 Democratic peace and democracy
promotion
 Integration and interdependence
 Rule of law, human rights
 Normative element in theory
 Pluralism of actors
 World government
 Liberal Successes
 The League of Nations
• The ILO, the Health Organization, the
Mandates Commission
• Political disputes resolved
 Finland-Sweden, Germany-Poland, Greece-
Bulgaria, Turkey-Iraq, Bolivia-Paraguay,
Peru-Colombia
 Apprenticeship for the UN
 The English School of IR
 The First Great Debate
 Reinhold Niebuhr. Moral Man and
Immoral Society, 1932
 Edward Carr. The Twenty Years’
Crisis, 1939
 Frederick Schuman
 Georg Schwarzenberger