strengths and weaknesses of liberal internationalism

For more recent critiques that challenge whether U.S. postwar policy was liberal, see Graham Allison, The Myth of the Liberal Order: From Historical Accident to Conventional Wisdom, Foreign Affairs, Vol. By grand strategy, I mean the broad policiesmilitary, diplomatic, and economicthat a state pursues to achieve its vital interests.98 The LIO is simultaneously a product of U.S. grand strategy and a part of U.S. grand strategy. Thomas Wright recounts how leading analysts held that the combination of U.S. power, the advantages of globalization, and the United States willingness to open the LIO to other major powers explain the lack of balancing against the United States in the postCold War era. 4755. The LIO conceptthe logics that proponents identify as underpinning the LIOis focused inward, leaving it ill equipped to address interactions between members of the LIO and states that lie outside the LIO. In this case, the term reflects a normative preference, although this is not explicit. As with the LIO, there is no agreed set of mechanisms that form the LIO concept. Explaining other features of NATO requires institutional and regime theories, not the LIO concept. See, for example, Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, pp. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. The relationship between the United States and these countries remains anarchic, with all of the security pressures and incentives that the international system can fuel under certain conditions. I show, however, that this has not been the case and that established theories of alliance cooperation explain cooperation within NATO quite well. Schweller, The Problem of International Order Revisited, p. 179. Let's review what we've learned. These dangers, however, have actually strengthened U.S. alliances and, in turn, the LIO. As mentioned earlier, liberal internationalism is optimistic about the world and actors engaged in international relations. Pro-overhaul protest showed the right's strengths and the government's weakness Likud voters want gov't to focus on declining economy, Haredi parties want draft exemption law, religious . A still more convincing example of the limits of institutional binding might be cases in which binding would have solved a problem but was judged insufficiently effective. For an overview of these arguments, see Brooks and Wohlforth, America Abroad, pp. Published online by Cambridge University Press: Similarly, a variety of structural arguments can explain the Cold War peace, including the defense advantage created by nuclear weapons, NATO's effective deterrent capabilities, and the relative simplicity of balancing in bipolarity. 561598, doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027831. 157, doi.org/10.1080/09636410108429444. The economic dimension of U.S. grand strategy is the liberal international economic system, which is a second key component of the LIO; it reflects long-held U.S. beliefs in both the economic benefits of openness and the potential of openness to support peace. Institutions cannot prevent a state from using its military capabilities in high-stakes situations, so if allies had serious doubts about U.S. intentions, they would have been unwilling to run large military risks.67 In contrast, information about a powerful ally's benign intentions can make binding unnecessary. Ikenberry also holds that throughout the Cold War, this American-led liberal international order was the dominant reality in world politics. G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Internationalism 3.0: America and the Dilemmas of Liberal World Order, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. On some of the factors that support the U.S. shift, see Daniel H. Rosen, A Post-Engagement U.S.-China Relationship (New York: Rhodium Group, January 19, 2018), https://rhg.com/research/post-engagement-us-china-relationship/. On the latter, see Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999). With luck, none of these possibilities will materialize. Second, the logics that drive these interactions are not those included in the LIO concept. Ikenberry argues that the U.S.-led liberal hegemonic order plays havoc with prevailing understandings of international relations, specifically with neorealism and its focus on anarchy, insecurity, and balancing. This is so to create international harmony and cooperation as countries are allowed to trade with each other. For example, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was a multilateral effort attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to stem man-made climate change. NATO's influence is well understood, however, in terms of established theoriesincluding theories that explain why alliances form, how they support deterrence, and when they threaten adversaries. Liberal perspective on world politics is that they believe in minimal state intervention in peoples lifes they believe that this is the fundamental as it does not pose the risk of infringing on people human rights or interfere with the free market. Strengths and weaknesses of neoliberalism 3.1 Strengths 3.2 Weaknesses. See Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. Scholars have extensively debated the impact of democracy on international politics.22 Democratic peace theory, which explains cooperation and peace between democracies, and related features of democratic exceptionalism have received much support, although scholars continue to disagree over which specific mechanisms produce these outcomes. Among its shortcomings, he holds that neorealism cannot explain the lack of security competition within the LIO, the lack of balancing against U.S. unipolar power following the end of the Cold War, and the hierarchical nature of the order.60 In a similar vein, Lake maintains that in a wholly anarchic world, self-restraint is an oxymoron, and that for realists, states pursuing power or even security under uncertainty necessarily implies zero-sum conflicts.61, The fatal flaw in these arguments is that a key strand of neorealismdefensive realismexplains that under a range of conditions a state can best achieve security by cooperating with its adversary and by exercising self-restraint, rather than by competing. This research raises the question of whether the international economic openness and high economic growth that China has experienced over the past few decades had reasonable prospects for generating a transition to democracy, and what its prospects are going forward. A state can engage, however, in coercion even if it works through an international institution; see Alexander Thompson, Coercion through IOs: The Security Council and the Logic of Information Transmission, International Organization, Vol. Liberalism is a philosophy championed by western nations such as the United Kingdom and the USA and some Non- Governmental organisations such as the United Nations. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. On wealth as a barrier to reversion, see Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, Modernization: Theories and Fact, World Politics, Vol. First, it would improve analysis of U.S. interests and threats to those interests. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! 134, doi.org/10.1017/S0020818306060012. Scholars studying this question have offered a level of nuance and conditionality that is missing in the LIO concept's basic political convergence argument. Liberal weakness- hypocrisy, no real world application of their political policies and only exists to impose a way of life on people who largely disagree. David Lake offers a different understanding of hierarchy, based on a concept of relational authority. He states that in a relational approach, authority is understood to rest on an exchange relationship between dominant and subordinate states, in which the former provides a social order in return for compliance and legitimacy from the latter.27 Legitimacy conferred by the subordinate (weaker) power to the superordinate (stronger) power distinguishes the product of relational authority from standard bargained agreements. Additionally, neo-isolationists hold that, contrary to hegemonic stability theory, economic openness does not depend on a hegemon providing public goods; therefore, even relative gains that weakened the dominant economic position of the United States would not threaten economic openness. A liberal perspective on the world has its strengths and weakness. In contrast, proponents of an alternative school of grand strategyneo-isolationism, which holds that the United States should terminate its major power allianceshold that the relative gains argument is flawed. David A. on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. 7, No. 2 (June 2011), pp. 30, 5152. 96, No. In effect, order is the result of an equipoise or equilibrium of power between the competing states. Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, p. 48. Damage to its reputation for respecting agreements could reduce other states willingness to cooperate with it in the future. Why, for instance, did the West European countries not employ it to constrain West Germany following World War II? 3 (Summer 2013), pp. On related understandings of legitimacy, see Ian Hurd, Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics, International Organization, Vol. In addition, a weaker state that believes the more powerful state has little interest in taking advantage of its vulnerabilities, especially those created by the alliance, will judge the risks of its increased vulnerability to be smaller. Distinguishing the influence of these motives for NATO's creation is difficult. Within a large literature, see, for example, John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System, International Security, Vol. 121154, doi.org/10.1017/S0043887109000057. For a discussion of more basic elements that influence orders, see Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. prevent the world from falling into anarchism and non-engagement in war between liberal democracies provide a strong case. Violence should be a tool of last resort. The document argues later that the order is both a means and an end, but the logic is not convincing, see ibid., p. 40. Given space constraints, I do not explore the specialization argument. See also Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter, China, the United States, and Global Order (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Some U.S. officials, including George Kennan, favored this approach. In contrast to the four other LIO mechanisms, the core of convergence is essentially transformational: the international order achieves these positive outcomes by changing states, aligning their interests and advancing their understandings of acceptable means for achieving their foreign policy objectives.37, The convergence-driven transition to democracy could occur incrementally through a variety of reinforcing mechanisms. 21, No. Its strengths out way the weaknesses because Liberalism has influenced countries across the globe to operate free market economies which have adapted to globalisation and are now integrated into the global economy. See also Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), pp. 115144, doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.115; and Jan Teorell, Determinants of Democratization: Explaining Regime Change in the World, 19722006 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). These actions suggest that China's decision not to balance sooner reflected, at least in part, its recognition of its limited power, not a strategy for rising peacefully.72 They provide support for the argument that power alone may be sufficient to explain China's initial lack of balancing.73 In addition, the difficulty of attacking across long distances and water, and the deterrent value of nuclear weaponsfactors that favor defense over offense, and thereby reduce the threat posed by U.S. powerlikely contributed to China's muted balancing.74, Second, although a focus solely on power may explain China's behavior, it does not explain why the member states of the European Union (EU) did not create a unified military capability to balance against the United States. According to LIO theorists, the order is characterized by hierarchy, not anarchythat is, the lack of an international institution or state that can prevent the use of military force and enforce international agreements. Omissions? For example, policies pursued in the name of the LIO sound less competitive, assertive, and threatening than those pursued to preserve a state's sphere of influence or its international dominance. Liberal internationalism offers an optimistic solution. U.S. leaders beliefs about the benefits of economic interdependence and about the dangers of unbridled economic competition, which fueled the Great Depression and in turn World War II, played an influential role in shaping the U.S. design of the LIO.32, As with the role of democracy in promoting peace, there is substantial theoretical and empirical debate over the impact of economic interdependence on war.33 For example, realists have argued that economic interdependence creates vulnerabilities, which in turn generate the potential for coercion via trade embargos and trade wars, and that vulnerability to the disruption of vital imports can fuel military competition and support decisions for war.34 A state's decisions about how much economic vulnerability to accept depend on its expectations about the size of the economic benefits and the probability of future political and military conflict.35, The fifth mechanism in the LIO conceptpolitical convergenceplayed a central role during the postCold War period. This section reviews scholars understandings of the elements that constitute an international order. 181213, doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2016.1171966; Charles L. Glaser, How Oil Influences U.S. National Security, International Security, Vol. Despite the limited explanatory power of the LIO concept, collecting the LIO's disparate components under a single umbrella could still have analytic value, if interactions between them result in the LIO being more than the sum of its parts. In the early years following World War II, however, the United States shifted to an economic policy that favored and protected its allies. The document also holds that the test of this international order must be the cooperation it facilitates and results it generatesthat is, a means.15 For both conceptual clarity and analytic utility, I argue that an international order should be understood as a means, not an end. However, while the causes of Cold War peace and the end of the Cold War have fueled much debate and generated many competing explanations, the LIO is rarely among them.80 Effective balancing by U.S. alliances, deterrence supported by nuclear weapons, and bipolarity are much more prominent explanations for the Cold War peace. In addition to previous grand strategy citations, see Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014). Content may require purchase if you do not have access. International cooperation has also helped harmonised trade and security agreements amongst states; an example of this is the development of the European Union in Europe and led to greater bonds and peace between nations. 1 (January/February 2017), pp. Collective security is a strength of the liberal perspective on world politics. Consequently, the LIO concept can shed little light on the most important issues in international politicsspecifically, the prospects for peace and cooperation between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and its adversaries and competitors, on the other. Regime type can provide a state with information about other states intentions. In addition, a range of additional theories must be employed to adequately analyze U.S. international policy, including those that address deterrence, power transitions, alliance formation, the security dilemma, and other causes of war. 97, No. 2259. Liberalism allows individuals to pursue and potentially achieve their goals and interests. Mandelbaum, The Ideas that Conquered the World, pp. However, the social and political pressures outlined in the previous chapter have resulted in a fragmentation of the liberal state, and a transformation of the international state system. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service. Perhaps the most well recognized international organization is the United Nations. Walt, Origins of Alliances; and Stephen M. Walt, Alliances in a Unipolar World, World Politics, Vol. While critics of the theory claim it is too utopian and ignores the reality of power politics, the theory does help explain international cooperation and provides a road map for an alternative way to create a peaceful and less anarchical international system. Let's take a closer look at some of these basic principles. No plagiarism, guaranteed! These are some fundamental guidelines which Liberal democracies adhere to. Another strand of the LIO concept holds that hierarchy built on legitimate authority, granted by subordinate (i.e., weaker) states to the dominant (i.e., stronger) state, is essential to explaining cooperation under anarchy. Although the main influences moulding institutional change in each state have been internal, state transformation has been an international process of interrelated responses to global change. Thus, using realism as a structure to explain international . 111, No. Expert Answer. Instead, it is concerned essentially with cooperation within the LIO and especially between allies. He concludes, The power gap may have been necessary, but was not sufficient to explain the dearth of balancing. viewpoints. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. Framing China as a threat to the LIO reflects and combines both of these dangers, and thereby unnecessarily aggravates U.S.-China relations.97. Overall, liberal internationalism has both strengths and weaknesses as a foreign policy approach. Because the United States is a liberal democracy, during the Cold War its NATO partners were far less worried that the United States would exploit vulnerabilities that were generated by the alliance.66 This information argument is far more compelling than the institutional binding argument. 4 (Autumn 2000), pp. Thus, the economic interdependence and convergence arguments do apply. Once an order is established, a member state may be unable to quickly change it. The postCold War era is less clear cut. Regionally limited openness provided a competitive advantage against the Soviet bloc, which reduced the economic strain the United States incurred to meet its defense requirements. 445475, doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300033440; and Celeste A. Wallander, Institutional Assets and Adaptability: NATO after the Cold War, International Organization, Vol. Neoliberalism is the theory that runs through capitalism, an economic system that emphasizes wealth accumulation guided by the free-market. BIGGEST FACTOR: Focus on the state as the DOMINANT actor in international relations & economic development 2. 124133, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-06-14/myth-liberal-order; and Patrick Porter, A World Imagined: Nostalgia and Liberal Order, Policy Analysis No. In the conclusion, I identify policy issues and options raised by employing a grand strategy framework. See, among others, Charles L. Glaser, Why Unipolarity Doesn't Matter (Much), Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. The comparison with Kennedy is not a remark on Kennedy's strength but on DeSantis' weakness. Should it make concessions in East Asia that are essentially precluded by the LIO's status quo bias? Ibid. Analysis of U.S. international policy would be improved by dropping the LIO terminology entirely and reframing analysis in terms of grand strategy. Balance of threat theory explains the basics of NATO well; although U.S. power surpassed Soviet power during the Cold War, NATO's Western European members were much closer geographically to the Soviet Union (which enhanced its offensive potential against them) and believed that Soviet intentions were much more malign than U.S. intentions.65. See, for example, Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane, The Liberal Order Is Rigged: Fix It Now or Watch It Wither, Foreign Affairs, Vol.

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