Realism & Liberalism

all right so let's focus in on realism and liberalism again these are the two major paradigms of international relations and as I mentioned before realism can trace its roots back to the acidities with a reading of the Malayan dialogue if you're interested in going to the library and checking out the history of the Peloponnesian War but beyond that let me say a few things about realism and liberalism again we're going to focus on that international system level of analysis so what what is really important are the external factors what happens outside of the state for example imagine States on a blackboard represented by by square blocks okay and so bigger blocks that I would draw on the board means that state has more power versus smaller blocks on the board and all around those blocks on the board there are other actors in the international system such as IG o--'s intergovernmental organizations the UN for example there's NGOs nongovernmental organizations like Amnesty International there are terrorist groups they're multinational corporations they're individuals these are the actors that we're talking about an international system and so what we're focusing on in IR is the those external factors those things that are beyond the state beyond the black box and in the system we can think of two major phenomena occurring there's conflict on one hand and cooperation on the other and these two things are indicative of the dominant theme of realism and the dominant theme of liberalism let's look at the cartoon and so in the first square we have former President Bush talking about building a missile defense shield and that might ruffle a few foreign feathers and you see one missile from Russia pointing at us but he doesn't care and so you see some more missiles and he says we can't forget our main objective and that is to feel safer and as we're providing more safety for ourselves at least that's what we believe Eve Russia is building more and more missiles all right this is referred to as a security dilemma and this is occurring because the international system is characterized by anarchy so anarchy and the security dilemma are two key concepts to to get a hold of by anarchy what we mean is the absence of any world government that doesn't mean that the national system doesn't recognize the UN as a supranational organization but it doesn't constitute world government that differs what that differs from what we understand domestically where we are under the rules and obligations of the laws governing our States and what we as citizens are supposed to do and not do that doesn't exist at the international system level instead you have anarchy that is it's a self-help system ultimately states have to rely upon themselves for security and so in order to feel secure they arm themselves and as they arm themselves this activity is going to lead other states particularly their traditional rival to feel unsafe so they're going to start building weapons as well this is the traditional arms race okay and so for realists they look at the international system and says because of Anarchy because of the security dilemma conflict is inevitable and I have to arm myself in order to protect my state the national interest of my state liberals on the other hand and please don't confuse this liberal with liberal politics in the United States this is the liberal international relations philosophy liberals on the other hand argue that this security dilemma can be overcome through cooperative activity and international organizations and international institutions help facilitate this particular cooperation here we see a very simplistic flowchart about how realists and liberals differ and how they view the world so from the realist perspective what really matters is relative power that is what is your power visa vie your traditional rival what really matters to you is what is your relative power are you more or less powerful than your traditional rival and this concept this this focus on power is going to influence how states act so those states that have relatively more power have very few constraints relative to those states that have less power and all that's going to influence the overall stability of the system liberals on the other hand focus on shared institutions shared power and are more likely to say that these types of institutions and the idea that power can be shared is going to help States overcome the barriers to cooperation such as a security dilemma so liberalism is the most well developed rival paradigm or challenger to realism so unlike realists who assert that the competitive power oriented and violent character or character of world politics is an unchangeable fact of life in the Antarctic system liberals believe that this global cooperation is possible and we can move beyond power politics which is really the cinder and focus of realism so realism believes that these ideas are fixed that there's not going to be a lot of change in how states behave because of the security dilemma anarchy and the focus on power and relative power kind of think of the Hobbesian view of an international system liberals on the other hand are focusing on the idea that peace and cooperation among states produce absolute gains rather than relative gains and so what was really important to States is are you better off now than you were before okay so as long as your state is better off as a result of cooperating with others the gains of other countries should not really matter okay so this is huge difference between realists and liberals so if you want someone to think about in terms of who might think of as a liberal philosopher think of the Manuel Conte who wrote perpetual peace where he talked about how the international system can become more peaceful and that is to have liberal states in an organization like the League of Nations of the UN where you have a Pacific Federation of states and that's going to lead to cooperation and liberals argue that states learn how to be cooperative over time and therefore conflict is not inevitable ok so the next lecture is going to focus a little bit more on the particulars of realism and liberalism and dive into some of the alternative theories of IR

Channel: Rhonda Callaway

Views: 287,753

Rating: 4.8587422 out of 5

Keywords: Realism, liberalism

Id: j2ssqttToU0

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2013