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Traditional liberalism and International Relations
By: Saed Kakei,
Ph.D. Student,
Theories of Conflict and Conflict Resolution I(CARD 7040-DL2)
Professor Dustin Berna, Ph.D.
Nova Southeastern University
Department of Conflict Analysis & Resolution PhD Program
March 24, 2012
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Traditional liberalism and International Relations
Introduction
As one of the two dominant philosophical outcome of the European Enlightenment, liberalism is
considered to be a challenge to the pessimistic claims of realism about human nature. Aside from
promoting limited government and scientific rationality of individuals and their potential for
progress in the domestic realm, liberalism has had a deep impact on the characteristics of
international relations of all modern developed societies. Just as it has considered individuals
should be free from subjective state power, persecution and poverty, Liberalism has argued that the
quest for power among nations increasingly outlines the destructive character of warfare which
showcases the enormous scale of violence now present in the nuclear and globalization age. To
break the cycle of international competition and violence, liberal theorists have been advocating
universal standards to protect human rights, defend political freedom, and promote democracy by
which the liberty of the individual and equality before the law become added values to the three
centuries old liberal heritage. This is particularly true after the end of Cold War during which
individual competition in civil society and the expansion of market capitalism have jointly been
able to efficiently promote the welfare of all by allocating scarce resources within our international
community. Thus, liberalism remains a powerful and influential doctrine.
There are many concepts of liberal thought which influence the study of international
relations. This paper will begin with a descriptive analysis to show the nature of the liberal
tradition and explain its diverse ideas on international relations. During the course of my analysis
of the historical revival of liberal thought, I will explain liberalism by highlighting its core
assumptions. I will then lead my discussion to elucidate how traditional liberal attitudes view
warfare and the importance of democracy and human rights continue to inform contemporary
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thinking. The conclusion will judge the contribution of liberalism to the theory of international
relations.
Historical development of liberal tradition
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (1989), liberalism is a political thought which
is favorable to constitutional changes and legal or administrative reforms tending in the direction
of freedom or democracy. While this definition is somewhat revealing, it needs further
elaboration.
The term liberal took on a political meaning with the establishment of liberal party in Spain
and later on throughout Europe, in the last decades of the eighteenth century (Gray, 1995). When
these developing political parties coined the expression liberal, they wanted to signal their
favorable assessment of the emerging democratic systems in Great Britain and especially the
United States, as opposed to their conservative opponents, who wanted to return to pre-
revolutionary forms of government (Sartori, 1987, 367). The description, however, held a
considerably older phenomenon, dating back to the political theories of John Locke, and his
philosophical and theological defense of popular sovereignty at the end of the seventeenth century
(Gray 1995).
Partly because of its long history, the term liberalism has become an indefinable concept.
Over time and in accordance with varying regional experiences, liberalism has tended different
meaning. For example, in the opening sentences of his article entitled Liberalism, Alan Ryan
provides that:
Anyone trying to give a brief account of liberalism is immediately faced with an
embarrassing question: are we dealing with liberalism or liberalisms? It is easy to list
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famous liberals; it is harder to say what they have in common. John Locke, Adam Smith,
Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Lord Acton, T. H. Green, John Dewey
and contemporaries such as Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls are certainly liberals but they
do not agree about the boundaries of toleration, the legitimacy of the welfare state, and the
virtues of democracy, to take three rather central political issues (Ryan, 1993, p. 291).
The usage of liberalism as a generic term by many for the purposes of praise or obloquy in
the political struggle has not been helpful. In fact, attempts by many liberal theorists to define
liberalism in such a way that only the very deluded or the very wicked could fail to be liberals
have not been fruitful as well (Ryan, 1993, p. 292). Adding more to the confusion, various liberal
parties, politicians, and political philosophers have often put forward differing opinions of what the
original or true meaning of liberalism is. This is often what happens when advocates of economic
liberalism disagree with more left-leaning adherents of social liberalism on such basic political
questions as with what, and how far, the state ought to concern itself. That been underlined here,
one could easily identify some of the common varieties of liberalism and liberal thought by
recognizing the distinctions between classical and modern types of liberalism (Ryan, 1993, pp.
293-6).
Classical liberalism
According to E. K. Hunt, classical liberalism has four assumptions about human nature:
People were "egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic" (2003, p. 44). Because
they are egoistic, people are motivated exclusively by pleasure and pain. Being calculating, they
make decisions with the intention to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. If there were no
opportunity to increase pleasure or reduce pain, they would become inert. In such a condition, and
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because society is the sum of its human beings, classical liberals saw society as atomistic (2003,
pp. 44-46). Therefore, societys security must be the first and the foremost priority for the state to
protect. Otherwise, individuals aspirations may not be possible (Dunne, 2004, p. 160).
Classical liberalism is often associated with the belief that government had been created by
rational and self-interested individuals to protect themselves from one another. It has therefore
argue that individuals should be free to pursue their self-interest without control or restraint by
society or its ruling government (2003, pp. 46). To achieve this goal, classical liberalists thought
that government should be limited, which means that everything except armed forces, law
enforcement, and non-excludable goods and services should be left for its citizens, and the
organizations they freely choose and cooperate to establish in order to uphold the most
fundamental aspects of public order. Some of these authors, especially John Locke, considered the
state to be a freely established association between individuals, where its members have a justified
cause for rebellion if the state seizes more power than what has been originally given to by its
citizens. This consideration is based on an essential assumption is that humans are capable of
learning from mistakes and successes, they are free to track their interests at their own free will,
and they are competent to adjust their behavior if they discover that competition only leads to
greater danger and less prosperity (Silverstone, 2004, p. 160). As for states relations with other
states, classical liberals believe that states can achieve their national interests, to include security,
free trade, and prosperity, by cooperating with other states (2004, p. 160). Conversely, if
governments intervene to disturb the natural order domestically and internationally, then conflict
will become inevitable.
Constitutional liberalism
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The core principles of classical liberalism grant not only a theory of liberty, justice,
toleration, and public good, but also a discipline of powerthe means of creating power as well as
controlling it. This discipline has been a singular achievement of constitutional liberalism, dating
from the early eighteenth century and evolving, as it has, to modern liberalism since the late
nineteenth century.
According to Hunt, Adam Smith had explained that government had only three functions:
protection against foreign invaders, protection of citizens from wrongs committed against them by
other citizens, and building and maintaining public institutions and public works that private
sectors could not profitably provide. Later, constitutional liberals extended protection of the
country to protection of overseas markets through either armed intervention or a balance of power
(2003, pp. 51-52).
Constitutional liberalism imposes general constraints on the power of state as well as non-
state actors to protect citizens from oppression on the one hand, and they serve to protect the state
from unpredictable, reckless, or overreaching decisions, on the other hand. A fundamental
approach of constitutional liberalism stipulates that if power arbitrarily exercised, it would be
destructive not only to individual liberty but also to the rule of law. Limiting arbitrary power
encourages confidence that the law will be fair and thereby increases the states ability to secure
cooperation without the imposition of force. This is not to indicate that constitutional liberalism, at
least in the late eighteenth century and even throughout nineteenth century, was fully democratic.
In fact, history tells us that high ranking motivated British as well as American republicans not
only excluded the majority of their people from economic prosperity and other rights, but also
resorted to armed intervention to pursue their domestic as well as international commercial
interests. One reason for these undemocratic practices was the French Revolution and its aftermath
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which triggered conservative reaction on liberalism in England and on the continent well into the
nineteenth century.
The cause that became of greatest importance to conservative liberals was economic
freedom. With the rise of classical economics and laissez-faire (economic liberalism), classical
liberalism was branded by the newly emerging modern liberalists as ideal of negative liberty
devoted to a general hostility to the state. In the midst of this profound revision or shift within
liberalism, constitutional liberalists sought both to create and to contain power. This situation
continued to be as such until the aftermath of World War I (WWI).
Reviewing the tragic loss of 8.5 million lives and the devastation spread across much of
Europe at the end of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson argued that instead of undemocratic nature
of international politics and balance of power which was bankrupt as a means to achieve
security, enlightened humans need to create a new cooperative system to achieve a more stable
and lasting peace without great power war (2004, p. 160). This was not only a drastic departure
from the initial developing phase of liberalism which held the notion of security relating to human
nature, but also a revision of some of the earlier liberals assumptions, especially the one that
relates to maximizing state security through armed intervention. For President Wilson, the ideas of
national self-determination, open governments responsive to public opinion, and collective
international security were transitional factors that will strengthen the Kantian perpetual peace.
Modern liberalism
Modern liberalism is characterized by a greater willingness to let the state become an active
participant in the economy. This has often issued in an obvious tendency to regulate the
marketplace, and to have the state supply essential goods and services to everyone. While classical
liberalism favors laissez-faire traditional economic policies, because it is thought to lead to liberty
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and democracy, modern liberalism believe that this analysis is insufficient and misleading, and that
in order to achieve the most basic liberal goals, the state must play a significant role in the
economy. Such modern views could be associated with nineteenth-century liberal theorists such as
Benjamin Constant and John Stuart Mill. More recently, John Dewey, John Rawls and others have
articulated similar ideas.
Another aspect within liberalism is the conflict between liberal egalitarianism and
libertarianism. This aspect overlaps with the division between classical and modern liberalism.
Libertarianism might be perceived as a radicalized variety of classical liberalism and liberal
egalitarianism as a theoretical restatement of modern liberalism.
Libertarianism is characterized by a deep concern for liberty, especially economic liberty,
coupled with a related fewer attentions to other traditional liberal values such as democracy and
justice. This sets libertarians apart from many earlier classical liberals such as Smith and
Tocqueville who, while they advocated economic liberties, they also acknowledged the validity of
other concerns. Liberal egalitarians generally share the traditionally liberal view that legitimate
goals are many, and that economic freedom is just one of them. The name, liberal egalitarianism,
indicates that liberal egalitarians would like to see equality as well as liberty brought about, which
politically places them to the left of classical liberals and libertarians alike.
To sum up this section, it is important to recognize that despite the serious challenges to
them during the interval of the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century, modern
liberalists contributed substantially to the dynamics of their respective international powers.
Particularly important to mention is that the United States has been actively given modern
liberalism, as a practice and a theory, a dominant status in the contemporary world politics.
Typologies of liberal thought on international relations
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As provided in the first section of this paper, throughout the past centuries, liberals of all
strands would tend to share their core assumptions about individual behavior, state performance,
and international relations. Yet, because there are various types of liberalism, dependent on
societys political objectives, there is no single, specific version of liberalism to be applicable
worldwide. It is no wonder why Robert Keohane notes three basic types of liberal theories
applicable to international relations: republican, commercial, and regulatory (1990, p. 176-82). The
oldest version of liberalism, according to Keohane, is republican, which dates back to ancient
Greek and Roman eras and has evolved over time in response to domestic and international
situations. Republican city-state institutions were involved in constraining the use of force by their
respective governments according to the norms of popular representations and political practices of
checks and balances among various strands of the government (2004, p. 160). In 1795, the German
Philosopher Immanuel Kant suggested that since politics is compatible with moral principle both
within a state and among states, therefore, the cause of perpetual peace would be best served by
a pacific federation of free republican states (Kant cited in Kaufman et al., 2004, p. 168). It is
based on this argument that in some international relations students have argued that democratic
peace countries will not go to war against each other, and that an international system with more
democracies will produce a more peaceful world (Brown, Lynn-Jones and Miller, 1996, pp. 100-
101 cited in Silverstone, 2004, p. 161).
Keohanes second typology is commercial liberalism which suggests trade to be a powerful
form of cooperation that reduces the possibilities of war among nations considerably. According to
Silverstone, this claim was first made by the Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu who argued
that the natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace. Two nations that trade together become
mutually dependent if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and all
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unions are based on mutual needs (Hirschman, 1977, p. 80 cited in Silverstone, 2004, p. 161). As
for the third type which is regulatory liberalism, Keohane provides that states can best serve their
mutual international interests such as security, economic growth, and social welfare by generating
rules to regulate and guide their international conducts (1990, p. 179). In many ways, this
Keohanein type of liberalism is similar to the constitutional liberalism which was mentioned earlier
in this paper.
However, unlike the realists who claim that anarchy necessarily yields competitive state
behavior, Keohane tends to emphasize the constitutional liberalists notion that without regulatory
rules between states, authoritarian or democratic, mutual interests could not easily be discovered
and the possibilities of distrustfulness among nations would be greater and may lead to warfare.
This clearly was evident in the writings of British economist John A. Hobson before, during and,
after WWI in which he blamed imperialism for its greed to accumulate wealth and strengthen its
conflict prone balance of power system. As WWI left millions of casualties behind and brought
havoc to much of Europe, Hobson began advocating for a structure to hold the existing
international system. In his 1915 piece titled Towards International Government, and in an
attempt to prevent wars, he suggested a world government with powers to mediate and enforce
decisions (Dunne, 2005, p. 187). This call considered by many liberal scholars as the third phase
in the development of liberalism.
The revival of liberalism and its impact on International relations
Events of WWI pushed liberalism to recognize that rather than being considered as a
natural condition, peace must systematically be constructed. Unlike Kants perpetual peace which
required the transformation of individual consciousness, republican constitutionalism, and a
federal contract between states to abolish war (2005, p. 189), President Wilson argued that peace
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could only be secured with the creation of an international organization to regulate the
international anarchy and, that collective security should not be left to secret diplomatic deals and
contracts between nations (2005, p. 191). However, unlike Hobsons governed security, President
Wilson collective security referred to a procedure where each state in the system accepts that the
security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to aggression
(Roberts and Kingsbury, 1993, p. 30). Yet, when the League of Nations was founded on this
notion, Hobson argued against it reasoning that just as peace is enforced by governments
domestically, the international realm must have a democratic governing structure not only to
regulate peace, but also enforce collective security.
Because of its idealist norms, the experience of the League of Nations left a disastrous
setback for liberalism in general, especially during the inter-war period. The United States
unwillingness to join the international institution which it had created and the former Soviet
Unions refusal to join this idealist club for ideological reasons, had left the self-interest satisfied
nations to manipulate provisions of the Leagues Charter. The liberal right of self-determination of
all nations founded in the Leagues constitution became a trading point littered with moral
problems. For example, the Kurds, as then the third largest nation under the ailing Ottoman
Empire, were initially promised to enjoy their independent state of Kurdistan in 1921. However,
because of the British economic interests in the Middle East, Kurds not only denied of having their
own nation-state, but also forcefully divided in 1923 and compelled to take outlandish identities of
four newly established states of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
In 1939, E. H. Carr dazzlingly attacked the moral double standards of liberalism. In his
The Twenty Years Crisis 1919-1939 masterpiece, Carr argued against liberal idealism which
James L. Richardson skillfully sums it as the defence of the status quo in the name of peace as not
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necessarily more legitimate than challenging it in the name of justice (cited in Dunne, 2005, p.
192). Nevertheless, it has to be noted that liberal idealism was more of a program to identify the
freedom of states as part of the problem of international relations rather than a solution.
Accordingly, idealists suggested two courses of actions to be taken: The first is how to normatively
promote peace internationally. The second was the requirement for states to participate in a united
international organization and be bound by its rules and regulations (Dunne, 2005, p. 195). This
latter requirement became central to idealism norms, especially to deter and eventually defeat the
Nazi Germany.
As the Second World War set its course for much greater human miseries and immense
worldwide devastations, fifty states came together in San Francisco and signed the United Nations
Charter in June 1945. Although membership was near universal, the hegemonic powers of the time
were able to prevent any enforcement actions from taking place which might undermine their self-
interests. Subsequently, liberals turned to international organizations to perform functions the state
could not carry out alone. Efforts were made to account for international phenomena, such as the
increasingly global economy, Education, the environment, human rights, and world health issues
that could not be adequately explained within the realm of military security or state-based models
of analysis. Furthermore, the increasing importance of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and
propagation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as new international actors became the
focal points for liberalist analysis. Thus, liberalism was reintroduced as a paradigm that could
explore growing interdependence and the integration of the international community.
More recent liberal international theories suggest that NGOs have weakened state
sovereignty as the international community has become more interdependent (Keohane and Nye
1989). In a way, the failure of states to competently manage issues of complex interdependence has
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given rise to NGOs. Another liberal argument provides that state sovereignty should be restrained
because it circumvents international issues. This contrasts with the assertion that interdependence
will result in the deprecation of the state. Instead, the state is deemed to be an obstacle to
international cooperation, and therefore should be restricted. Interestingly thought, during the Cold
War, states were prioritizing their national security issues and leaving their citizens to mobilize on
issues outside of the scope of military affairs. Keohane and Nye differentiate these interests as
high and low political issues, where military security dominates high politics and economic
and social affairs represent low politics (1989, p. 24). In response to the blurring of high and low
politics, the number of NGOs increased, as citizens needed channels to voice their concerns. The
more interdependent international actors become, the more issues arise that need to be addressed.
In turn, the more issues which surface and demand attention, the more NGOs form to facilitate
citizens concerns.
Conclusion
Classical liberal thought in relation to international relations took the view that the natural
order corrupted by undemocratic state actors and outdated policies of balance of power.
Commercial realism suggested free trade to be a powerful form of cooperation among nations that
reduces the possibilities of war among nations considerably. Constitutional liberalism argued that
by limiting arbitrary power, regulatory laws will be fair and thereby increase the states ability to
secure cooperation without the imposition of force. In essence, it assumes that by exercising reason
based on morality, unfettered free movement of people and goods could better facilitate a long-
lasting international peace.
Although there are strong share and commonalities between classical and modern
liberalism such as the confidence in the power of international public opinion to discipline the
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interests of states, liberal idealism was more of an immoral double standard served the interests of
great powers.
In summary, liberalism asserts that interdependence increases the number of issues that
states cannot appropriately dealt with individually. Citizens have responded by forming and
supporting NGOs that compensate for the inabilities of states. The result is that NGO activity
diminishes state sovereignty.
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