Liberalism, idealism and institutionalism

International Relations · Theories of IR. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Liberalism holds that war is not inevitable. States can cooperate, and progress is possible, because people and states share interests in peace and prosperity.

Idealism was the liberal thinking of the years after 1918. It trusted international law, open diplomacy, public opinion and the League of Nations to prevent war through collective security. Woodrow Wilson was its leading voice. E. H. Carr attacked it for assuming a harmony of interests.

Later liberals gave three reasons for peace: democracy, trade and institutions. Neoliberal institutionalism accepts that the system is anarchic but argues that institutions make cooperation possible. Neoliberals stress absolute gains; neorealists reply that states worry about relative gains.

Rules to remember

Immanuel Kant, 'Perpetual Peace' (1795): republican constitutions, a federation of free states, and universal hospitality.
Woodrow Wilson: Fourteen Points, January 1918; national self-determination; a general association of nations.
Democratic peace thesis: democracies rarely, if ever, fight one another.
Commercial liberalism: trade makes war too costly.
Keohane and Nye, 'Power and Interdependence' (1977): complex interdependence = many channels of contact, no fixed ranking of issues, a smaller role for military force.
Robert Keohane, 'After Hegemony' (1984): institutions can keep cooperation going after a hegemon declines.
Institutions help by sharing information, reducing uncertainty and lowering transaction costs.

Common mistake

Students write that the democratic peace thesis says democracies are peaceful in general. The claim is narrower: democracies rarely fight each other, though they do fight non-democracies.

Worked example

Two governments each gain from a fisheries agreement and neither minds that the other gains too. They also set up a joint commission to exchange catch data so that cheating can be detected. Which theory does this behaviour fit best?

Both sides care about what they themselves gain, which is a concern with absolute gains.
The commission shares information and reduces the fear of cheating.
Cooperation made possible by an institution, without any world government, is the argument of Keohane's school.

Answer: Neoliberal institutionalism.

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