>>>>Dean Grillot: So moving on to other forms of international relations theory, let's look
at liberalism and neoliberalism. Liberalism is actually one of the earliest forms of international
relations theories. It was created shortly after the First World War, what was then called
the Great War, to prevent another one. Scholars, thinkers, and decision-makers got together
and decided to question, "What can we do to prevent another great war?" So they started
to focus on issues like common interest. How can we emphasize common interest among great
powers, among global actors? How can we perhaps promote democracy as a way to prevent war?
This leads us to a more contemporary notion that we call the democratic peace. Today,
theorists suggest that democracies don't fight one another. This is the closest we come to
a law in international relations. There are very few, if any cases of democracies actually
going to war with one another. So why, why does democracy matter? There are two factors
that matter when we talk about the democratic peace: democratic institutions, like checks
and balances, elections, separations of power. Those types of factors help us prevent, or
mitigate, against decisions to go to war. Democracies can't just willy-nilly decide
one day, "I'm going to go to war!" They have to go through a process. Elections, elected
leaders, allow the electorate-- who of course pays the costs of war and suffers the consequences
of war, allows the electorate to determine whether their leaders are are fit to make
those decisions. Separations of power the, the fact that both the president and the Congress
have to play a role in decision-making when it comes to war, would suggest that they check
and balance each other, right? So the the separation of power, the check and balance
that comes with that, and the ability to elect democratic leaders really all work against,
or at least mitigate in some way, against decisions to go to war. That doesn't mean
that democracies are less war-prone. It just means they have to go through a process. It
isn't as easy as non-democracies or a non-democratic leader to choose to go to war. The other factor
that matters in the democratic peace are democratic, what we call democratic norms, particularly
the norm of a peaceful resolution of conflict. Within democratic societies, particularly
stable democratic societies, we resolve our conflict peacefully. What do we do? If we
have a problem with our neighbor, if we have a problem with somebody that's, that we believe
has harmed us in some way, we sue them right? We use our court system. Well in the global
community that type of process doesn't necessarily exist, or it certainly isn't stable enough
to prevent war. So this democratic institution of the peaceful resolution of conflict is
something that works against decisions to go to war. So these two factors working together,
democratic institutions like elections, checks and balances, and separation of powers and
democratic norms of the peaceful resolution of conflict, those really matter and are part
of this liberal international relations theory. Now democratic peace theory is not without
its critics. As I've mentioned before, democracies are not necessarily less war-prone; they're
just less war-prone with each other. So there's this dyadic effect of democratic peace. It
usually means two democracies or more than one democracy working together. Democracies
and non-democracies actually still do go to war together far too often. So that's one
criticism of the democratic peace theory. Others suggest that the process of democratization
is extremely bloody. So democratic peace theory would lead us to a policy of democratization.
We would seek to, to establish democracy around the world suggesting that it'll be a more
peaceful world the more democracies we have. Yet that process of democratization-- transitioning
from non-democracy to democracy as we've seen in far too many cases, is a very difficult
and bloody process. So democratic peace theory: it's useful and it's used often to help us
understand the global community, but it's still fraught with challenges. So newer forms
of liberalism, what we might call neoliberalism, emerged as a in direct response as a critique
of realist theory. Neoliberals believe that realists are actually too narrow in their
focus. They focus strictly on great powers and issues of power relations. This, to a
neoliberal, misses a lot of international relations. If we're going to understand the
global community, we need to understand more than just military security relations. We
need to understand social relations, economic relations, scientific and and technology exchange,
there's a lot more going on in the global community, according to a neoliberal scholar.
More specifically neoliberals suggest that states often do cooperate-- a lot more than
a realist might suggest. Where realists tend to focus on conflict and the global community,
neoliberals tend to focus on cooperation and the ways in which states come together to
mutually resolve conmen problems. To do that, they'll develop international organizations,
international laws, international treaties. These mechanisms allow states to mutually
address their common interest and their individual self-interest through collective action. Now
the rules and regulations that emerge at the international level through this process actually
create expectations for behavior, they lay out standards of how states should operate.
Think about treaties regarding protecting the seas and pollution in the sea, or pollution
in the air, or any other kind of environmental agreement, any other type of collective international
agreement that addresses a problem that transcends borders. This is a way that states create
expectations and constrain each other's behavior. Now of course a realist responds, "What do
you do if somebody breaks the rules? How do you enforce these rules?" Therein lies the
problem. Nonetheless, neoliberals are concerned that we need to capture all of the global
community when we look at international relations and not just small aspects of it. Not just
power relations, not just military security, but larger issues like economics, prosperity,
science, technology, social relations, environmental concerns, they're much more varied in their
agenda-- states are much more varied in their agenda, and neoliberals capture that. So as
we've done before now that we've explored liberal and neoliberal theory put on those
sets of lenses and look at the global community and see how you view issues like democracy
promotion in Afghanistan. How would you understand that if you are a liberal or neoliberal and
wearing those sets of lenses? How might you view global economic crisis, or specifically
economic crisis in Europe if you're a liberal or a neoliberal looking at it with those sets
of lenses? And then finally, how about piracy and maritime security? How would you view
the regulations and the various laws and treaties that have been emerging in that issue area
if you're a liberal or neoliberal? What you think?