Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CHAPTER THREE
International Relations 8/e Goldstein and Pevehouse
Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Longman 2008
Liberal Theories
Realism offers mostly dominance solutions to the collective goods problems of IR. Alternative theoretical approaches that draw mostly on the reciprocity or identity principles are called liberal theories. These approaches are generally more optimistic than realism about the prospects for peace.
Neoliberal approach differs from earlier liberal approaches in that it concedes to realism several important assumptions:
States are unitary actors rationally pursuing their self-interests, but they say states cooperate because it is in their self-interest. Mutual gains better than cheating or taking advantage of each other. State that neorealists pessimism is unjustified. States cooperate MOST of the time. Positive reciprocity
International Regimes
Set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the expectations of actors converge in a certain issue area.
Participants have similar ideas about what rules will govern their mutual participation.
Regimes can help solve collective goods problems by increasing transparency. Conception of regime Enforcement and survival of regimes
Role of permanent institutions such as the UN, NATO, and the IMF
Collective Security
Concept grows out of liberal institutionalism. Refers to the formation of a broad alliance of most major actors in an international system for the purpose of jointly opposing aggression by any actor.
Kant League of Nations Organization of America States, Arab League, and the African Union
Collective Security
Success of collective security depends on two points:
Members must keep their alliance commitments to the group. Enough members must agree on what constitutes aggression.
Iraq: Worlds collective security system is creaky and not always effective, but bypassing it to take military action also holds dangers. Concept of collective security has broadened in recent years.
Failed states weak control over territory implications for their neighbors and the international system Domestic politics as international anarchy need for intervention
Democratic Peace:
What is true about democracies is that although they fight wars against authoritarian states, democracies almost never fight each other.
Social Theories
Several distinct approaches in IR theory may be grouped together as social theories. They rely on social interaction to explain individuals and states preferences. These theories contrast with realisms assumption of fixed, timeless preferences, e.g., states want more power.
Constructivism
An approach that focuses on the nature of norms, identity, and social interaction. Can provide powerful insights into the world of IR. Focus: How actors define their national interests, threats to those interests, and their relationships to one another. Constructivism puts IR in the context of broader social relations.
Logic of Consequences vs Logic of Appropriateness
Postmodernism
A broad approach to scholarship that pays special attention to texts and to discourses how people talk and write about their subjects. Central idea: There is no single, objective reality but a multiplicity of experiences and perspectives that defy easy categorization.
Postmodernism itself is difficult to present in a simple or categorical way.
Postmodernists seek to deconstruct such constructions as states, the international system, and the associated stories and arguments with which realists portray the nature of international relations.
Deconstruction Subtext
Marxism
Holds that IR and domestic politics arise from unequal relationships between economic classes. Branch of socialism, a theory that holds that the more powerful classes oppress and exploit the less powerful by denying them their fair share of the surplus they create. Class struggle V.I. Lenin and his theory of imperialism
His idea still shapes a major approach to North-South relations Globalization of class relations
Peace Studies
Challenges fundamental concepts behind realism and neoliberalism. Seeks to shift the focus of IR away from the interstate level of analysis and toward a broad conception of social relations at the individual, domestic, and global levels of analysis. Connects war and peace with individual responsibility, economic inequality, gender relations, cross-cultural understanding, and other aspects of social relationships.
Social revolution Transnational communities
Peace Studies
Criticism: normative bias Conflict resolution
Mediation Citizen diplomacy Arbitration Confidence-building Linkage
Peace Studies
Role of militarism
Glorification of war, military force, and violence through TV, films, books, political speeches, toys, games, sports, and other avenues. Structuring society around war
Conceptualization of peace
Positive peace Structural violence
Peace movements
Pacifism/nonviolence Gandhi
An international system based on feminine principles might giver greater importance to the interdependence of states than to their autonomy.
Both biologically and anthropologically, no firm evidence connects womens caregiving functions with any particular kinds of behavior such as reconciliation or nonviolence. Idea of women as peacemakers has a long history. Gender gap
Women in IR
Liberal feminists are skeptical of difference feminists critiques of realism.
They believe that when women are allowed to participate in IR, they play the game basically the same way men do, with similar results.
Women in IR
Liberal feminism focuses on the integration of women into the primarily male-dominated areas of foreign policymaking and the military.
Evidence: Female state leaders do not appear to be any more peaceful, or any less committed to state sovereignty and territorial integrity than are male leaders. In U.S. difficult to compare voting records of men and women on foreign policy: too few women
Women have never chaired the key foreign policy committees
Women as soldiers
In sum, liberal feminists reject the argument that women bring uniquely feminine assets or liabilities to foreign and military affairs.
Figure 3.1
Postmodern Feminism
Line of criticism directed at realism that combines feminism and postmodernism. Seeks to deconstruct realism with the specific aim of uncovering the pervasive hidden influences of gender in IR while showing how arbitrary the construction of gender roles is. Archetypes: Just warrior and beautiful soul
Power and potency: State capability and male virility Realism and liberalism ignore all the sexual aspects of weaponry