Are the Practices of Post Cold War International Politics Underscored by the Theory of Liberalism - Case Study Example

ARE THE PRACTICES OF POST COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL POLITICS UNDERSCORED BY THE THEORY OF LIBERALISM? Introduction As a political theory liberalism has varied conceptualizations in different countries. In England, which is in many ways the birthplace of liberalism, the liberal tradition in politics has centred on religious toleration, government by consent, personal and particularly economic freedom. In France liberalism has been more closely associated with secularism and democracy. In the United States liberals often combine a devotion to personal liberty with an antipathy to capitalism, while the liberalism of Australia tends to be much more sympathetic to capitalism but often less enthusiastic about civil liberties. This diversity in political traditions is because liberalism functions both as a political theory and as a general philosophy. The fundamental liberal principle is that freedom is normatively basic, and so the onus of justification is on those who would limit freedom (Gaus, 1996: 162-166). The Cold War is a term used to describe the shifting struggle for power and prestige between the Western powers and the Communist bloc from the end of World War II until 1989. The conflict was between the United States of America and its allies and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its allies. Of worldwide proportions, the conflict was based on ideological differences between communism and capitalist democracy (Encyclopaedia article, 2004: 11002). The end of the Cold War was a major historical turning point in the development of world politics with fundamental implications for the basic way in which the dynamics of the international system are conceptualised (Harrison, 2004: informaworld). This paper proposes to critically assess the theory of “Liberalism” and post Cold War international politics to establish the extent to which the practices and international relations have been based on the concept of liberalism. Discussion Liberal theories are comprehensive in nature. The social contract theory, as developed by several scholars such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1973 [1762]) and Immanuel Kant (1965 [1797]), is usually viewed as liberal. Insofar as they take as their starting point a state of nature in which humans are free and equal, and so argue that any limitation of this freedom and equality stands in need of justification. The Post Cold War Era: Mutual suspicion had long existed between the West and the United Soviet Socialist Republic, and friction was sometimes manifest in the Grand Alliance during World War II. After the war the West felt threatened by the continued expansionist policy of the Soviet Union, while Russia’s traditional fear of incursion from the West continued (Encyclopaedia article, 2004: 11002). The end of the Cold War has opened up a “real world laboratory” in which to test and refine general theories of international relations. Using the frameworks provided by structural realism, institutionalism and liberalism, major powers responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union and developed their foreign policies over the period of post-Cold War transition. Democratic peace began to generate powerful socialisation effects, due to the emergence of a critical mass of liberal democratic states since the end of the Cold War. The trend this has produced is similar to a pattern that classical realists have interpreted as “bandwagoning” within a unipolar power structure. Case studies of Germany, China and Japan - identified as key states with the potential to challenge US dominance - provide evidence to support the assessment of international change, states Harrison (2004: informaworld). According to Zanotti (2005: 461), in the post-Cold War era, the debate on democratization converged with the debate on security and development. Discourses on ways for achieving prosperity and peace shifted their focus from economic factors or the structure of the international arena to the quality of state institutions. Legal and normative approaches stressed the need for improving international institutions and increasing international rule of law; realist approaches maintained instead that these institutions reproduce and reinforce relations of power and that they cannot really function as independent factors of change; Marxist critiques argued that institutional reforms are meaningless without changing structural economic relations (Archibugi, 2004: 437). After the Cold War, the international arena is governmentalized through extension and globalization that emerged in the context of the formation of nation-states in Europe. These technologies of visibility, codification, and simplification play an increasingly central role in normalizing the international arena and maintaining order in the context of the spread of unpredictable threats, states Zanotti (2005: 461). According to Lugo (1996: ix), it is clear that the end of the protracted cold war struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, a new world order of justice and peace under the effective rule of international law, was not likely to result. Renewed ethnic and nationalist strife, the proliferation of nuclear and other means of mass destruction, rogue states that disregard the most elementary norms of international conduct, repressive regimes that violate all standards of human decency in their treatment of their own citizens, massive flows of people within and across national borders, and the widespread use of terrorism among other worrisome trends, underscore the dangerous and rather unpredictable nature of international politics in this post- Cold War period. Broader global challenges like safeguarding the ecological integrity of the planet, and promoting economic development for the vast majority of the world’s population, have to be addressed by new forward-looking approaches that have to be forged. The central importance of the United States role in the construction of any international order is attributed to America’s unique geopolitical reach, economic strength and cultural influence on the one hand, and the habits of deference and narrow preocupations of the other major actors, on the other (Richardson, 2001: 12). The U.S. foreign policy community was seen divided between two schools: realist and liberal, each with distinctively American characteristics. These schools defined the limits of U.S. foreign policy thinking. In the emerging post-Cold War system, liberalism appeared to have the stronger arguments. American liberalism placed one-sided emphasis on market economics and free trade and it neglected deprivation, economic rights and ecological issues. Neoliberalism had led to a drastic narrowing of the post-Cold War agenda and it was inadequate as a legitimizing ideology. Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace: Democratic peace is considered to be the closest thing to an empirical law in the study of international relations. It is an anomaly to realism which is the theory dominant to security studies. It has become a part of U.S. foreign policy: “Democracies don’t attack each other”. President Clinton has called democratisation as the third pillar of his foreign policy. A liberal democracy is one where liberalism is the dominant ideology and citizens have leverage over war decisions. Liberal democracies feature free speech, and regular competitive elections of the officials empowered to declare war. Liberal ideology and institutions work in tandem to bring about democratic peace. Liberals believe that individuals everywhere are fundamentally the same, and are best off pursuing self-preservation and material well-being. Thus all individuals share an interest in peace, and should want war only as an instrument to bring about peace, states Owen (1994: 89). Liberals believe that democracies seek their citizens’ true interests, and they are peace-maintaining and trustworthy. Non-democracies may be dangerous because they seek other ends, such as conquest or plunder. Liberals thus are of the opinion that the national interest calls for accommodation of fellow democracies, but sometimes calls for war with non-democracies. Theories of the democratic peace are divided into structural and normative theories. Structural constraints attribute the democratic peace to the institutional constraints within democracies. Normative theory locates the cause of the democratic peace in the ideas or norms held by democracies. Since democracies believe that it would be unjust or imprudent to fight one another, they practice the norm of compromise with one another, that works so well within their own borders (Owen, 1994: 90). Synthesis of Realism with Liberalism According to Owen (1994: 122), real forces in international politics, namely power politics and liberal ideas are described by realism and liberalism. These two forces may push in different directions, yielding a weak effect in favour of one or the other. A key to synthesizing the two theories would be that liberals define national interest in such a way that cooperation with fellow liberal democracies is required. The democratic peace provides strong evidence that ideas matter in international relation. Liberalism is unable to fulfill the material expectations it raises. A second threat lies in liberalism’s tendency to destroy traditional ways of life and sources of meaning. The World Economy After the Cold War: Some global transformations have taken place: first, the reforms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have ended the Cold War and most East-West confrontation, and has allowed substantial reductions in military arsenals. Second, the salience of security issues has declined sharply; economics have moved much closer to the top of the global agenda. The international position of individual countries derive increasingly from their economic prowess rather than their military capability. The relative power of the United States and, even more, of the Soviet Union has fallen; Europes and, even more, Japans will rise. Third, the world economy will complete its evolution from the American-dominated regime of the first postwar generation to a state of U.S.-European-Japanese "tripolarity." An economically united Europe will be the worlds largest market and largest trader. Japan is already the worlds largest creditor and the leader in many key technologies. Its GNP exceedsed three-quarters of Americas by the year 2000 at the growth and exchange rates that now seem likely.International relations look very different by 2000 as a result of these transformations. The hierarchy of nations have shifted considerably (Bergsten. 1990). Moreover the United States is in relative economic decline, caught in a scissors movement between increasing dependence on external economic forces and a shrinking capacity to influence those forces. The share of international trade in the American economy has tripled over the last four decades, and is about as great as in the economies of Japan or of the European Community as a group. The United States has become the worlds largest debtor country and will continue to rely on capital inflows of over $100 billion per year to finance its external deficits for the foreseeable future. By contrast the American share of world output has been halved during the postwar period. Americas share of world trade is less than the ECs, and its exports are not much greater than West Germanys alone. The global role of the dollar has fallen steadily as the Deutsche mark and the yen become more widely used in international finance (Bergsten, 1990). In the short to medium term, Americas international economic position is likely to decline further, states Bergsten, 1990. Economic growth is now much more rapid in Asia and Europe, and seems likely to continue there at four percent a year or so through most of the next decade, compared to an annual growth rate of between two and two-and-a-half percent in the United States. Productivity increases in Japan and many other Asian countries are considerably higher than in America. According to Snow (1991: 113), the most dramatic manifestation of the changes that have occurred in the international system was the series of peaceful revolutions that occurred during the last half of 1989 in central and eastern Europe. Beginning with the installation of a non-Communist regime in Poland to which the Soviet Union did not react violently, the phenomenon spread through the Warsaw Pact nations like wildfire. As 1990 unfolded, the old structure of the Cold War international system lay in ruins. what happened was almost entirely unpredicted and unprecedented. The once iron rule of the Soviet Union, which had imposed Stalinist regimes on the band of Eastern European states near its borders to provide a cordon sanitaire between itself and Germany, dissolved beyond the reasonable expectation of reimposition. The major edifice of the Cold War died in the process. The phenomenon set in motion by the fall of Communist regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) has fundamentally changed the power map of Europe and, because of Europes continuing centrality to the world at large, the geopolitical map of the world (Snow, 1991: 113). America’s Foreign Policy: American power and influence are actually very fragile, because they rest upon an idea, a unique and irreplaceable myth: that the United States really does stand for a better world and is still the best hope of all who seek it (Judt, 2002: 16). The US’s role and policy towards the outside world has been brought into stark relief by the events of September 11. A few terrorists equipped with the simplest weaponry were able to wreak havoc and destruction, bringing home just how vulnerable even the most technologically sophisticated of states can be to such attacks. Redefining national security in the light of this new type of threat is not simply one of boosting homeland defence, but requires understanding of what prompted the aggression in the first place as well as designing new ways to avoid repetition (de Zoysa, 2005: 139). In the short to medium term, Americas international economic position is likely to decline further, states de Zoysa (2005: 139. Economic growth is now much more rapid in Asia and Europe, and seems likely to continue there at four percent a year or so through most of the next decade, compared to an annual growth rate of between two and two-and-a-half percent in the United States. Productivity increases in Japan and many other Asian countries are considerably higher than in America. International Relations Theory in European Countries: The specificities of International Relations theory in the academic environment of two European countries and one European subregion will be considered. France, Italy and the Nordic countries and their different modes of knowledge production have been chosen as representative of European international relations, i.e. their marginal position vis-à-vis the American intellectual core. Identifying appropriate strategies for overcoming their marginal position in relation to American social science, will be taken into consideration (Friedrichs, 2004: 25). Given American hegemony over the discipline, what are the winning and losing strategies to challenge that hegemony, asks Friedrichs (2004: 25). What are the most promising strategies to produce theoretical knowledge in such a way that it can contribute to, or compete with, the American mainstream of international relations (IR) theory? French, Italian and Nordic interational relations are particularly interesting in the way they represent ideal-typical ways of coping with intellectual hegemony. Moreover, it is uncontroversial that the French, Italian and Nordic IR communities are among the most important ones in western Europe. The common ground of comparison is provided by the fact that all European IR communities stand in a centre-periphery relationship to the American mainstream. American intellectual hegemony is an unalterable fact of life for the academic communities of IR scholars that have spread over the capitalist world after the Second World War. Ever since IR was converted into a social science in the late 1940s, the American community of scholars has been standing at the centre of the discipline. It is in the very nature of such a constellation that the academic peripheries cannot help but try to tackle somehow their own marginal position (Friedrichs, 2004: 25). International Relations Theory in France: French scholars are defining their own, parochial research agenda. Or, since their work generally is not in line with the predominant international theoretical and methodological standards, French scholars maximize their influence in the protected domain of the national academic market. In the face of an academic world “market” structured by the American core, the French (semi) periphery opt for the developmental path of self-reliance (Friedrichs, 2004: 29). International Relations Theory in Italy: The frequency and intensity of critical self-reflection is surprising if one takes into account the relative novelty of Italian International Relations (IR), which was founded in 1968/ 9, states Friedrichs (2004: 47). Even more striking about the available research surveys, past and present, is their defeatist note. Italian IR is generally seen in a marginal position, both with respect to the international establishment and within the context of Italian Political Science. The author broadly concurs with this view, while trying to find out the reasons why Italian IR appears to be so strongly marginal. The basic idea is that Italian IR may be duly understood as a marginal periphery in relation to the American intellectual core International Relations Theory in the Nordic Countries: The Nordic model of multi-level research cooperation, the equidistance strategy of triangulation, and theoretical reconstruction provide an agenda for how to develop a Eurodiscipline and thereby fertilize the field of international theory. If European approaches to international relations theory become a real match for the American mainstream, at the end of the day the whole discipline will benefit from it (Friedrichs, 2004: 148). On the other hand, the militarization of international politics under the leadership of only one power does not offer an attractive alternative. This is the actual challenge for International Relations theory at millennium’s turn. European approaches are especially valuable in so far as they open a variety of ways that may lead out of the traps of an increasingly impoverished and one-dimensional view of politics (p.149). Conclusion This paper has highlighted the fact that the theory of “Liberalism” underlined post- Cold War international politics. Liberalism has proved to be a welcome advantage for freedom, peace and progress in various countries; on the other hand, liberalism has had adverse effects by promoting rogue states that have bred terrorism and commissioning of inhuman acts. The various aspects of liberalism and its influence on international politics is reviewed. American foreign policy which has global impacts, and European international relations theories are presented. Other theories of realism, socialism, constructivism and rationalism are also involved in international politics. “If constructivism and rationalism are emerging as the defining poles of international relations theory, then we must necessarily fall back on careful, empirical testing of rationalist and constructivist hypotheses as the ultimate, and indeed the only, standard of what constitutes “good work”, and what constitutes support for one or the other approach”, stated Pollack (2001:236). References Archibugi, D. (2004) “Cosmopolitan democracy and its critics: A review,” European Journal of International Relations 10(3): 437-473. Bergsten, C. F. (Summer, 1990). “The world economy after the cold war”. Foreign Office. De Zoysa, Richard. (2005). “America’s foreign policy: Manifest destiny or great Satan?”Contemporary Politics, 11(2-3). Encyclopaedia article (2004). “Cold War”, The Columbia Encyclopaedia. 6th edn. Friedrichs, J. (2004). 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