Shared Assumptions of Realisms and Liberal Institutionalism

1. Shared Assumptions of Realisms and Liberal Institutionalism • Shared assumptions with Realism • The state is key actor in international relations • States pursue their selfish interests • They have no confidence that other states can be expected to support their interests • They lack reliable information to predict the real intentions and behavior of other states • Military power is the final arbiter of state conflicts under conditions of an anarchical state system

2. International Institutions and International Actors Facilitate Cooperation and Constrain Conflict • 1) States seek multiple aims, not just security: economic growth, environmental protection, human rights, etc. • 2) The ceaseless competition of aims and interests checks focused pursuit of state power, security and survival • 3) States are obliged to rely on multiple intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to achieve their multiple aims and interests • Hard power (military and economic) and soft power (shared values and aims) are both indispensable for state achievement of its objectives • Voluntary agreements on security (arms control/disarmament) are possible to regulate conflict (Axelrod and English School) • The effective and efficient workings of global markets depend on voluntary agreements

3. Examples of Important IGOs: 2000+ • United Nations • World Trade Organization (WTO) • World Bank • International Monetary Fund

4. European Union • 25 states delegate key state powers to the European Union • Common Trade Policy • Common Agricultural Policy • 12 of 25 members use a common currency and banking system: Euro • Regulation of integrated market transactions and policies: EU law supercedes state law when inflict • Banking • Corporate market practices • Environmental policy • Movement of EU populations across state boundaries • Protection of human rights and civil liberties

5. Institutions of the European Union to Ensure State Compliance • Commission: The Executive of the EU • Council of Minister: The Principle Decision-Making Body • European Court of Justice; The court decides whether states are complying with EU directives • European Parliament: Elected directly by the European peoples (425 million), it has limited but important powers, but is subordinate to the Council of Ministers • European Council: This is composed of the Heads of State or Government and provides over-all direction to the other bodies

6. Why Are Institutions Important to Explain State Behavior? • Remember states do not trust (have confidence in) other state • They also lack information about what these states intend to do that might harm another state or the material capabilities (military forces) that might harm them

7. Institutions (like the EU) perform these functions • 1) They establish rules and norms of behavior that provide some confidence in predicting the behavior of states who are members of the institution (e.g. WTO, UN, etc.) • 2) Knowledge about the likely behavior of states provides important information that is not available to state leaders if the institutions did not exist • 3) The rules and norms of an institution provide two outcomes that makes state behavior less likely to lead to conflict and war • The institution enlarges the power and capability of the members (e.g. The EU increases trade and economic growth of EU members) • The institution also puts limits on the unilateral use of a state’s power

8. Implications of Liberal Institutional Theory • In contrast to realists, institutional theorists, like Joseph Nye, expect cooperation between states, not conflict • Other actors, IGOs and NGOs, not only influence and limit unilateral use of state power, but they are indispensable in realizing state objectives: security, the material welfare of their populations, ecological protection, the advancement of civil liberties and human rights

9. Key Assets of NGOs for States • The economic welfare of the state’s populations • Global markets are an instrument of state policy • Multilateral corporations (Toyota, Honda, General Motors) ensures the workings of global markets • Both are necessary conditions for states to respond to the material needs and demands of their populations

10. NGOs are also Instruments for Civil Liberties and Human Rights • NGO organizations provide information about state abuses • NGOs also provide significant humanitarian aid to failed states and peoples under stress of civil war or starvation • For example, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross, Religious groups providing humanitarian assistance -- food, health services, shelter, etc.

11. Can Liberal Institutionalists Explain the Beginning, Evolution, and End of the Cold War? • Like realists, liberal institutionalists expect conflict between states, as the principal actor in international relations • They also agree that military power is the final arbiter of conflicts between states • The Cold War and the US-Soviet struggle for global hegemony is consistent with realist/ liberal institutionalist theory and expectations

12. Liberal Institutionalist and the Evolution of Cold War/Superpower Cooperation • Institutionalists expect cooperation in security • Based on rational actor assumptions of behavior, rival states are predicted to cooperate in constructing an international security regime that limits the choice of war or use of force • Arms control and disarmament accords: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks: SALT and START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)

13. Liberal Institutionalist and the Evolution of Cold War/Superpower Cooperation • Liberal Institutionalists also expect cooperation in non-security areas: economic growth and development • United States supports European Union at economic expense to end state conflict • United States and Europeans support global markets and open trading system (with Japan) to facilitate economic growth and technological development • Mutual confidence and transparency between liberal democratic states facilitates cooperation and overcomes traditional conflicts: France and Germany resolved security and economic interests within NATO and EU

14. Weaknesses of Liberal Institutionalist Theory • Failure to anticipate fundamental change in the Soviet Union within the scope of Institutionalist Theory • Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev acts contrary to realist/liberal institutionalist expectations: • The Soviet Union unilaterally cuts nuclear and conventional forces in Europe in pursuit of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic reform on a market model) • Gorbachev announces that the Soviet Union will not intervene to protect Communist party rule in the Warsaw Pact nations • These moves undermine Soviet control of Eastern Europe and leads to the unification of Germany under Western control

15. Weaknesses of Liberal Institutionalist Theory • Institutionalists fail to exploit the power of global markets as a positive force on the Soviet Union for economic reform • The demand by Russians for greater economic growth pressures the Communist Party to implement economic reform • These same pressures also apply to Communist China, which implemented economic reform but unlike the Soviet Union resisted political reform and liberalization.

16. Weaknesses of Liberal Institutionalist Theory • Principal weakness of realism/neorealism and liberal institutionalism and security • No understanding of the force of nationalism as the basis for the legitimacy of government and the state • The Soviet Union implodes for three reasons related to nationalism • The Russian people rebel against the costs of maintaining an empire -- Control over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Republics, and client states around the world, many of which are among the most underdeveloped in the world (e.g. Vietnam, Ethiopia, etc.) • The demands for national self-determination of the East European satellite states in the Warsaw Pact • The demands for national self-determination of the peoples of the Soviet Republics