My Third Day of Class(Liberalism)

7/29(Tue)

Today we covered 'liberalism' which is also one of major international relations theories. Historically, Immanuel Kant and Woodrow Wilson are famous for advocates of liberalism.
Now let me show the overview of liberalism in brief here.

●Core belief - Spreding democracy, global economic ties, and strengthing peace
●Wars are not inevitable
●Wars can be reduced by institutional arrangement
●Collective security as a possible
●Interdependency
●Other actors such as NGO, international organizations, multinational coｒporations are included
●Democratic countries do not fight one another

Key Actors:
●States
●International institutions (UN, WTO, etc)
●Non governmental groups
●Multinational coporations
＊States are not unitary/autonomous actors as realists think because they have many intersts and layers in a domestic politics.

Classical liberalism:
Classical liberalism has a belief that human nature is good by nature, and that democracy and
capitalism are keys to make for peace. Kant explains that democracy, trade, and international institutions are essence of peaceful world.
As for trade, there are three reasons to analyze why trade is a good way for peace. First, it is because no one want to destroy their trade relations when trade due to war and military conflicts. Second, trade provides routine interactions between two countries
Third, countries go hand in hand with democracy.
Next, let me describe why international institutions are also the means to establish the peaceful world. It is because internatinoal institutions provide an arena for iterated interactions. And, international institutions have common rules to make each country obey. Also, international institutions provide information to all members. This brings transparency amon countries via international institutions.
Finally, the reason why democracy are needed for peace is because citizens can vote for electing their president, and thus, stop waging wars even if the president wanted to go to war. In other words, the president cannot go to war if he/she did not gain domestic support for war.

At first, I was confused with Kant's theory which capitalism is neccessary for peace because I had read Lenin's article 'From Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism' before I learned Kant's theory in the class. There are lots of theories in international relations, they are competing one another. We should pick up best theories which would apply for contemporary politics. And it is better to be flexible about applying theories to real situations happening in the world.

The class reading for today's content is 'Liberalism and World Politics' written by Michael W. Doyle. You can read the article by clicking the following URL.

http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/rlangill/PLS%20300/Liberalism%20and%20World%20Politics%20Doyle.htm