Does Liberalism best explain contemporary world politics?

After the war in Iraq, international relations are once again at the forefront of debate. Throughout the world many people, from academics to journalists, have used different ways of explaining what the current situation is and why events have occurred as they have. They also try to explain the problems the world faces and in turn what is the best way to solve them. In this essay I will argue that it is Liberalism, as opposed to Realism or Marxism which best explains contemporary world politics and therefore is most relevant for a student of world politics. I will look at the policy of the major governments and see if their actions are best explained by Liberalism or its main rival, Realism. In addition I will look at how the most influential man in world politics today, the US president, sees the world as well as looking at a number of current and recent issues.

I will begin by saying that there are many arguments within liberalism itself, and it would be wrong to say there is one sole theory of liberalism. However in this essay I will look at the features which unite most liberals.

The first feature that I will talk about is the basic assumption of liberalism which is that human beings are generally good. In one of his his most recent speeches George Bush said with regards to the US and the UK that “we're sometimes faulted for a naive faith that liberty can change the world. If that's an error, it began with reading too much John Locke and Adam Smith”. This quote suggests that Bush is a liberal (he calls himself a neo-liberal), which would be a highly contested point and one that I do not have time to talk about it. However we can say that in this case he believes humans want liberty and with that liberty comes peace and prosperity, a Liberal idea. John Locke, the English political philosopher believed in the basic assumption that humans were generally good and that human nature was happy and controlled by reason and tolerance.

For me, a student of world politics, and an optimistic one at that, I believe Liberalism is more relevant than any other because Liberalism believes that it is in the human interest to be good. Realism sees human nature as intrinsically selfish and that states, and their people are all power-maximisers. I cannot believe, and for that matter don't want to believe that a person would rather live in a world where there was violence and constant battles for power than one which was peaceful and founded on tolerance and respect.

I will now look further at Liberalism in relation to the other main theory of international relations, Realism. One of the main differences between Realism and Liberalism concerns the idea of relative gains and absolute gains. Relative gains are where a country makes a gain, be it an economic, political or power gain in comparison to another country. So if one country makes a gain of one unit but another makes a gain of two units then the country has not made a relative gain but a relative loss. If the same situation (where 1 unit is gained by country X and 2 by country Y) was talked about in terms of absolute gains it would be said that both countries have made absolute gains. Liberals see absolute gains as more important, whereas Realists believe relative gains are the more important. During the Cold War the idea of relative gains was in my opinion certainly the more important as the USSR would see a relative American gain in power as a very bad thing even if they gained at the same time. Today however I believe we live in a very different world and the liberal idea of absolute gains bears more relevance. A good example of this would be EU enlargement. When the EU brings in the 11 new countries it is estimated the existing EU countries will see an economic gain of €10-15bn whereas the new countries should see an economic gain of around €23bn. The existing EU countries have chosen to extend the union because they see the value of the gains in absolute rather than relative gains. I believe that policy makers within Europe have acted in a liberal way and thus to me liberalism best explains the decisions made by leaders in Europe.

Obviously the gains involved from enlargement cannot only be measured in monetary terms. The enlargement project, and the EU itself for that matter, is a very liberal idea. In Realism interdependence is seen as a sign of weakness, whereas Liberals believe that more trade and dependence leads to greater contact between nations which in turn lead to peace. Or as the French philosopher Montesquieu put it “Commerce has everywhere diffused a knowledge of the manners of all nations”. In George Bush's London speech he talked about how “European countries now resolve differences through negotiation and consensus”, basically saying that ...

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George Bush's speech gives many incites into how he, and his administration see international relations. The president declared that his country and the UK both “seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings”. This is without doubt a very liberal stance to take. This fits in with the Liberal Internationalist view that by spreading “freedom”, (which I take to mean liberal democracy) we see a better and ultimately more peaceful world. A liberal democracy is considered safer, more trustworthy and, in the eyes of the leaders of the major western powers as the perfect model for a society. Bush's speech clearly reflects the way the US government sees the world and it was indeed very liberal in nature. Bush goes on to say that “By extending the reach of trade, we foster prosperity and the habits of liberty.”Again a very liberal approach to International Relations. Liberals believe, as mentioned earlier, that through trade we will see peace due to the increased contact between the two nations and the cost of losing this trade.

The idea of trade as a way to a better world, mentioned earlier is by no means a new idea and a student of international relations can look back to the 18th century when philosophers, from Adam Smith to Ricardo, to Locke and Montesquieu talked of the spread of trade to increase peace. Montesquieu in his book “The Spirit of the Laws” said “Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities.” Though wars still happen between trading nations, WWI being the prime example, it does make wars more costly as the benefits of trade will be lost, with this added cost comes less willingness to go to war.

This leads on to the so-called “Democratic Peace Theory” which states that, “democracies do not go to war with one another”. This Liberal idea is much debated and even if one disagrees with it, for a student of world politics it is an incredibly important theory as it effects policy. As we have seen from George Bush's speeches he believes that if we spread the idea of “freedom”, we will have a more peaceful world. Bush says “democratic governments do not shelter terrorist camps or attack their peaceful neighbours,” which suggests to me that Bush believes, to a certain extent in this Democratic Peace Theory.

Thomas Friedman, in his book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” goes one step further with his “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”. He argues that it is very unlikely that two countries with a McDonald's will ever fight in a war. This is because a country with a McDonald's will be at a stage of economic development where they can support a McDonald's network and in countries with McDonald's people prefer to queue for burgers than go to war. This theory took a blow when the Kosovo War occurred. Both Yugoslavia and the NATO countries attacking it had McDonald's, however Friedman argues that the war stopped, not because the Yugoslav forces lost, but because of the pressure put on Milosevic by the people. They would prefer to queue for hamburgers (which they couldn't do during the war because of the bombing) than have a war. This fits in with liberalism as the people of Yugoslavia were not interested in “power maximisation”, as realists would believe, but liberty and peace, both Liberal ideas.

The Kosovo war is an interesting war to look at in terms of international relations. I personally believe that NATO countries went into Kosovo for humanitarian reasons. For Realists there is no such thing as a “moral war” and states only go to war to power maximise. The other liberal aspect of the Kosovo war was the role of international institutions, in this case NATO, and the multilateral make up of the “coalition of the willing” which went into Kosovo. No one country could have gone into Kosovo for this so-called “just war” alone but could intervene in Kosovo through multilateral action. Realism plays down the role of international institutions in world politics but this war showed, due to the role that NATO and to a lesser extent the UN that they were very important.

I will now look at another difference between Liberalism and Realism. Liberals believe that actors, be they individuals or groups, not states are the main “players” in international relations. It would be naïve in my opinion to say that certain individuals and groups do not have a say or an influence on what occurs in international relations. Realists tend to believe that the state always makes the decisions on the international arena and that the state has one unitary interest. When a country makes a decision in international relations they take into account the interests of many different agents, political and economical within the state itself. The UK government's decision to stop its major companies dealing with Burma, as exemplified recently by BAT (British American Tobacco) being “dragged kicking and screaming” out of Burma shows that there are many agents which have to be taken into account. In this instance the government has had to think about the interests of businesses, of human rights groups and the views of the general public. These agents had conflicting interests and the government, rightly or wrongly, for reasons of human rights, a very liberal cause, decided to favour the public and human rights pressure groups over big business and forced UK companies to pull out of Burma.

The case of Burma also shows us two other things which in my eyes make liberalism the most useful and relevant IR theory today. Firstly Marxists believe that all power lies with those who own the factors of production. They in turn control how the government acts in terms of international relations. The Burma case seems to suggest otherwise. British American Tobacco and many of the companies who were in Burma previously are the ones who own the factors of production, whereas human rights groups and the general public don't.

Secondly Realists tend to believe that, in the sphere of international relations, the state has one unitary interest. This therefore means that regardless of which party is control of power in a country their actions will be the same. When Labour got into power in 1997, the then foreign minister Robin Cook said the Labour administration would follow an “ethical foreign policy”. This was a departure from the attitude of the previous conservative government who were infamous in allowing business with regimes with poor human rights records. It is, in my opinion, unlikely that a Conservative government would have forced BAT out of Burma, especially given that Kenneth Clarke, the Tory MP is on the board of directors. Therefore I believe Liberalism best explains why the British Government acted as they did.

In my opinion it is Liberalism which explains current world politics most effectively. From humanitarian intervention in Kosovo, to refusing to do business with Burma, the policy of the US and the UK in terms of international relations is based on liberal ideals and values. In today's unipolar world, the liberal idea of absolute gains has, according to me, far more relevance than the Realist idea of relative gains and in my opinion to deny the influence of actors on state decisions would be naïve. Therefore I believe it is indeed Liberalism which best explains contemporary world politics.

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