Moravscik "Taking Preferences Seriously"

utility

what do states want

unsimplifying preferences

moravcsik’s “liberalism”

liberalisms compared

• US domestic politics: “the left”

• enlightenment philosophy

• IR “classical liberalism”

• Keohane’s “neoliberal institutionalism”

• Moravcsik’s liberalism

enlightenment philopsophy

progress via human agency: individual rights, republicanism, free markers

IR “classical liberalism”

progress via human agency, applied to the problem of war: democratic peace, economic interdependence, international institutions

Keohane’s “neoliberal institutionalism”

aka functional regime theory

Moravcsik’s liberalism

IR paradigm based on the analytic priority of domestic preferences

liberal assumptions

• primacy of societal actors

• representation and state preferences

• interdependence and the international system

primacy of societal actors

• fundamental actors in international politics are individuals and private groups.. who organize.. to promote differentiated interests

• implications: methodological individualism, bottom-up

representation and state preferences

• states (or other political institutions) represent some subset of domestic society

interdependence and the international system

• the configuration of interdependent state preferences determines state behavior

• implications: systemic factors constrain the pursuit of preferences, “analytic priority” of preferences

conceptualizing culture and ideology; constructivism

• co-constitution of actors and structures

• preferences are changeable

• “logic of appropriateness”

• entirely contrary with RC

conceptualizing culture and ideology; liberalism

• methodological individualism

• preferences are fixed

• “logic of consequences” aka instrumental rationality

• consistent with RC

types of preferences

national preferences and subnational preferences

national preferences

• economic system

• regime type

• national culture/ideology

subnational preferences

• classes, sectors

• state bureaucracies

• subnational culture/ideology

liberalist theory source of preference

delegation of authority to IOs

liberalist theory outcome

legitimacy crisis of IOs

(Moracsik) delegation of authority to IO —>

justification deficit + responsiveness deficit

(Moracsik)= democracy gap + crises of interdependence + IO legalization and judicalization —>

IO polity (v. policy) contestation

Bisbee theory, 1; context

decline of embedded liberalism; generation of insufficient redistribution to the global order’s material losers

Bisbee theory, 2; source of preference

occupational risks, aka “offshore ability”

Bisbee theory, 2; high job mobility + support for free trade —>

support for multilateral institutions

Bisbee theory, 2; low job mobility + adverse economic conditions —>

hostility to multilateral institutions