The Liberal Way 


Linear View of History

  • Liberal theory views history as linear rather than cyclical

  • History evolves in an overall positive direction

  • Creates progress in technology, ideas, society

  • View is based on liberal focus on markets and competition

  • Market competition creates incentives for innovation which leads to progress



  1. Markets, competition, and technological innovation

  • Technologies compete and best ones win out

  • Disruptive technologies drive broader social and political change

  • They create new interests, actors, and distributions of power and new political issues



E.g. How did nuclear weapons change international relations and war?

  • Changed the potential outcomes of war

  • Threat of escalation made great power war almost impossible

  • Led to other forms of great power conflict



Social media as a disruptive technology?

  • Traditional media is dying

  • Decentralized information creation and distribution

  • Undermined traditional media and gave power to individuals/big tech

  • Led to fragmentation and polarization

  • Creates new political actors and issue



  1. Politics, the marketplace of ideas, and political/social innovation

  • Innovation can occur in political ideas as well as technology

  • Political and social ideas compete in “a marketplace of ideas” and best ones win

  • E.g. racism, sexism, communism, ect, didn't work 



Linear View of History

  • Liberal linear theory assumes that history, like evolution, moves in one overall direction

  • Progress is possible and the world can be changed for the better

  • History does not overall reverse or repeat itself

  • In development studies, ‘modernization theory’ is based on a linear view

  • There is one path to modernization and North is just ‘ahead’ 

  • E.g. economic development creates a middle class which demands democracy



Human Rights

  • In human rights, linear view underpins notion of ‘universal human rights’ - apply to all 

  • Ideas about human rights compete and best win out

  • View human rights as ‘discovered’ not ‘invented’ 

  • Thus, human rights are universal not Western creation



Francis Fukuyama

  • Popularized as the ‘end of history’ 

  • Notion that capitalism and democracy had won in marketplace of ideas as the best forms of economic and political systems

  • All that remained was for them to continue to spread across the globe 



Realist Way

Cyclical View of History

  • Realist theory in IR views history as cyclical

  • Realists are skeptical about the potential for progress

  • Instead they believe that history can reverse/repeat itself

  • For realists, international system is always ‘anarchic’ (no world government)

  • Means all states behave the same whether democracy or not, capitalist or not

  • For realists, they all seek power to ensure security under anarchy



Only difference between states is their amount of power

  • Hegemonic powers, greats powers, middle powers, small powers

Changes to the system are based on the rise and fall of different great powers\

Thus, repetition and cycles are a structural feature of IR



International system can be characterized by 3 possible structures:

  • unipolarity/hegemony (e.g. british or american empires)

  • Bipolarity (e.g. Cold War between US and USSR)

  • Multipolarity - when one power is declining and another is yet to rise



Hegemonic stability theory

  • Realist view unipolar systems as the most stable

  • Hegemonic state provides stability by: acting as the global cop/ providing global public goods including free trade and foreign aid

  • Periods of free trade and globalization occur in unipolar systems



Bipolar systems

  • For realists, bipolar systems are second most stable

  • Two great powers deter each other and this prevents war

  • E.g. US vs USSR balance of power 



Multipolar Systems

  • Least stable

  • Multiple great powers lead to competition and war

  • Great power wars occur between hegemonic/bipolar periods



Hegemonic powers

  • Carries the seeds of its own destruction due to ‘imperial overstretch’

  • Hegemonic state provides global security, free trade, and foreign aid at the expense of its economy

  • Rival powers ‘free ride’ and catch up

  • Hegemonic power starts to decline

  • Nationalism rises as the population wants to spend less on providing global security, free trade, and foreign aid, ect.

  • Hegemon becomes more isolationist and protectionist

  • Rivals start to step in and potential for war increases

Current international system

  • Some realists say this is happening today

  • US overstretched through military spending, ‘forever wars,’ bases around the globe

  • China was allowed to join WTO, ‘free ride,’ and grow economy 

  • Also explains US domestic politics

  • Rise of conservative nationalism in US

  • Tired of others ‘free riding’ and more isolationist

  • Feeling ‘ripped of’ by trade and more protectionist

  • America first and less foreign aid, less support for IOs

Implications?

  • Some realists argue it will lead to:

  • Protectionism and the end of economic globalization

  • End of liberal rules-based order

  • Great power war based on Thucydides trap

Thucydides’ trap

  • Concept developed by US realist Graham T. Allison

  • Based on view of ancient athenian historian thucydides that peloponnesian war was inevitable because of spartan fears of the growth of Athenian power

  • Allison applies it to US-China