liberalists theories

● Almost like realism, liberalism is a segment of related theories dividing a large set of premises and suggests that under specific circumstances belligerent-prone personality of an anarchic system can be improved and levels of warfare will be significantly lowered. According to liberal theories, the main actors are also non-states like multi-national corporations and international organizations (e g., United Nations). They think that states contain a few components and some operate trans-nationally. They also don't believe making policies always lead to favorable results or the state is a unitary or rational actor. In other words, liberal theories claims domestic politics are important.

● The primary mission of states, in liberal theory language, is not just national interests and security, it's multiple order of businesses with welfare and economic problems that just as crucial as national security issues. They also believe the international system is characterized by interdependence despite anarchy or all actors, non-state actors and states are dependent on each other. Therefore, they decline the notion that resource, power and influence are scarce and that any state gaining an advantage must result in the other state missing out; cooperation is not just possible, it is required for peace.

● In summary, the main parts of the liberal's theory for peace are democratic political systems, free trade and international institutions. The belief that forms of economic interdependence and trade influences peace comes from David Ricardo and Adam Smith. They believe that trade creates economic advantage for both parties and that involving themselves in war will disturb the trade and result in loss of benefits. Therefore, this will prevent political leaders from starting a war in the first place. Liberal theorists also believe that prosperity created by trade influences a culture of materialism that dampens the hostile spirit and that trade encourages specific interest groups that have invested in the maintenance of peace in order to gain from trade transactions.

● On the other hand, other theorists (including realists) have criticized the liberal economy theory of war many times. They claim that the vast effect of trade on the decision of peace and war is small compared to that of diplomatic and military considerations. In addition, they argue that trade most likely generates uneven dependencies and that the most independent country might use dependence to take advantage and influence the actions of the other state. The overall verifiable proof seem to suggest that on average trade currently contributes to peace but the affect is modest. This has obviously led a few scholars to ask whether the temptation of prosperity from trade will have a comparable effect in clashing regions like Africa and the Middle East.

● Neoliberalists developed from two prominent national relations scholars named Joseph Nye and Robert Cohen. Now, neoliberalism combines elements from neorealism and liberalism; they believe that states are not only important enough to take into consideration in the international system, but non-state actors (including international institutions) play an important part in assisting with explaining behavior among states. They usually agree, however, with neorealists claiming that actors reside in an anarchic international system which usually constrains their behavior. On the other hand, they assume that in spite of anarchy, states can still cooperate with the help of international institutions especially through modern technological and industrial advances. Furthermore, they argue, though, that there are no hierarchy of issues with security at the top. Numerous agendas here are similar to liberalism, in which they claim that economic national security and economic welfare are both important.

● Therefore, what neoliberals usually do is they focus on how institutions can be designed more efficiently in order to gain cooperative results. They even argue that there are 3 factors that make cooperation more expected.

● Mutuality of interest - cooperation is attainable if both parties believe that cooperation from each other is better than mutual rebellion

● Shadow of the Future - If we think back to the topic on neorealism and realism, it seems to assume the states are going to interact once in the system but we know that's false; states are interacting everyday even with non state actors. So, as believed by neorealists, these repetitive interactions and concerns about the future promote cooperation. If we knew we were going to interact one time with an actor, it wouldn't make cooperation helpful and in those cases it may be more helpful to defect or rebel. In addition, a lot of transactions across multiple issues is more beneficial for it because now it can also show reliable information about the other actor by testing them out to see whether or not they can cooperate on one issue.

● Number of actors - effective reciprocity depends on whether or not we can detect a defector, whether they can retaliate against a defector and whether they have adequate long-run incentives to penalize defectors.

● If we can accomplish all three, cooperation will most likely happen. Sadly, in many situations, the more actors involved, the more difficult it is to cooperate.

● Neoliberalists believe, however, it is possible to cooperate in big groups through institutions. Institutions can assist with changing payoff structures for states like in the Organization of American States. In the 1990s, several states wanted to penalize a neighbor state by increasing the tariffs. However, the OAS said if the state goes through with the bilateral problem, then everyone else in the organization will too retaliate by increasing tariffs against the threatening state. Therefore, the threatening state backed off; the interactions is now multilateral, not bilateral. Lengthening the shadow future is also an option; if you are part of this organization, you know you're going to meet your counterparts on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. Enabling larger actors to join and help by providing carrots and sticks is another way to cooperate through institutions; because of these organizations, the states are usually interacting and dealing with multiple issues. So it's likely to make issue linkages, meaning one state may gain or lose on one issue but gain and not lose on another issue. Other strategies like the argument you scratch my back, I scratch yours can come into play; we can make deals where if you vote with us on this present United Nations Secu ity Council resolution, for example, we will back you up. Blackmailing or threats, too, can happen; if you're not going to back us up, we're going to veto your resolution.

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