ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ I

International Relations as a discipline was born following the devastation and trauma of the First World War (WWI).

The classical liberalism can be traced back to ancient thinkers and has its roots in the Stoic philosophy. It was developed as a “political” theory in the 17th century.

There are six key concepts of classical liberal philosophy that are commonly mentioned by the liberal writers, these are; individualism, freedom, natural law, spontaneous order, rule of law and limited state.

Stoicism is a school of thought which argues that human beings are all part of a larger community despite their different political entities and cultures.

The government played central role for enforcement of rules and coercion that were crucial for sustaining order. Both liberty and protection of the individual depended on laws enforced by the state. This is known as the rule of law.

According to classical liberals, the sovereign (state) has three duties; (1) protection of its people from invasion of other states, (2) protection of each individual in society from oppression of other member(s) including protection of property and (3) provision of public services and sustainability of the societal institutions important for both individual freedom and peaceful coexistence.

Robert Keohane in his studies, listed three strands of classical liberal theory as (1) commercial liberalism about the pacific effects of trade, (2) democratic liberalism about pacific effects of republican governments, (3) regulatory liberalism about rules and institutions for relations between countries. Joseph Nye has added a fourth one (4) sociological liberalism about the effects of transnational ties on national attitudes and interests.

Global governance does not mean a world government in Kantian terms, it involves global institutions to guide and restrain collective activities of agents.

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According to the Grotian tradition, states in international anarchy are constrained by rules of law and by the interest in preserving the international society and its institutions.

The liberal IR theory that carries forward the basic arguments of the classical liberal theory is basicaly concentrated on the individual as the unit of analysis. This has led to a different view than the state-centric mentality of realism and brought forward the idea of pluralism in actors of IR besides the nation-state. Another feature is the faith in the power of human mind and universal values of liberalism that shall bring global peace. This is generally why the theory is called idealist and in some cases even criticized to be utopian.

Thus, the liberal reading of IR is composed of both conflictual and cooperative behaviors of states, non-state entities and individuals. Liberal tradition (despite its variations) is cooperative in its nature because of its emphasis on human freedom which is thought to cumulate through cooperation, interaction and interdependence.

John Locke’s philosophical and theological defense of property rights and religious toleration inspired other liberal thinkers (Thorsen, 2010, 191) His philosophy on individual freedom and state’s limited role can be best seen in his book titled “Second Treatise on Government” (Viotti & Kauppi, 2012, 132). John Locke (1632-1704) argued that the state of nature is not a state of war. He identified this state as one of freedom and maintained that it is governed by the law of reason. According to the social contract idea advanced by Locke and followed by others, humans in a natural state of freedom do not necessarily respect others’ right to freedom.

There are six key concepts of classical liberal philosophy that are commonly mentioned by the liberal writers, these are; individualism, freedom, natural law, spontaneous order, rule of law and limited state.

As the basic unit of analysis is taken to be the human being, classical liberals have concentrated on the human nature and actions in explaining IR. They have been realistic to recognize the human nature as flexible and need to freedom to use his/ her reason and potential. Conflict is also recognized as a natural part of human life since individual is prone to making mistakes and act according to his/her passions. Thus, politics needs to study conflict resolution as well as conditions of peaceful cooperation, in both domestic and international spheres. Classical liberals in this sense have been away from the Kantian utopianism’s idea that conflicts could be totally abolished. They are concerned more with the means/tools to deal with violence and how to limit its occurrence (van de Haar, 2009, 128).

Classical liberals oppose to the Kantian cosmopolitanism on the ground that there is no need for a universal enforcer, separate nation states could realize this alone and together, since a universal enforcer itself would be a threat to liberty. By the same token, classical liberals valued sovereignty of nations, and humanitarian intervention was not their concern.

Haas defined integration as “a process for the creation of political communities defined in institutional and attitudinal terms” (Haas, 1970, 610- 611). Among his generalizations for the regularities observed within the industrialized-pluralistic nations (such as the case of economic integration of Western Europe) were: (1) interests of the governments and groups in direction of interdependence and mutual benefits (2) collective decisions, (3) spill-over and (4) the faith of elites in increased integration.

Democratic peace theory follows the Kantian tradition and scholars like Michael Doyle and Bruce Russett share the idea that democracies can maintain peaceful relations among themselves due to their shared values and common approach in their domestic republican governance