The Importance Of Social Liberalism

Liberals take a highly optimistic view of relations between states, they believe that states will work together to maximise prosperity through trade and minimise conflict. Key liberal ideas include interdependence liberalism which believes that mutual economic dependence reduces the chance of war, sociological liberalism which highlights the importance of transnational relations, institutional liberalism which points to the importance of institutions when developing peace and republican liberalism which suggests that democracies do not go to war with each other. Some aspects of the liberal argument are highly convincing to problems of the international order while other aspects are less convincing. The problems facing the international order

Transnational relations refer to relations between people, groups and organisations rather than governments. Relations between people have been seen as more cooperative than relations between governments by some scholars. Deutch argues that a high degree of transnational relations between societies leads to peaceful relations between states . Thus counties who have low levels of transnational activity, wars are more likely, such as between North Korea and The United states. James Roseau says that nation’s ability to control the activities of its citizens is weakening and citizens are thus less tied down to their state as before. People are more mobile and have become “sovereignty free” and less likely to consider people from another nation an enemy . Therefore the increase in transnational activity reduces the chance of war between states. Although highly convincing in theory what limits this idea is the fact it shuns the role of government in international relations. Before world war one there was a large amount of business and travel done between Germany and Britain but yet war still occurred. The success of this theory depends on whether governments chose to prioritise the economic path to prosperity as suggested by Rosecrance which involves trading as opposed to war. This is why interdependence liberalism is a more convincing theory as the role of states

This is the idea that democracies do not go to war with each other which was observed by Immanuel Kant. According to the liberal Doyle democracies do not go to war because the government is controlled by the people who will not support a war with another democracy, He also points to common moral values found in democratic states which generally don’t support war. Plus democracies have high level of economic corporation that goes on between their nations . If more countries were liberal democracies there would be less war according to liberals. Despite this it can also be said that if every country was communist there would also be peace, this view is very western centric. It ignores the different societies across the globe and assumes every country is like the west. In addition the quest by the United States and other Liberal nations to spread democracy especially across the Middle East and Afghanistan has led to a backlash. It has led to the rise of fundamental groups who have destabilised nations across the Middle East like Iraq and Syria. Ironically if Liberal nations actually stopped trying to force democracy across the globe there would be less war. Although highly convincing in theory the idea of republican liberalism fails to acknowledge the reality of the different types of government that exist in world. Trying to force one system of government on everyone is a form of