The course aims to introduce the key assumptions of the international relations theory as a part of social science and as an analytic tool, focusing on the problems of war and peace, foreign policy decision-making, etc. The course combines historic approach and analysis of the modern political problems. The historic part shows the evolution of the international relations theory from being a part of political philosophy to its emergence as a special branch of political science, which is essential to understand the key ideas of the IR science. The lectures also include broad outline of the modern concepts and debates in the context of the contemporary political problems, such as rise of China and other emerging powers, threat of terrorism, US-Russia confrontation, etc. The lectures of the two outstanding Russian scholars and political analysts – Timofey Bordachev and Dmitry Suslov - cover such fields as the problems of international security and conflict resolution, international economic relations, foreign policy decision-making, global governance, the role of power in the IR.
Liberalism after the Cold War
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Understanding International Relations Theory
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Neoliberalism: The Liberal paradigm after the WWII
The module aims to teach the evolution of the liberal paradigm during the Cold War. Failed to build up an "eternal peace" after the French Revolution and after the WWI, liberalism proposes a new, even more comprehensive theory to make a new attempt.
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Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
The end of the 20th century,
witnessed a fundamental change of
the International Relations which provided a very important impact
on the evolution of Liberalism and the role of Liberalism
in International Relations and the International Relations Science.
This changes not just shifted,
not just transformed the patterns of the International Relations in a very serious way,
but they also undermined many assumptions of Realism.
They put the major realist assertions
about how International Relations evolve under question,
and they were unforeseen by the majority of realists.
Thus, there was an impression in the end of the 20th century that
Liberalism was becoming the dominant or
has become the Dominant Theory of International Relations.
And that indeed, International Relations was started to
finally to develop in accordance with the liberal not realist logic.
What kind of changes?
What kind of transformations and events are we talking about in detail?
First of all, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Both came as a huge surprise for the then scholars and observers,
especially the realist one.
The realists claims that the Cold War would continue well in the 21st century,
that the Soviet Union is stable,
that the bipolar structure of the world is stable,
beneficial for them both,
and that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States have
an incentive for powerful incentive to change the status quo, and thus,
people like Kenneth Waltz, for instance,
the founding father of neo-realism,
predicted continuation of the Cold War up to
the middle or the second half of 21st century.
However, it rapidly changed in the late 80s, early 90s.
And almost immediately, the Soviet Union collapsed.
Thus, this realist assertion that the Cold War will
be stable and bipolar system will be stable proved wrong.
Whereas, the liberal assertion that the Cold War has to be changed and
the international system has to be more unified and peaceful proved right.
The second fundamental shift and development of the late 20th century was, of course,
the realities of globalization with its economic,
political, and cultural consequences.
First of all, there was a fairly rapid increase of global interdependence.
All became dependent on all.
International System became more internal and interconnected,
which proves the real liberal case of the increase of interdependence.
And the expansion of interdependence, of course,
increases the power of liberal contemplations,
of liberal assertions about how interdependence transforms Political Relations.
There was a rapid increase of non-state actors,
and non-state actors started to acquire more and more power from states they have.
They were becoming increasingly powerful in comparison to states.
This is another proof of the liberal logic of
International Relations which emphasizes the role of non-state actors.
There was a profound expansion of
interaction and communication at all levels, happening, of course,
due to general democratization of political systems throughout
the world and information and communication of revolution.
And this profound expansion of interconnectedness,
of connectivity, and interaction at all levels,
increased the share of cooperation.
International Relations started to be interlinked, transnational,
and cooperative much, much more than it was the case during the time of the Cold War.
Again, this increase of the level of cooperation,
of the share of cooperation, above conflicts,
and increase of interconnectedness was proving the liberal case of
the liberal presumptions about the development
of how liberals assume International System should develop.
As a result of the rise of interdependence,
increase of non-state actors,
and the expansion of interconnectedness,
and cooperation at all levels,
state borders were becoming increasingly penetrable.
State borders no longer limited or prevented communication.
They were increasingly penetrable and blurred.
The volume of people, goods,
and capital, crossing state borders,
and ideas crossing state borders,
became umcomparably larger and more intensive than
was the case in the time of the Cold War or before the Cold War.
Democracy was global on the marsh and the end of
the Cold War witnessed a rapid expansion of the number of democratic countries.
Nearly all the post-communist countries declared democratic regimes or
their desire to build democratic regimes and joining the community of Democratic Nations.
Thus, as a result of all these tendencies taken together,
the approaches to state sovereignty started to shift.
And many scholars and politicians started to
talk about a decline of Westphalian Traditional Sovereignty.
And this statement about decline of sovereignty,
about the change and reduction of the role of borders,
about the expansion of cooperation in
the world in comparison to the number of conflicts and contradictions in the world,
the rise of global interdependence,
the increase of non-state actors,
all these tendencies and trends are liberal in their nature.
And of course, they created the impression that
realist assumptions about how International Relations function are no longer valid.
Realism failed to predict the end of the Cold War.
Realism failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Realism could not assume such an abundant and
reached transformative development of
the International System that we've just talked about.
Thus, in the opinion of many,
especially in the United States but not only in the West at large,
Realism was claimed to be outdated.
And Liberalism was proclaimed to be
the dominant School of Thought analyzing the development of International Relations,
explaining the development of International Relations.
There was a widespread opinion in early 90s that basically,
International Relations have underwent a fundamental shift,
that the patents and the rules of International Relations Development have
been valid throughout centuries have ended to be valid,
have ceased to be valid.
And since now on, since early 90s,
International Relations will start to develop in a new way,
in the liberal way,
in the peaceful and cooperative way,
that cooperation will finally become the dominant form of interaction among states,
that the pursuit of prosperity and freedom will become
the dominant imperatives of states behavior
instead of relative gains and conflicts, and so on.
And one of the most prominent examples of
the School of Thought which claimed that International Relations basically changed,
and that the previous part of International Relations history
is outdated is American scholar,
Francis Fukuyama, who is mostly famous for proclaiming the so-called End of History.
In 1992, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War,
Francis Fukuyama published a book which became a classics of neo-liberalism,
and one of the most influential and famous books in
International Relations Science called The End of History and the Last Man.
And in this book,
he claimed basically that in late 80s, 1990s, international evolution,
the development of the International System reached its apex point,
and since now on,
it will start developing in a different way.
Give you the most important quote from Fukuyama,
"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War or the passing of
a particular period of post-war history but the end of history as such: that is,
the end of point of mankind's ideological evolution and
the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
So according to Francis Fukuyama,
in the end of the 20th century,
after the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union,
the Western liberal democracy was becoming,
or actually became universal.
The universal form of government and the final form of the human organization.
How did this conviction that since now on International Relations will develop in
a fundamentally different way impact
liberal studies and liberal approaches to International Relations?
I've already said that Liberalism was claimed to become
dominant over Realism as the paradigm explaining development of International Relations.
At the same time, liberal status underwent certain changes themselves,
and new particular dimensions and focuses became very prominent in the Liberal Studies.
First of all, in conditions of globalization and after the end of the Cold War,
the focus on non-state actors increased in the works of neo-liberalism.
And many of neo-liberal scholars started to claim that states are losing their relevance,
that states are not just ceasing to become the central actors of International System,
but maybe, the states are becoming increasingly weaker,
and some even called states as the Deaner Czar of World Politics of the 21st century,
that states are going to die to disappear
as the universal form of Social-Political Organization.
And maybe in the future,
International System will exist without states.
That we will be leaving in the world without states.
So, focus on non-state actors and contemplation about the reduction of relevance and
the role of states in International Relations
was very important dimension of Liberal Studies.
Secondly, as a result of this focus on beyond states,
Liberalism developed new post-Westphalian understanding of state sovereignty.
What is state sovereignty in conditions of globalization?
In conditions of new proclaimed state of International Relations?
In conditions of the end of history?
And according to neo-liberals,
the new state sovereignty was irrelative, not absolute.
Unlike Realism which claims states sovereignty to be absolute,
and on the visible,
Liberalism claim that it is secondary and relative.
Relative to what? Relative to the ability of states to produce public goods.
So, the argument was that states are sovereign only when they produce public goods.
And of course, the ability of states to produce public goods such as security,
economic development, ensuring welfare, education,
medicare to the people,
and so on, and so forth,
the ability of states to produce public goods,
ultimately depends on the nature of
their political regimes whether they're Democratic or Authoritarian.
Because just democracies produce such public goods as protection of human rights,
as securing freedoms and liberties of the people.
Thus, the new Liberal School of Thought started to claim after the end of the Cold War
the just democratic countries are fully
sovereign or sovereign in this post-Westphalian sense.
Whereas, authoritarian countries are not that sovereign,
that their sovereignty could be limited.
And of course, according to this thinking,
sovereignty could no longer be considered as
a frontier between the external and internal.
It no longer protected states against intervention into domestic affairs.
Within this liberal paradigm,
domestic politics not just could but should
become a matter of International Relations and agenda of discussions among states.
So, states should talk about the nature of domestic politics of each other.
Something that could be called Anathema according
to the realist paradigm just decades before.
And finally, in accordance to this new approach to state sovereignty,
neo-liberals started to think about the ways to limit it.
If a state can be considered sovereign if it produces public goods,
it is natural that international community should think about the ways of
limiting this sovereignty of those states who failed to produce these public goods.
And as a result,
neo-liberalism promoted the development of
specific concepts of how to limit states sovereignty.
Again, something unthinkable in the paradigm of Realism.
And after the end of the Cold War,
two major concepts were developed about limiting of state sovereignty from above.
The first was the concept of
Humanitarian Intervention developed in 1990s, according to which,
international community can interfere into
a state including with the use of military force,
if this state conducts mass violations of human rights, such as genocide.
And the example of this humanitarian intervention could
be the US Intervention into Somalia in 1992,
1993, and NATO Intervention,
NATO War against Yugoslavia in 1999.
The second concept elaborated in
2000s is the so-called concept responsibility to protect.
According to this concept,
international community has not just a right but an obligation,
a responsibility to provide public goods to
the people if this state fails to provide that themselves,
if the state either is unwilling or unable to provide this goods,
which means if that either the state is authoritarian and dictatorial,
and violates the rights of the people,
or if it is a failed state,
and cannot provide this public goods because of its state failure.
And this principle of responsibility to protect was developed
by a very famous International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,
which was convened in 2000,
2001 under the auspices of the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan,
and the government of Canada.
The author of this concept is the former Australian prime minister, Gareth Evans.
And there were attempts to make this concept legal,
to get authorization and blessing for
this concept at the level of the United Nations organization.
And since this concept was introduced by
this International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,
there were continuous attempts by the West,
and by the United States in particular,
to make it legal, and this attempts were partially successful.
Namely, the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005 endorsed this principle.
So, by now, we can say that this responsibility to protect principle remains illegal.
It is not part of the International Law because it is
not endorsed by the UN Security Council,
but still, it is politically existing because it was adopted by General Assembly.
