1 / 12

Realism-Liberalism Debate:

Realism-Liberalism Debate:. Relevance to International Economic Relations. Readings:. Baldwin. 1993. “Neorealism, Neoliberalism, and World Politics” in Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, Baldwin, ed.

patia
Download Presentation

Realism-Liberalism Debate:

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Realism-Liberalism Debate: Relevance to International Economic Relations

  2. Readings: • Baldwin. 1993. “Neorealism, Neoliberalism, and World Politics” in Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, Baldwin, ed. • Mastanduno. 1991. “Do Relative Gains Matter? America’s Response to Japanese Industrial Policy.” International Security 16(1):73-113.

  3. Areas of contention: • Anarchy • Cooperation • Relative and absolute gains • State goals • International institutions • Intentions vs. capabilities • Power

  4. 1. Anarchy • Commonly used definition: absence of government • Problem with this definition: • in the global arena, many functions of the government are fulfilled by international institutions are regimes. Think of examples of such functions. • under these circumstances, it is unclear which function needs to be absent in order to characterize the world as anarchic • Both realists and liberalists accept the world as anarchic • According to realists, the most important behavioral consequence of anarchy is that states have survival as their main goal

  5. 2. Cooperation • Cooperation is possible for both realists and liberalists, but it is more difficult in the realist framework • Both realists and liberalists agree that the survival of the European Union is a test for their theories. How does the test work? Is it a good test?

  6. 3. Relative and absolute gains • Realists emphasize relative gains: • “Who gains more?” • Focus on the distribution of gains among participants to a transaction • Liberalists emphasize absolute gains: • “Will both of us gain?” • Focus on the overall benefits of a transaction (or act of cooperation) • Gains are evaluated differently, depending on the situation: • Are relative gains equally important for ALL foreign policy issues? • Are relative gains equally important in relationship with ALL potential partners?

  7. 4. State goals • For realists, the goal of states is survival. This follows from the anarchy assumption? How does anarchy cause the goal of states to be survival? • Liberalists assume that the goal of states is economic welfare. Why? • Are these two goals mutually exclusive? • Do you think the preponderance of one goal over the other has changed over time?

  8. 5. International institutions • Do institutions matter? • Realists: Not so much • Liberalists: YES • Why do: • realists think that institutions don’t matter? Because they don’t have the power to punish defectors. • liberalists think that institutions matter? Because states have more to gain from cooperating than from defecting.

  9. 6. Intentions vs. capabilities • Realists emphasize capabilities, specifically their distribution. • Liberalists emphasize intentions, information, interests. • Why do realists focus on capabilities and ignore intentions?

  10. 7. Power • The ability to affect others more than they can affect you (Waltz 1979) • In this definition, what is the scope of power? • What is the domain? • Realists consider power from a zero-sum perspective. What does this mean? Do you agree that power is always zero-sum? Why? • Fungibility is the ease with which capabilities in one issue area can be used in another area.

  11. Practical application: Mastanduno • Research questions: • Do relative gains concerns affect US government policies towards Japan? • Why are some policies affected more than others? • If government agencies influence policies, does their influence reflect “anxiety over economic welfare, political autonomy, or military security”? • Focuses on three policy areas: aircraft, satelites, HDTV. Advanced technology matters for economic growth and in security matters. US no longer has the edge. So a realist would expect that these policy areas are salient and are considered from a relative gains angle. • The importance of relative gains considerations in policy decisions depends on: • Whether interaction is with ally or adversary • The nature of the transaction (economic, military, cultural etc.)

  12. Practical application: Mastanduno • Even when considering relative gains, policy outcomes may vary. One explanation of this variation is in the nature of the threat perceived by policymakers: • Change in the balance of military power => threatened state reduces military-relevant transactions with the “threat” • Change in the state’s autonomy => threatened state diversifies markets • Change in the state’s economic competitiveness => change in strategic economic policy • Related to the three policy areas discussed in this paper, the concern was economic competitiveness (US losing its edge in applying advanced technology). As expected, the outcome was strategic policy. • However, policies differed across the three issues, because of domestic-level dynamics. • Study lends some support to the realist view.

More Related