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How do Liberals and Realists explain periods of peace and stability in…
How do Liberals and Realists explain periods of peace and stability in International Relations through the concepts of ‘collective security’ and 'balance of power' respectively?
What is Realism
Nation state the principal actor in IR, other bodies exist but have limited power
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What is Liberalism
Ensuring the right of an individual person to life, liberty and property is the highest goal of government
Emphasise the wellbeing of the individual as the fundamental building block of a just political system
Concerned about constructing institutions that protect individual freedom by limiting and checking political power
Troubled by militaristic foreign policies, primary concern that war requires states to build up military power- power can be used for fighting foreign states but also to oppress its own citizens
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Applying liberalism does not mean that wars do not exist, but it means that liberal states will intervene only to protect and consolidate their status or to defend their allies.
'collective security'
Liberalists say that the world peace and security could be maintained and developed only through the cooperation of the states
World peace should be maintained not only by military interventions, but also by implementing measures like protecting and promoting the individual rights
Example- liberalists think that the fight against terrorism could also be done with legislative measures, not only through military activities
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A protection measure adopted by several allied states. When one of these states is threatened, then its allies intervene and annihilate the aggressor
All the states which form a community- have to intervene in order to annihilate any threat to the alliance.
features:
to prevent (wars cannot be stopped, but the international organizations can prevent an aggressor to initiate operations),
to annihilate (the allies have the rational power and the aggressors are a threat to the international security and therefore they must be annihilated)
to discourage (the international community has to inform the aggressor that they are against their actions and give them final warning to stop their actions).
to block (the international organizations have to recognize the aggressors and stop them),
'balance of power'
International system is considered to be anarchic, with no system-wide authority being formally enforced on its agents
“self-help” nature of the system, states do not have a world government to resort to in a situation of danger
Waltz, balance of power occurs when, given “two coalitions” formed in the international system, secondary states, if free to choose, will side with the weaker, so as to avoid being threatened by the stronger side
balance of power occurs when states have reservations about the major power or the hegemon’s intention but not to the extent that a precipitation to war is so imminent as to render balancing infeasible.
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ever present possibility of war in an anarchic system, states may not cooperate even with their allies because survival is guaranteed only with a “proportionate advantage”
The concern for relative gain predicts that states will prefer balance of power over collective security because the latter requires that states trust one another enough to completely forgo relative gain through unilateral disarmament, which is inherently at odds with the idea of having a positional advantage for self-defense