Harvard scholar Stanley Hoffmann, who

famously said, ‘international affairs have been the nemesis of Liberalism’. His
explanation was equally stark:
‘the essence of Liberalism is self-restraint, moderation,
compromise and peace’, whereas ‘the essence of international politics is exactly the
opposite: troubled peace,
at best, or the state of war’ (S. Hoffmann 1987: 396).
Early liberal internationalist thought on international relations the view that the natural order had been
corrupted by secret
treaties and outdated policies such as the balance of power.

• Enlightenment liberals believed that the problem of war could be solved through the development of a
body of
international rules and laws constraining the self-interest of states. In addition, they believed that trade and
other
cross-border flows would further facilitate more peaceful international relations.

• Immanuel Kant argued that a ‘perpetual peace’ could be achieved through the transformation of individual
consciousness, republican constitutionalism, and a federal contract among states to abolish war.

• In ‘The End of History?’ (1989), Francis Fukuyama famously celebrated the triumph of liberalism over all
other ideologies,
contending that liberal states were more stable internally and more peaceful in their international relations
than illiberal
states. From the vantage point of the early 2020s, ideological competition and conflict continue to shape the
fate of states
and peoples, suggesting that Fukuyama’s argument was deeply flawed.

The idea of a natural harmony of interests in international

political and economic relations came under challenge in the
early part of the twentieth century as Britain and Germany
went to war, despite their high degree of economic
interdependence.

• The First World War shifted liberal thinking towards a

recognition that peace is not a natural condition but must
be constructed. To this end, Woodrow Wilson advocated
for the creation of a League of Nations to regulate
international anarchy through the exercise of collective
security.

• The League’s constitution also called for the selfdetermination of all nations. However, despite widespread
agreement on this principle, a host of practical and moral
problems limited its implementation.

• Although there are important continuities between

Enlightenment liberal thought and the ‘idealist moment’, the
thinkers of the inter-war period were flawed. They
overlooked the distribution of power and interests in the
international system (a critique mounted by realists), and
they failed to understand that values and purposes were
inextricably linked to power. Notably, leading
internationalists in the inter-war period tied the future of the
League of Nations to the dominance of international society
by European colonial powers.

• The imperial impulse of the Anglo-American powers

continued in the post-1945 order such that imperialism and
internationalism remain as interwoven in the twenty-first
century as they were in the minds of formative liberal
thinkers such as J. S. Mill.

Some observers argue that the internationalist principles

that have been a feature of the liberal order since 1945 are
in crisis.
• The following arguments support this view: the relative
power of the United States is diminishing and hence its
capacity to deal with global risks is also reducing; rising
powers want a greater share of authority; the hope that the
European Union (EU) could emerge as a second
superpower which could strengthen internationalist rules
and values has proven to be false, and arguably the EU has
been further weakened as a global force by Brexit; and
there is widespread evidence of a return to a form of state
sovereignty in which intervention on internationalist
grounds will not find support in the UN Security Council or
among the majority of member states in the UN.

• If Ikenberry is right and liberal internationalism is in

decline, it is not clear what will replace it. If the liberal
order associated with the UN system collapses, then
history will have repeated itself: in the first half of the
twentieth century, great power rivalry led to major power
wars which the League of Nations was powerless to
prevent. Is a ‘1914’ scenario likely, or can liberal
internationalism adapt to the challenge of new emerging
powers without losing its distinctively liberal character?

• Alongside those who lament the inability of the state and

global institutions to deliver a liberal peace are more
critical voices who point out how structural patterns of
hierarchy persist. These patterns are actively reproduced
by security and development doctrines and policies. As a
result, the liberal international order remains conveniently
favourable to the most powerful states in the system.

Armitage, D. (2011), ‘Globalising Jeremy Bentham’, History of Political Thought,

Bell, D. (2016), Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire

Chakrabarty, D. (2000), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical

Differenc

Doyle, M. W. (1997), Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism

Dunne, T., and Flockhart, T. (eds) (2013), Liberal World Orders

Ikenberry, G. J. (2009), ‘Liberal Internationalism 3.0: America and the Dilemmas of Liberal
World
Orde

Morefield, J. (2009), Covenants without Swords: Idealist Liberalism and the Spirit of
Empire

Marxism

In Marx’s own words, ‘Accumulation of wealth

at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation
of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality at
the opposite pole.’
Marx himself provided little in terms of a theoretical
analysis of international relations.

• Marx’s ideas have been interpreted and appropriated in a

number of different and contradictory ways, resulting in a
number of competing schools of Marxism.

• Underlying these different schools are several common elements

that can be traced back to Marx’s writings: a commitment to
analysis of the social world as a totality, a materialist conception
of history, and a focus on class and class struggle.

• For Marx and Marxists, scholarship is not a disinterested

activity: the ultimate aim is to assist in a process of human
emancipation.

Although Marx was clearly aware of the international

and expansive character of capitalism, his key work,
Capital, focuses on the development and characteristics of nineteenth-century British
capitalism. At the
start of the twentieth century a number of writers
took on the task of developing analyses that incorporated the implications of capitalism’s
transborder
characteristics, in particular imperialism (see Brewer
1990). Rosa Luxemburg was a major contributor to
these debates. Her 1913 book, The Accumulation of
Capital (Luxemburg 2003 [1913]), argued that by
analysing capitalism as a closed system, Marx had
overlooked the central role played by the colonies. In
order to survive, Luxemburg argued, capitalism constantly needed to expand into non-
capitalist areas.
A 1917 pamphlet by Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest
Stage of Capitalism, made similar arguments. Lenin
accepted much of Marx’s basic thesis, but argued
that the character of capitalism had changed since
Marx published the first volume of Capital in 1867
(Marx 1992 [1867]). Capitalism had entered a new
stage—its highest and final stage—with the development of monopoly capitalism. Under
monopoly
capitalism, a two-tier structure had developed in the
world economy, with a dominant core exploiting a
less-developed periphery. With the development of a
core and periphery, there was no longer an automatic
harmony of interests between all workers as posited
by Marx. The bourgeoisie in the core countries could
use profits derived from exploiting the periphery
to improve the lot of their own proletariat

Lenin’s views were taken up by the Latin American

Dependency School, adherents of which developed
the notion of core and periphery in greater depth. In
particular, Raúl Prebisch (1949) argued that countries
in the periphery were suffering as a result of what he
called ‘the declining terms of trade’.

Other writers
such as André Gunder Frank (1967) and Fernando
Henrique Cardoso (who was President of Brazil from
1995 to 2003) developed this analysis further to show
how the development of less industrialized countries
was directly ‘dependent’ on the more advanced capitalist societies. It is from the
framework developed by
such writers that contemporary world-systems theory
emerged.

World-systems theory is particularly associated

with the work of Immanuel Wallerstein.
global history, merged in Europe 16th century, has been marked by
the rise and demise of a series of world systems

capitalism, defined by Wallerstein (1979: 66) as ‘a system production for sale in a market
for profit and appropriation of this profit on the basis of individual or
collective ownership’.

all the institutions of the social world are continually being created and recreated.

 In terms of the geography of the modern world

system, in addition to a core–periphery distinction,
Wallerstein added an intermediate semi-periphery,
which displays certain features characteristic of
the core and others characteristic of the periphery.
 Although dominated by core economic interests, the
semi-periphery has its own relatively vibrant indigenously owned industrial base
(see Fig. 8.2). Because
of this hybrid nature, the semi-periphery plays important economic and political
roles in the modern world
system. In particular, it provides a source of labour
that counteracts any upward pressure on wages in the
core. It also offers a new home for those industries
that can no longer function profitably in the core (e.g.
car assembly and textiles). The semi-periphery plays
a vital role in stabilizing the political structure of the
world system.
 A key component of Wallerstein’s analysis has
been to describe how world systems have a distinctive life cycle: a beginning, a
middle, and an end.
In this sense, the capitalist world system is no different from any other system
that has preceded it.
 Controversially, Wallerstein (1995) argues that the
end of the cold war, rather than marking a triumph
for liberalism, indicates that the current system has
entered its ‘end’ phase—a period of crisis that will
end only when it is replaced by another system
 women were the ‘last colony’ Maria Mies
 Marxist theorists have consistently developed an analysis
of the global aspects of international capitalism—an aspect
acknowledged by Marx, but not developed in Capital.

• World-systems theory can be seen as a direct development

of Lenin’s work on imperialism and that of the Latin
American Dependency School.

• According to world-systems theorists, the three zones of the

world economy—the core, periphery, and semi-periphery—
are linked together in an exploitative relationship in which
wealth is drained away from the periphery to the core.

• Feminist writers have contributed to the analysis of

international capitalism by focusing on the specific roles of
women.

Gramsci

 Gramsci’s answer revolved around his use of the

concept of hegemony, his understanding of which
 reflected his broader conceptualization of power.
Gramsci developed Machiavelli’s view of power as a
centaur—half beast, half man—a mixture of coercion
and consent.
 Marxists had concentrated
almost exclusively on the coercive practices and
capabilities of the state.
 Gramsci said this may be true in less developed societies, such as pre-
revolutionary
Russia, it was not the case in the more developed countries of the West. Here the
system was also
maintained through consent.
 created and recreated by the hegemony of the ruling class in society.
It is this hegemony that allows the moral, political,
and cultural values of the dominant group to become
widely dispersed throughout society and to be accepted
by subordinate groups and classes as their own. This
takes place through the institutions of civil society
 Gramsci used the
term ‘historic bloc’ to describe the mutually reinforcing and reciprocal
relationships between the socioeconomic relations (base) and political and
cultural
practices (superstructure) that together underpin a
given order. For Gramsci and Gramscians, to reduce
analysis to the narrow consideration of economic
relationships on the one hand, or solely to politics and
ideas on the other, is deeply mistaken. It is their interaction that matters.
 Gramsci shifted the focus of Marxist analysis more towards
superstructural phenomena.

• Gramsci explored the processes by which consent for a

particular social and political system was produced and
reproduced through the operation of hegemony.
Hegemony allows the ideas and ideologies of the ruling
stratum to become widely dispersed, and widely accepted,
throughout society.

• Robert W. Cox—the analysis of ‘world

order’
Thinkers such as Robert W. Cox have attempted to
‘internationalize’ Gramsci’s thought by transposing several
of his key concepts, most notably hegemony, to the global
context.
 It was the Canadian scholar Robert W. Cox (1926–
2018) who arguably did most to introduce Gramsci
to the study of world politics. He developed a
Gramscian approach that involves both a critique
of prevailing theories of international relations and
international political economy, and the development of an alternative framework
for the analysis of world
politics.
 Theory is always for some one, and for some
purpose in Cox’s ideas, we begin by focusing on
one particular sentence in his seminal 1981 article,
‘Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond
International Relations Theory
 If ideas and values are (ultimately) a
reflection of a particular set of social relations, and
are transformed as those relations are themselves
transformed, then this suggests that all knowledge
(of the social world at least) must reflect a certain
context, a certain time, a certain space. Knowledge,
in other words, cannot be objective and timeless in
the sense that some contemporary realists, for example, would like to claim.
 No simple separation between facts and values. Whether consciously or not, all
theorists inevitably bring their values to bear on their analysis.
 He subjected realism, and in particular its contemporary variant neorealism, to
thoroughgoing critique on these grounds.
 According to Cox,
these theories are for—or serve the interests of—those
who prosper under the prevailing order: the inhabitants
of the developed states, and in particular the ruling elites.
The purpose of these theories, whether consciously or
not, is to reinforce and legitimate the status quo. They
do this by making the current configuration of international relations appear
natural and immutable. When
realists (falsely) claim to be describing the world as it
is, as it has been, and as it always will be, what they are
in fact doing is reinforcing the ruling hegemony in the
current world order.
 Cox contrasted problem-solving theory (that is,
theory that accepts the parameters of the present
order, and thus helps legitimate an unjust and deeply
iniquitous system) with critical theory. Critical
theory attempts to challenge the prevailing order by
seeking out, analysing, and, where possible, assisting
social processes that can potentially lead to emancipatory change.
 Thomas Hobbes believed we can gain a fundamental insight into political life if we
imagine men and women living in a ‘natural’ condition prior to the invention and institution
of the sovereign state. He refers to that pre-civil condition as the ‘state of nature’.
For Hobbes (1946:

 Introduction: Elements of Realism

Basic realist ideas and assumptions are: (1) a pessimistic view of human nature; (2) a
conviction that international relations are necessarily conflictual and that international
conflicts are ultimately resolved by force; (3) a high regard for the values of national
security and state survival; and (4) a basic scepticism that there can be progress in
international politics which is comparable to that in domestic political life. These pervasive
ideas and assumptions steer the thought of most leading realist IR theorists, past
and present.
 ‘Politics is a struggle for power over men, and whatever its ultimate aim may be, power is
its immediate goal and the modes of acquiring,
maintaining, and demonstrating it determine the technique of political action’ (Morgenthau
1965: 195).
 Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and indeed all classical realists share that view to
a greater or lesser extent. They believe that the acquisition and possession of power,
and the deployment and uses of power, are central preoccupations of political activity.
 The normative core of realism is national security and state survival: these are the
values that drive realist doctrine and realist foreign policy. The state is considered to be
essential for the good life of its citizens:
 All international agreements are provisional and conditional on the willingness of states to
observe them.
 There are no international obligations in
the legal or ethical sense of the word—i.e., bonds of mutual duty—between independent
states. The only fundamental responsibility of statespeople is to advance and to defend
the national interest by whatever means
 However, most realists also argue that a balance of power between great powers presents
a way of limiting war. Only when power faces power is it possible to secure some
order in the international sphere.
 realist IR theory is considered to be valid not only at particular times and places
but at all times, everywhere, because the foregoing basic facts of world politics never
change.
