 Why theories are important for foreign policy?
 Theories provide different policy options and contain
different assumptions about how the world works
 Single world through multiple lenses
Liberaslim
 Sees world as it should be
 Human rights, liberty, democracy, market, institutions
 Freedom of individual, laissez faire, social welfare
 Liberalism in foreign relations and establishment of
peace- war is inevitable
 Use diplomacy to resolve conflicts
 Immanuel Kant “perpetual peace”
 Michael W. Doyle argues, claims that legitimate
democratic domestic orders prevent the creation of
conflict and war and sustain peaceful international
orders
 Robert Keohane; complex interdependence
 Francis Fukuyama; end of history
 Imprudent aggressiveness- liberal states aggression
against non-liberals
 Peace is only for liberals, liberal states fought wars with
non-liberal states
 War is result of authoritarian states (Hitler, Napoleon,
Mussolini, Stalin)
 Spread of liberal institutionalized norms and
principles will create an environment as Doyle suggest
in his Democratic Peace theory and there will be no
use of force between countries that are democratic
and it would eventually end international
conflict.
 Liberals enter into war only with non-liberal states in
order for self-defense and for humanitarian
reasons
 However,
 Doyle suggests that they are prone to what he calls
‘liberal imprudence’, as well as ‘liberal imperialism’,
seeking to ‘export’ their liberal democratic
doctrine to the rest of the world
 Bosnian War is example how liberals failed to react
HR violations and no strong commitment to
democracy and war
 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (example of
imprudent liberalism)do not fit with the liberal theory
because they are neither initiated for self-defense or
for humanitarian reason.
 Bush administration highlights the promotion of
democracy while largely neglecting the
international institutions
 human right violations in Guantanamo Bay
detention camp
 Liberals disagree with nature of anarchy (realist
assumption of ‘state of war’, threat of other states)
Three types of liberals
 1-First image Lockean: human nature based on
protection of life, liberty and property to preserve
peace, mutual trust under the law (unlike Hobbes)
 2-Second image commercial: societal, domestic
forces, effects of market and commercial capitalism,
instead of relative economic power (realist
assumption) focuses on liberal market which reduces
possibility of war (Adam Smith)
 ‘Invisible hand’ ‘harmony of interests’
 Combination of democracy and capitalism is
transformation of domestic state and social structure
(free trade and peaceful foreign policy best policy of
rational majorities in capitalist societies-democratic
majoritanism)
 3-Third image Kantian: republican internationalist
‘perpetual peace’ relations between liberals and with
non-liberals
 To establish secure expectation of peace: peace
between liberals and suspicion towards non-liberals
 Republican representation (rule of law and elected
legislative); responsible to majority
 liberal respect (human rights); specify majority end’s
and interests
 liberal strategy: defensive international community,
protection of liberal community, expansion of liberal
markets,
 multilateral institutions (UN, IMF, WTO,NATO),
transnationalism
Constructivism
 Appeared as a ‘third debate’ after the end of the Cold
War due to the failure of dominant paradigms to
predict end of the Cold War
 which is used to provide better explanations of the
actions taken by states and other major actors as
well as the identities that guide these states and
actors
 Concern with how world works and aim to analyze
state behaviors
 Failure of mainstream theories (realism&liberalism) to
predict end of Cold War and spread of constructivist
approach but not a paradigm (failed to addresses
actors, problems or issues) it doesn’t’ offer solution for
problems but offer alternative understanding concepts
such as anarchy and balance of power
 It is a framework for foreign policy
analysis/institutions,
 constructivism concern with specific questions:
 How old practices of rivalry and war-making can
be changed through institutionalization
 which might over time change identities,
interest, and practices
 Interaction across borders-establishment of security
communities (NATO, EU)
 New relationship based on friendship and cooperation
rather than rivalry, that identities and interest have
been fundamentally changed in process
 that the structures of human association are
determined primarily by shared ideas rather than
material forces
 and that the identities and interests of purposive
actors are constructed by these shared ideas rather
than given by nature
 “anarchy is what states make of it“ (Alexander
Wendt)
 which means that the anarchical structure is in fact a
phenomenon that is socially constructed and
reproduced by states
 interests and identities of the state are not primarily
determined but socially constructed
 Social construction, importance of norms and ideas
(basis of institutions), identity (constitutes interest,
identity shaped the interest unlike liberalism and
realism)
 NATO: security community, have headquarter but
does not have military forces of its own, it constitutes
common understanding, shared practices and
interest between member states, establishing
document is based on shared identity (Western) and
values of members
 Its foreign policy against Soviet Union during the Cold
War and new relationship after the end of the Cold
War with former enemy
 NATO during the Cold War period: Realist view
dominated defense alliance, “keeping Russians’ out,
the Americans in, the Germans down.”
 NATO post Cold War period: still security provider
based on common interest, identity and shared
understanding between member states (almost same
as before)
 BUT, relationship between self-other, rules and
norms of alliance becomes stronger between states
 NATO and war in the Balkans-former Yugoslavia
(1990s): test for its existence, new challenges political
instability and uncertainty and also opportunity to
practice new identity as European actor and foreign
policy actor-new practices in new structural
environment
 NATO’s new founding document: instead of defining
protecting member’s territory refers to member’s
security
NATO-Russia relations (foreign
policy)
 Cooperation on missile defense system and other
defense related issues
 Cooperation and shared understanding about the
missile defense
 Change of relations from rivalry to cooperation based
on share interests and shared security concern
 In last two decade NATO adopted constructivist
foreign policy by
 Establishing culture of anarchy based on
friendship and cooperation among members
 Maintaining its role identity as defense alliance