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.
Liberal institutionalism 2
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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics
Understanding International Relations Theory
14 оценки
National Research University Higher School of Economics
14 оценки
From the lesson
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.
Meet the Instructors
Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
The greatest international institution ever,
and the most prominent example of liberal trend,
of liberal dimension of international relations, is of course,
the United Nations Organization,
which was established in 1945.
It is the major example of
a grand global universal international institution which covers all the spheres of life,
all the spheres of policy,
and which includes the overwhelming majority of states that exist in the world.
Some liberals even consider United Nations as a pre-cursor for world government.
Of course it is not a world government,
but the role that United Nations
plays in international relations is indeed, indispensable.
And we can absolutely surely say,
that if we neglected UN throughout the last 70 years,
international relations would have been much less stable,
they would have been much more violent,
there would have been much more wars in the world,
and so on, and so forth.
And basically, international relations would have been much much more prone to conflicts,
than it is today.
So, the impact of the UN has been very positive.
First of all, it was positive in the field of
international security given the existence of one of the major, actually,
the major institution within the United Nations Organization,
the major body of the UN,
the Security Council, which includes
five permanent members and 10 non-permanent or rotating members.
The importance of Security Council is that,
it is the only international institution,
the only organ in the world that can decide the questions of states' sovereignty,
that can take legal and legitimate decisions about use of force beyond self-defense.
And this allows Security Council to manage conflicts,
to conduct conflict resolution,
to try at least to resolve wars and conflicts in general.
And this is what security council is making on a daily basis.
Yes, of course, sometimes it is blocked,
sometimes countries within the Security Council disagree with one another, and sometimes,
management of these or that conflicts in the world is troublesome,
and we claim that Security Council is ineffective,
but still, if we neglected,
it would have been much,
much worse and less stable.
And the second manifestation of greatness of
the United Nations on the second principle organ of the UN,
is the General Assembly.
And the importance of General Assembly,
it is that it is kind of world parliament.
It is the manifestation of the principle of sovereign equality of nations in the world,
because General Assembly includes all the member states of the UN,
which are the majority of countries in the world,
and General Assembly works on the principle of one state, one vote.
It is the only organ,
the only structure in the world,
where every single country,
disregarding of its size,
of its level of development,
of its power, have a voice.
Every country has a voice,
and has the ability to speak,
to state its concerns,
to settle the agenda,
or to influence the agenda,
and so on, and so forth.
So, the United Nations really plays an indispensable role in the world.
But however, even the United Nations is not always effective.
And on the contrary,
in the last 20-25 years,
we have been witnessing the rise of
ineffectiveness of the UN in terms of management of the international system.
I have already mentioned that the UN sometimes is blocked,
Security Council is blocked and cannot take decisions,
cannot take action because member states are of
different opinions about how to resolve this or that conflict.
Take Syria for instance, right,
and disagreements between Russia and the United States,
or Ukraine crisis, and again disagreements about Russia
and the United States which prevent international action.
Given that sometimes Security Council is blocked,
that there is a stalemate within this structure, sometimes,
decisions on the matters of use of force are taken outside of the Security Council,
thus undermining international law,
undermining the United Nations and the role of the Security Council as the only,
as the indispensable organ of managing war and peace,
the questions of war and peace in the world.
And the examples of decisions taken outside of the Security Council,
for instance, NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999,
or the US intervention in Iraq in 2003,
both being huge violations and rude violations of international law.
And this ineffectiveness of the United Nations,
even I would say, rising ineffectiveness of the United Nations,
serves as an argument for the realist critique of liberal institutionalism in general,
and of the role that institutions play in international relations.
And one of the most prominent manifestations
and important manifestations of this realist critique,
is a famous article by an outstanding realist theorist of IR,
John Mearsheimer, article called The False Promise of Institutions.
What kind of arguments does Mearsheimer claim,
thus criticizing liberal institutionalism?
He starts from the obvious thing,
that state's behavior fundamentally depends on
the relative distribution of power in the world, right?
The distribution of power impacts behavior of states,
states behave depending of what kind of distribution of power is,
who is stronger, who is weaker.
Any changes in this distribution of power in the relative wealth and power,
affect states' behavior and consequently the dynamics of cooperation.
Thus, according to Mearsheimer,
states are interested in rather relative, not absolute gains.
Why? Because relative gains directly influence the balance of power.
If I get more and you get less,
or vice versa, I become stronger and you get weaker.
Thus, the balance of power shifts.
The distribution of power starts to change,
which can destroy cooperation.
So, the conclusion that John Mearsheimer makes,
is that states would cooperate only if they reasonably
expect to gain more than the other participating states.
Whereas, if they think that they get less from cooperation,
they would rather abstain from cooperation or even prefer conflict.
They will not go into cooperation if they get
a less relative gain than the opponent. And you know what?
This proposition of Mearsheimer has lots of
proofs in the recent history of international relations.
Russia, for instance, the Russian Federation was initially skeptical of
the reset with the United States under the early Barack Obama administration,
exactly because of the rationale that John Mearsheimer develops.
Because in Moscow's opinion,
the relative gain of Russia would be less than the relative gain of the United States
from this cooperation on the agenda that was proposed by the Obama administration.
Thus, Russia was passive.
It was abstaining from this cooperation.
And only when the Obama administration shifted,
changed the agenda of the reset,
and it became balanced,
so the relative gains of the sites became more equal,
only then, Russia decided to cooperate,
and the reset progressed.
Yes, it failed ultimately, but initially,
it progressed and the reason of progress was this relative equality of relative gains.
So yes, what kind of conclusion can we make from here?
International institutions are of course,
making international relations more stable and peaceful.
They, of course, promote cooperation, but not always.
They are not a universal panacea,
they cannot guarantee peace,
they cannot ensure cooperation by the very fact of their existence.
And in order to promote cooperation, indeed,
we have to agree with Mearsheimer,
that states have to search for more balanced relative gains.
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