3 Liberalism and Neo-liberalism

3.1 Classical Liberalism (Idealism)Lineage: Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795) — the tripod of republican constitutions, commercialinterdependence, and international law/federation; Bentham; Wilson's Fourteen Points and the League of Nations; the interwar "idealism" that Carr attacked.Core claims:1. Human nature is improvable; reason and interest favor cooperation — war is a removable institution, not fate;2. Domestic constitution matters — the democratic peace theory: democracies rarely fight each other (empirically the strongest regularity in IR; mechanisms: accountability, normative respect, commercial ties);3. Economic interdependence raises the cost of war (trade's pacific logic — Cobden's "commerce is the grand panacea");4. International institutions and law can tame anarchy (the UN, the EU as proof-of-concept; Keohane's After Hegemony argument that institutions survive hegemony).3.2 Neo-liberalism (Neoliberal Institutionalism)The Waltz-era reformulation: accepts anarchy and state egoism as realism's starting point, but argues institutions change outcomes:1. Complex interdependence (Keohane & Nye's Power and Interdependence, 1977): multiple channels (not just states), multiple issues without hierarchy (security not always dominant), military force marginal in many issue areas;2. Institutions reduce transaction costs, monitor compliance, lengthen the shadow ofthe future, and make reciprocity workable — cooperation under anarchy is rational (the prisoner's dilemma resolved by iteration);3. Regimes (trade, environment, finance) matter — hence "regime theory."The neo-neo debate (synthesis of the semester): neo-realists say institutions reflect the underlying power distribution (mere arenas); neo-liberals say institutions have independent,cooperative effects…