Blognyaluke’s Weblog

Arranged by: Luke Pramudita

1. Introduction

We know two of basic theories in IR which are well known; liberalism and realism. Liberalism think that peace can be reach with give freedom and mechanism of rules and laws to the persons and states so there will be reached international stability. In the other side Realism thinks that international system is anarchy and impossible to made mechanism above the states sovereignty (because states is the only actor in IR). Based on little explanation above we may see the contrast of these two theories.

In the late of 1980 with the existence of constructivism, theorists found the way to explaining the debate between realist and liberal view towards the international system. They construct one middle theory between realism and liberalism to explain that these new theory can answer the long debate between two major theorists above. This theory construct with combining the basic characteristics of both two theories.

Viewing this constructivism we may ask how the theorists look the different concept between realist and liberal as the good combination so can end the debate between these two theories. Here writer will try to find how the theorists construct the liberal-realism and how are the essentials of this theory.

1. Reconstruct Thomas Hobbes Liberal-Realism Theory

The construction of liberal-realism theory actually presented firstly by Thomas Hobbes with his phenomenal book Leviathan. He had known as the founding father of both realism and liberalism¹. To construct this theory he explained his idea into 3 basic concepts:

1. Realist and Liberal have same soil

He explained that basically human has three central notions: ‘the human being as evil’ (in the sense of sinful and fallen creature), ‘the human being as free’, and the last are ‘the human being as rational’. In the capacity of rational, human has ‘being the free’ and ‘being the sinful or evil’ so logically human impossible if just has the ‘free aspect’ or the ‘evil ones’.

1. Realist and Liberal has the same logic

To construct this theory, Hobbes tried to include both notions as positive elements of this theory. The notion of the human being like self-interested, violent, and sinful are buried in everybody but in the human society where occur of well-known war called ‘war every man against every man’ peoples choose to limit their notions to freely loosed from this war. This action view that out of the self-interested and egoistic acts there were arise stability, peace, and the common good.

1. Realist and Liberal has the same problems

Hobbes explained that everything that is good in human reality is here basically determined by its opposite: trust is won from suspicion and the enforcement of law, prosperity comes from winning a competition, and peace is at bottom war.

From the explanation above we may conclude the constructivist of liberal-realism theory. Thomas Hobbes explains that realism and liberalism share the same ideological framework and challenged by an ethics that digs deeper into the presuppositions of how to understand human existence. In the conclusion although human notions are basically evil but he tried to harmonizing his freedom to loosed from the war of ‘everyman against everyman’, and problem that made by one theory will have on the other theory.

1. The Essential Concept of Liberal-Realism Theory : Rationalism

The constructivism of liberal-realism actually emerged as the impact of international debate about liberal and realist and tries to make new theory that combine these major theories based on positive think of notions. There also another motive that said the construct of liberal-realism is because the fact in international relations that there is no one action which pure 100% based on liberalism or realism. There is tendentious to made them become liberal-realist or realist-liberal.

The other expectation about the emergence of liberal-realism is the replacement cycle between realism and liberalism in international relations. We will see the picture below which tells that the glorious peak between realism and liberalism is always substituting one another. We may also see that in the different time the graphic of realism or liberalism meet in the equilibrium line. This means that sometimes there is tendentious into concept of liberal-realism. From the concept of equilibrium point there we can say that equilibrium condition are more often emerge than the situation of glorious peak of liberal and realism. This might be concluding that international condition more often reaches the liberal-realism condition than most liberals or most realists.

Look back to the basic paradigm of liberal-realism, why the position of liberal and realism can be broke wth the theory of liberal-realism? There are many motives that made these both theories are weaker on its position:

1. Realist seem to be pessimistic and maybe too relativist to see the international relations. It is because they argues that a state’s power should be our only concern and that its interna composition is of interest to us only insofar as it serves that power, but not as it might serve justice (Sam Roggeven).

2. Liberalism is really too radical for the latet conservatism that exists among many classical liberals. First it would mean eventually abandoning the idea of national sovereignty, and second the entire world ought to be governed falls into the trap of considering government an a priori science rather than a continuous process of muddling through them (Sam Roggeven).

So understanding about all of this explanation how should we look liberal-realism? Hedley Bull the Australian political philosophers in his book The Anarchical Society explained that phenomena of liberal-realism in the framework of Grotian rationalism². How rationalism³ explain these phenomena?

Hedley Bull here explains the liberal-realism into 2 passages with rationalism framework:

1. Rationalism is in some ways an outgrowth of Realism in that it too recognizes anarchy as the defeating characteristic of IR. Rationalist see more order than realist to the extent that they believe in the existence of international society. This international society is an organic or traditional institution that has grown out to the diplomatic centuries with the emerges of BOP, International Law, and wars.

2. Rationalism argue that different traditions and institutions help bring states together into an international society. The key point is that these traditions and institutions exist as procedural frameworks, not as meant to particular ends.

1. Conclusion

The rationalism brings to the brighter mean of liberal-realism. It gives explanation that liberal-realism should be looked as the free mechanism which aims to pursue and then promote the mechanism by which they might do so peacefully

1. Bibliography

Rolfsen, Chaplain Raag. The Ethics of Vulnerability, Political Realism and Economics. Accessed by internet.

Roggoven, Sam. Towards a Liberal Theory of IR. Accessed by internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_relations_theory,