Institutional liberalism, Republican Liberalism, Functionalism, & Neo-Functionalism

Institutional liberalism is one of IR modern theory, this theory comes up to challenges

the realists premise who consider the cooperation between state only a temporary reprieve
from states general circumstances of competition, conflict, and war, and it’s just impossible
for country to cooperate in this international anarchy world. So liberalism comes up with the
thought to broke that premise and named it Institutional liberalism. Institutional liberalist
believes that domestic and international institutions play central roles in facilitating
cooperation and peace between nation-states. (Johnson & Heiss, 2018)
They strongly believes that international institutions are able to realize cooperation
that benefits the member countries and increases the welfare of the member countries. For
example, European Union who considered to have contributed greatly to building Europe
after the World War II and got the “nobel peace award” in 2012 for its role in uniting
countries in Europe, and lots of things who they said they did for Europe. That’s how they
want to prove it to realist.
Republican liberalism refers to theory that links democracy with peace. They thought
that democracy tend to create more peace and law abiding compared to other political
systems. (Jackson & Sorensen, 2005) explained the statement doesn’t mean that democracies
have never war, democracies did war as often as non-democratic countries. But the argument
is that democracies did not war with other democracy countries. Republican liberalists are
basically optimistic that peace and cooperation will eventually take place in international
relations, based on progress towards a more democratic world. Not only by that, republican
liberalists take it as a responsibility to advance democracy throughout the world and to do
that, they advance the peace which is one of the most fundamental political values.
In recent years, we can see the amount of democracy country increase, and it’s like
the arguments will (or already) become real who stated that world got the peace by the
cooperate on international relations not conflict. Anyway, we can clearly see the difference of
both theory, institutional liberalism pointed at the international cooperate by the importance
of institution itself and the republican liberalism more to how the country system should be
which is cooperate by democracy.
Functionalism, views the formation of international organizations as an incremental
process, cooperation only works when it is focused on specific activities (functions) that
would be performed effectively through collective action than by individual states (Heywood,
2011). Simply, institutions are present to deal with common human problems based on the
specific fields of that institutions, to be more effective, and states does not really have to take
care of it. If not mistaken, ILO is one of this example, it sets international labour standards
and promotes social protection and work opportunities for all.
Neofunctionalism is a revision of functionalism that explain how international
cooperation tends to broaden and deepen through a process of spillover (Heywood, 2011)
which means one policy area tends to ‘spillover’ into other areas, as new goals and new
pressures are generated. Simply, when we cooperate in an area it will affect us to cooperate in
other area, like integration in one economic area creates pressure for further economic
integration, and, potentially , for political integration. The difference of functionalism and
neofunctionalism can be seen from the focus. Functionalism is more focused on several
actors who are not too binding on the state actors, also identifies problems that must be
resolved to achieve peace.
References :

Heywood, A. 2011. “Regionalism and Global Politics : Functionalism, Neofunctionalism”,

dalam Global Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jackson, Robert dan Georg Sorensen. 2005. “Liberalisme Institusional”, dalam Pengantar
Ilmu Hubungan Internasional (terj. Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen. Introduction to
International Relations). Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar.

Jackson, Robert dan Georg Sorensen. 2005. “Liberalisme Republikan”, dalam Pengantar
Ilmu Hubungan Internasional (terj. Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen. Introduction to
International Relations). Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar.

Tana Johnson and Andrew Heiss, "Liberal Institutionalism," chap. 8 in International

Organization and Global Governance, 2nd ed.,
ed. Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson (London: Routledge, 2018),