Critique of Realism

• Justify aggression / Violent and confrontational

• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Unprovable assumptions about human nature
• Encourage leaders to act in ways based on suspicion,
power and force
• Excessively pessimistic / Place of neutrality
• State-centred nature
• The Balance of Power
• Skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to
relations among states
Significance of Realism
• One of the most enduring approaches in IR
• The competitive and conflictual side of international
relations
• Provides valuable insights
• Provides the necessary conceptual and analytical tools
to practitioners and scholars of IR
• Impacted foreign policies of US Administrations
• A useful cautionary role
Challenges to Realism Today
• Rise of China’s soft power
• Positive Norms
• Multilateralism
• International law
• International society
• Global solidarity
• Globalization
13th February 2023
 19

1962 Cuban Missiles Crisis – US President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
negotiated a peaceful outcome to the crisis. The crisis evoked fears of nuclear destruction,
revealed the dangers of brinksmanship, and invigorated attempts to halt the arms race.
Lauded as a crisis management success, nuclear weapons in Cuba were dismantled and
returned to the Soviet Union, and the US agreed not to invade Cuba without direct
provocation
Photograph taken Bernie Boston on October 21, 1967 during the March on the
Pentagon by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
Diana shakes hands with an unidentified AIDS patient on April 19, 1987 at London Middlesex Hospital to
open the UK's first unit dedicated to treating people with HIV and AIDS
"Tank Man," the unidentified protester during China's crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989
 Five-year-old Syrian
Omran Daqneesh sits in
the seat of an ambulance
after an airstrike blew up
his family's home in
eastern Aleppo, Syria on
August 17, 2016

A Turkish paramilitary
police officer carries
the body of Syrian
refugee Aylan Kurdi,
The New York Times published a front-page collage of the children found washed ashore
killed in Gaza on Friday, May 28, 2021 near the Turkish resort
of Bodrum in
September 2015
Fundamentals of Liberalism
• Increasing levels of harmonious cooperation between political
communities
• Wellbeing of the individual as the fundamental building block of a just
political system - John Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire and more
• Primary institutional checks on power – How to put checks on Power?
• Fundamental check on the behaviour of the government
• Desire to restrain the violent power of states
• Limit military power / Ensuring civilian control over the military
• Democratic peace
• Economic interdependence
• Optimistic viewpoint of absolute gains
• Rejection of power politics
Liberal International Order
• International Law
o Diplomacy
o Prohibition of wars of aggression
International backlash
Economic sanctions
UN military interventions
Benefits of peace
• International Norms
o International cooperation
o Human rights
o Democracy
o Rule of law
o International opinion
• Spread of Free Trade and Capitalism
o International organisations
o Is war profitable?
For seven decades the world has been dominated by a western liberal order. After the
Second World War, the United States and its partners built a multifaceted and
sprawling international order, organized around economic openness, multilateral
institutions, security cooperation and democratic solidarity. Along the way, the United
States became the ‘first citizen’ of this order, providing hegemonic leadership—
anchoring the alliances, stabilizing the world economy, fostering cooperation and
championing ‘free world’ values. Western Europe and Japan emerged as key partners,
tying their security and economic fortunes to this extended liberal order. After the end
of the Cold War, this order spread outwards. Countries in east Asia, eastern Europe
and Latin America made democratic transitions and became integrated into the world
economy. As the postwar order expanded, so too did its governance institutions.
NATO expanded, the WTO was launched and the G20 took centre stage. Looking at
the world at the end of the twentieth century, one could be excused for thinking that
history was moving in a progressive and liberal internationalist direction.
The end of liberal international order?
G. John Ikenberry
International Affairs, Volume 94, Issue 1, January 2018, Pages 7–23
Is unaccountable violent power, a
fundamental threat to
individual liberty and well being?
Future of Liberal International Order
• Dominant Historical Narratives
• Imperialism
• Colonialism
• Political culture of a society
• Levels of restraint and understandings
• Rising economic inequality / Global playing field for the wealthy
and influential
• Xenophobic strands
• Britain's decision to leave the EU
• Return to multipolarity or a rise of the non-West
• Interventionism
• Intelligence Warfare
• Populist movements
• Armaments / Nuclear Weapons
 Thank you
Any questions, plz