The Yegiora Files

Liberal internationalism is defined by Griffiths, O'Callaghan and Roach (2008, p.190) as a project to transform international relations so that they conform to models of peace, freedom, and prosperity allegedly enjoyed within constitutional liberal democracies. The same scholars go further by dividing liberalism into three distinct groups. They say these are the three ways to implement the project. The way they present liberal internationalism as a project makes their work interesting. Three distinct groups Firstly, commercial liberalism is about free trade between states. States bilaterally or multilaterally via a platform like APEC pursue the goal of trade liberalization. Griffiths, O'Callagahan and Roach (ibid.) argued that economic interdependence would decrease the likelihood of going to war. Republican liberalism is about democratic peace. The scholars argued that the spread of democracy among states so that governments will be accountable to their citizens makes it di...

Distinguishing the theory of realism from liberalism will help one to understand how international law is connected to international relations. Both theories give two different explanations of how state actors behave. One is inclusive of non-state actors while the other is not. Elman (2009) states that the realist tradition was a response to the dominant liberal tradition of international politics. Classical realists believe that because human beings are egoistic, we desire for more power. The more power we have, then we have a better opportunity of acquiring more resources which are scarce. Also, we can influence what happens around us if we possess a measurable amount of power. A state's interest could be to have control over a certain geographical territory in the ocean which is important for international trade and has mineral resources. To acquire this territory, the state must acquire a measurable amount of power in order to wrestle with other surrounding...