What is the difference between neoliberalism and neorealism

Cutting to the heart of the debate over the possibility of a "new world order," Baldwin's collection is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the post-Cold War world. Contributors Acknowledgments Part I. Introduction 1. Baldwin Part II. The Neoliberal Challenge and Neorealist Response 2. Keohane 5. This clear potential for capabilities to affect the intentions of states supports this argument of states and the neo-liberals. This conviction that capabilities are not important in themselves, only for intentions and interests, is perhaps the most convincing of all the neo-liberal arguments, but I am still convinced more by the neo-realist position.

It is true that nobody can ever be entirely certain of neither intentions nor capabilities, but I certainly feel it is easier to gain an accurate estimation of the latter. This is so because the ability to influence others depends on matters such as economic power, something that is easy to establish in this modern, technological world. Finally, we have somewhat different views on international institutions and regimes. With both of these, there are a clear set of rules for state behaviour Baylis and Smith , p.

With regard to this neo-realist argument, it is worth bearing in mind that the ordering principle of the international system is anarchy Baylis and Smith , p. This may be a somewhat simplistic definition, but it is clear nonetheless that institutions and regimes cannot get round this dominance of anarchy in the international system.

The fact that an institution such as the UN could not stop theIraqwar would appear to support the neo-realist argument very well. This may be true when they are effective, but unfortunately a lot of the time they are not. Any neo-liberal ideas that institutions such as Greenpeace will check the actions of states should be approached with caution.

It is far from impossible that institutions such as Greenpeace will operate at the behest of the leading states, and some might say they do currently. I am far more convinced by the neo-realist argument on institutions, because there is nothing that makes me think they will determine state behaviour consistently in the future, for states in the past have dismissed institutions contemptuously.

My overwhelming feeling is that neo-realism is a more convincing argument than neo-liberalism. I feel they are right to assert that cooperation will only occur if sates want it to, and do not agree that it is always within state interest to cooperate.

I am certain that relative gains are an important consideration for certain states and cannot be ignored. It appears that states focus on the capabilities of other states because these are easier to measure than intentions.

Nor am I convinced that institutions will continue to play a vital role in checking the actions of states. In the fragile international climate following September 11 th , I happen to believe that neo-realist focus on anarchy as the dominating force in the international system is a more accurate reflection of the world we live in.

The theory further emphasizes that states are sovereign and are motivated by national interests. A specific example of this such. Post structuralism is an approach attitude or ethos that pursues critique in particular ways.

Because it understands critique as an operation that flushes out the assumptions through which conventional and dominant understandings have come to be. Post structuralism considered critique as an inherently positive exercise that establishes the conditions of possibility for pursuing alternatives. It is in this context that post structuralism make other theories of international relations one of its objects of analysis and approaches those paradigms with meta-theoretical question designed to expose how they are structured Campbell, 1.

This means that as a country, the United States foreign policy has the potential to be reactionary based on ambiguity. He stipulates that not only does the language and terms of thinking need to change to create cohesive and concrete terminology, but that we must also look at the complexity of foreign policy making as a multi-faceted process.

Nye separates his arguments into three major themes. Robert O. In the second part of this essay I will evaluate which method is more plausible and effective approach in international …show more content… Neoliberalist and neorealist both agree that National security and economic welfare are important, but the differences is in emphasis. The priority of state goals in neorealist is emphases in security issue, Grieco stated that anarchy requires states to be preoccupied with relative power, security, and survival.

The priority of state goals in neoliberal is emphases in political economy. Neorealism likely to emphasize capabilities more than intentions, because the uncertainties make state pay attention to capabilities. Kransner, the neorealist claimed that neoliberalist are over emphasizing intention and underemphasizing distribution of capabilities.

The debate between neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism has been sidelined as a thing of the past, as these two theoretical approaches essentially share similar views of the social world. The fourth debate between positivism and post-positivism, or rationalism and reflectivism, emerged in the late s.

This emerging debate is centred as much on epistemological and ontological basis of IR as on theoretical claims and methodologies Doherty, , p. In the following section I plan to illustrate how neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism fall under the umbrella of positivism or rationalism, and how they differ to the reflectivist approach.

In a presidential address for ISA in , Keohane clearly brought both neorealism and neoliberalism under the umbrella of rationalism. Neoliberals and neorealists are two views of the same approach. Both assume similar positions regarding the international system: states are main actors, they act rationally, and international anarchy shapes their behaviour.

Most notably, neorealism and neoliberal share similar methodology, epistemology and ontology. The methods by which neorealists and neoliberals study the world are analogous. Crucially, they agree that the acquisition of knowledge is based on the liberal notion of power and politics, which under-problematises the use of empirical material Smith, Simon argues that rationalism is contextual, much depending of the presuppositions before the analysis.

The principle of rationality is to formulate hypotheses about the real human behaviour, but must have combined additional assumptions about the structure of utility functions and the formation of expectations Simon, , cited in Keohane, , p. Positivism is the epistemological approach taken by rationalist theorists. Positivism holds onto the idea that there international system is essentially the same as the systems in the natural world.

The scientific approach of positivism views both the social and political world as having patterns and regularities, a type of naturalism, suggesting that observation and experience is crucial to formulating and reviewing scientific theory. Positivist IR scholars draw a basic distinction between empirical theory and normative theory, and therefore remain neutral between theories.

In philosophical terms this is an objectivist position, one that recognizes that observations may be subjective, yet objective knowledge in the world is possible Smith, , p. Positivism has been a methodological commitment, tied to an empiricist epistemology, which undeniably restricts the range of permissible ontological claims Smith, , p.

Neorealism and neoliberalism share a similar materialist ontological approach to theoretical analysis. For rationalists, reality is comprised of tangible and palpable objects; therefore the theory of knowledge is interlinked with materialism.

This materialist approach reduces everything to matter and what is observable. Social processes culture, values and norms between state actors are an indirect function of the material dimension.

Positivism has been the dominant epistemology of IR theorists throughout history. Scholars of reflectivism take a more sociological approach to understanding world politics. Reflectivism has given birth to a number of adherent sub-discipline theories of IR such as feminist theory, critical theory, normative theory, historical sociology, and post-modernism. What unites these theoretical perspectives is how each of these one of these theories reject one or more key assumptions of the rationalist accounts, constituting the birth of post-positivism.

On the other hand reflectivists maintain an idealist approach to ontology. Rather than being concerned with materialism, they argue that the social world is constructed by the ideas and values; language, ideas and concepts are at the basis of the reflectivist approach. Unlike the mainstream theorists of IR, reflectivist theorists adopt a post-positivist epistemological approach, rejecting the idea that social sciences can adopt the empiricist observation of the natural sciences.

In a movement away from the objective, value-free, universal knowledge that characterised the rationalist and positivist movement, post-positivism looked to interpret and explain why things are the way they are, as opposed to merely describing what they were McNabb, , p.

Similarly normative theory, a sub-discipline of the reflectivist approach, takes two issues with this idea that facts are not value-laden. Rationalism ignores the social processes that lead to changes in the outlook of world politics. Preferences are assumed to be fixed, which prohibits research from understanding how interests and beliefs change over time, whereas reflective theorists look to understand how politics has changed based on post hoc observation of values or ideology.

Reflective theorists have a different understanding as to what institutions constitute and represent.

Unlike rationalists who believe that institutions echo the power and preferences of unit constituting them, reflectivists argue that the preferences of individuals are not treated as exogenous; values, norms and practices differ across international society and so effect the formation of institutions. As discussed, we can see that neorealism and neoliberalism have their differences, yet equally they share similar analytical premises.

Both are state-centric structural theories, using state actors as basic units of theoretical analysis. Through the state-centric approach both theories try to explain the behaviour of states with reference to the material structure of the international system Thomas, , p. Whether concerned with relative-gains or absolute-gains, there is common agreement that states act within the rational choice model.

Grieco recognizes that for both realists and neoliberals there is a common understanding of international anarchy, an absence of a common inter-state government Grieco, , p. For neoliberals, international order is defined by the state of anarchy, but contrary to realists, this absence of an overarching authority does not mean that we are in a constant state of war. Although neorealists were primarily concerned with security, and neoliberals focussed on the economy, rationalist theories share a common analytical starting point: i.

Regardless of their slight differences, this self-help approach to anarchy held by rationalists generates a competitive notion to security and creates an issue for collective action. The logic of self-help encourages states to adapt to the system. Although neoliberals have conceded to neorealist the causal powers of the anarchic structure, they argue that this process of self-help can spawn cooperative behaviour between states, even in an exogenously given, self-help system Wendt, , p.

The rationalist approach provides analytical debate for notable issues within the study of IR, such as cooperation among great powers, but offer little guidance in situations where their basic ontological assumption that states are autonomous actors is violated.