The conceptual framework facilitating the effective functioning of most states has incorporated various schools of thoughts as they strive towards their goals. Such frameworks are conceived deeply within the politics of a country or state. In this light, such critical processes as liberalism and realism have been developed to create meaning on the politics of a nation. The frameworks are distinct depending on the state leadership and administrator present.
Liberalism set up a code of conduct in the political structure of a nation through identifying the norms of a state or country. The ideas of liberty developed through a processing system and approved as the legal framework of a government regulation ensure that order is restored at all times. Democratic nations create these structures to ensure that the line of action is predetermined and free from bias. Other nations set up the reaction processes through their administrator, who determines the way of handling issues in a country.
This aspect has been associated with dictatorship since issues are manipulated through individual decisions and few consultations. This kind of system dissatisfies people since they are not aware of the fairness in such a process. In this regard, the political structure formed through this system is referred to as realism. This paper discusses various aspects of liberalism and realism as the systems developed through the particulate school of thought to ensure that nations grow and civilize.
Liberalism
Why do liberals think that universal moral principles should be made a reality?
Liberals believe that people should have a common way of judgment internationally where each action faces a general reaction for every person across the globe. The common standard of identifying norms within a society forms a solution for differences in ideologies as perceived in the current globe. For instance, the use of drugs has been an area of controversies where some countries allow their use while others refute them.
For instance, bhang has been allowed in Jamaica. Jamaica can be a source and a center of distributing such illegal commodities globally. Liberals develop an idea that a common moral standard would exempt such differences that create weaknesses. They support this argument by pointing out that universal norm and morals can exempt differences as seen in religion standards.
If all people had a common religion, beliefs, laws, rules, regulations, and conditions among others, the judgments would be made through one line of thought since there would be no differences. In fact, trying individuals in a foreign nation would have no difference.
What is the moral defense of this position; what is the political defense, i.e. implications for institutional arrangements?
However, the realization of this form of arrangement would not only be impossible but also unrealistic due to the prevailing institutional setup. Setting up such a common norm for the whole world would imply that all religions are nullified into one organization with similar beliefs, which is entirely vague. According to the current setup, such a manipulation of the current system would oblige people with their right to choose a religion.
Furthermore, the rules made by different nations through the mutual democratic system would be dissolved in order to create a universal system. The sovereignty of all democratic nations would be dissolved to facilitate the functioning of the incoming rule of law. However, this imagination would create a system without moral indifferences as depicted in the Muslim and Christian communities.
Therefore, the rights arising from these disagreements may not proceed with this universal standard. Similarly, the rule of law would be the same in all nations even though they are controlled and directed by a different leader. This factor implies that it would be hard to sideline a nation for reacting in a certain manner since there is a common way of operating the governments where deviations from the norms are easily identified. It implies that conflicts between nations, as depicted between North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, cannot suffice.
What do they mean by universal morality?
Universal morality is a basic way of acting followed by everyone throughout the universe where a common civilization of common moral principles has been attained. It represents three fundamental categories of principles attempting to attain this morality. The first one involves the trail to elevate the happiness of oneself and his or her fulfillment.
The second aspect is increasing these two aspects to other people existing within the universe. The final development is increasing them within the creatures of other species in the universe. Each of the other attributes within universal morality falls within these three categories as the UM Principles.
What is their analysis of human nature?
Each person has a certain level of an advantage as an individual. However, modern and classical liberalism have different perspectives while evaluating human nature in politics. The classical perspective shows that each person has the ability to reason and make personal decisions, which may be self-seeking at most times. The modern perspective argues that people are made characteristically to enhance the lives of others through natural and undeniable causes.
Liberals argue that as people make self-preservation for their individual needs, they retain and depict moral perceptions, reasons, and empathy. Some individual is corrupt for their selfish requirement and plans. Ideally, people can initiate war in order to create a market for their weapons. Other people are despotic and way off the understanding league. Liberals comprehend that human nature offers characters that are too distinct whereby self-mastery, corrections, and learning are imperative.
What is their analysis of politics?
Liberals argue that regulations should be controlled through written rules. They uphold the function of constitutionalism and rule of laws to control many aspects facilitating the free movement of the entire globe. They argue that civil rights ensure the integrity of each person and secure legal processes to deal with issues going contrary to their acceptable set-up.
Liberals believe that globalization facilitates the growth of mutual civilization and creates an ecosystem that is self-sustainable where resources are not enclosed to one region. Liberal internationalism facilitates devolvement and spread of these resources through trading.
Which moral principles should be pursued in international politics and how?
There are various moral principles fundamental in the pursuit to develop international politics. The main agenda for developing such a system is to initiate cohesion between all nations and establishing independent organizations to solve conflicts between nations. The development of cohesion and binding agreements can prevent wars between nations, especially when organizations have been formed to provide solutions.
Liberals believe that the lack of an international organization to resolve issues arising between sovereign nations can prevent conflicts. In a similar way that a judiciary solves the conflict between people and organizations, an international body can resolve problems that might arise, for example, tension and war. International politics should aim to establish a system where all nations participate in a judicial process to agree on fighting wars of international threat.
Can you think of examples of universal moral principles being successfully put into practice, or attempts to do so?
Some organizations, such as the United Nation and The Hague, are examples of bodies maintaining international order. The United Nations resolve conflicts between and within a country. For instance, the post-election violence from Kenya in the year 2007 was solved by the United Nations through Kofi Annan and other people where a coalition government was formed.
In fact, the people suspected to have caused this violence were judged for inhumanity in The Hague. The Hague is an international criminal court invented after the Rwanda Massacre, which led to the death of about 1 million people. The court has the mandate to sue individuals suspected to conduct inhumane actions and violence, which destabilize a nation and its leadership.
Realism
What do political realists think of attempts to implement universal principles in international politics?
Realists retain a benefit of the doubt on the idea of implementing universal principles. They argue that forming a functional universal system to be followed by all nations demands humbleness.
Essentially, all countries across the globe are not equal and they not humble. In fact, some nations may possess very high powers that cannot be overruled by the organizations handling international matters. Powers of politics are different while being evaluated by different nations making them not to stand similar position before and after international judgments.
What is political realism as a theory of world politics and a guide for foreign policy? Is there a standard of morality they recommend? If so, is this universal or relative?
The economy has been struggling. As such, it implies that the rate of unemployment has been high. Part of the problem is attributable to high levels of immigration into the country. The party can use this platform to reassure citizens that it will reform the immigration policies in order to safeguard employment opportunities.
The aim is to ensure that the locals are not discriminated since they would charge higher wages than the immigrants (Morone Ch5). The reforms will bring equality to the job market so that they do not oppress the immigrants while protecting the interest of the locals. As such, the party has to persuade the voters that they will fix the immigration floodgates to the advantage of the locals.
What is their analysis of human nature? What is their analysis of politics?
Wars are expensive both in terms of monitory value and human value. Wars lead to causalities on both sides. The previous regimes have used war as a tool in what was termed as matters of national security and protecting the country border integrity (Morone Ch13). The act of war means that frequently people within one family are separated from each other. The separation happens because the soldiers are deployed in far land, miles away from their borders.
Every child would wish to have the peace of mind that they will go home to see their parents. Each wife holds the hope that her husband will come back from war safe while every parent lives the dream that they will see their child walking through the door from the battlefield. These people do not need to wish, hope or dream since there are alternatives for the deployment of the men in uniform in far lands.
As such, they are championing for the strengthening of the government where the soldiers are deployed should be the driving policy. As such, this eliminates the situation of deploying the troops in foreign lands. Consequently, the party has to persuade the masses that they could develop working legislation and policies to assure that none of the soldiers will ever be deployed in foreign soil. As such, they should make sure the citizens vote for party members since they will support the initiative to eliminate deployment of soldiers in a foreign land.
Can you think of useful examples of realist critiques of imprudent foreign policies that have relied on idealist principles of universal morality, such as Vietnam or Iraq?
The Iraq government is a constitutional republic. According to the Iraq constitution, the government is organized in departments whose roles are defined by the president. On the other hand, the Iraq government is constitutionally defined, and the structure is predetermined.
As such, this makes Iraq vulnerable to criticism since the president has the power to influence the function through rearrangement of government structure. Nevertheless, considering the civil protest, it is fair to state that Iraq has a great number of invalid ballots. As a result, it can only mean that Iraqis are less comfortable with the functioning of their government compared to Iraq’s politicians.
On what grounds do Morgenthau and McNamara criticize Johnson’s policy in Vietnam? Was Johnson’s an idealist policy; in what way?
News and reports in America are of late commonly filled with stories about political dysfunction, and thus, there is a clear indication that the public is losing its confidence in the governing forces. The major concerns revolve around the issue of bipartisanship, which is causing polarization of the Congress.
With the two of America’s political parties becoming more distinct in recent years, there has been a deeper division thus termed as polarization. The split, which started a few years back, has become deep to the extent that members of the congress vote according to their ideological apprehensions and beliefs.
The congress is polarized because the ideological difference between representative and constituent keeps on increasing with the lapse of time. Race, abortion, school prayer, gay marriages and the conduct of foreign policy have polarized the parties since every individual tends to vote according to their own opinion, as opposed to what is right to the citizens. In addition, voting is also based on what will be right to the party.
Polarization is also clearly explained by the alignment between opinions on social issues and affiliation between political parties. The aspect of a compromise also indicates polarization of the Congress. Some of the outstanding figures in the political environment have indicated that, during disagreements, it might be easier to compromise on certain factors in order to reach a favorable goal.
Study shows that the effects of polarization in the country depend on the strength of both parties and their general effect and control over the government. However, one clear issue is that the polarization limits the extent to which Congress makes quality decisions among the people. Polarization limits the role of the legislative powers and policymaking process thus affecting democracy negatively. This happens because, with voting being based on ideologies, people cannot freely express their views concerning policy-making issues.
Polarization is said to act as a gridlock to a number of issues in the country thus affecting democracy. However, the actual effects are difficult to evaluate without ascertaining the actual measure of the gridlock. Statistics are taken also shows that, during polarization, the United States made more laws than during its normal time. However, the alarming issue remains the fact that the laws made were of poor quality.
Can you think of successful foreign policies that have followed the realist logic?
In the new version of political science model, interpretation of invalid votes and noncompliant abstention under the compulsory law is seen in three forms, namely institutional, political protest and socioeconomic. The three categories are connected using the following three assumptions.
Noncompliant abstention and invalid voting are rampant where the citizens are alienated from the political system and socioeconomic status (SES), institutional contexts and Politics impact on efficacy. As such, state capacity measured by the rate of the spoilt ballot is the dependent variable while institutional factors, political protest factors, and socioeconomic factors are independent.
If containment is so problematic, what alternative policy does Morgenthau recommend for SE Asia?
Using the socioeconomic status, an individual combines politics and orientation with individual resources to predispose his political participation and affiliation in the political process. The understanding is expounded on the explanation that individuals that have a higher status in the society will be in social contexts and environments that will encourage and enforce positive participatory and attitudinal norms, as well as civic skills.
Therefore, such individuals are likely to participate in politics and electoral process compared to low-status individuals. The defining dimensions of SES, in both Peru and Iraq, including but not limited to education, age, and income. In various studies, there is a curvilinear relationship that exists between participation in politics and the said socio-economic factors. Therefore, there is increased and responsible political participation with growth in socio-economic well-being.
Comparing the country in terms of social and economic well-being, Peru is behind Iraq. The literacy rate, education access, populace with high education, access to media, infrastructure development and GDP growth rate work in favor of Iraq. Therefore, from this perspective, it is clear that this theory holds since Iraq is performing better in this aspect and still registers higher political participation and higher invalid and noncompliant abstention.
What would realists say about Iraq or the conflict in Ukraine?
Many political analysts agree that deliberate vote spoiling is a good measure of political protest against a political regime or system. However, the specifics that the voters are protesting against remain unclear. Therefore, this gives a wide scope to such a variable.
Nevertheless, the measure is still useful and, in this case; it is seen as being three-dimensional, namely political authorities, regime institutions, and regime performance. As studies have shown, invalid votes, valid votes and non-voters have varying level of support for various political systems. Basically, non-voters and invalid voters never stand apart on the evaluation of political authorities. They tend to have coined understandings that are influenced by political socialization cohorts on the political authorities.
As such, this, therefore, becomes related to socioeconomic factors. In addition, regime performance is of importance. Performance is evaluated based on the functioning of democracy. Therefore, elements such as transparency in the running of government, equitable representation and pattern of government spending patterns are considered.
However, this is further based on the level of socio-economic development since only citizens that are politically conscious can monitor the activities of the government. Therefore, a spoilt vote can be a measure of regime failed performance. Also, as a good alternative, the satisfaction survey can be used to evaluate the level of performance.