Throughout world history, many attempts in terms of establishing international peace have already been made, showing no measurable success in the present moment. Most of these approaches, despite major discrepancies in terms of action plans, concern the idea of reducing international conflicts and encouraging collaboration between nations and state leaders (Wendt, 1992). Thus, the fundamentalists of various social structure theories have in common more than they expect, trying to achieve the best possible outcome for the world citizens. As a result of continuous wars and political games, world leaders decided to do their best in order to avoid such behavioral patterns in future political relations (Olson, 1971). It goes without saying that one of the most successful means of achieving this would be to establish a working framework of international cooperation, i.e., implement the fundamentals of liberalism.
Although this idea seems to be the only right choice to make, its execution in the nearest future seems rather utopian. One of the major pitfalls standing in the way to achieve this relationship pattern is a common misconception of how politics work in the first place. Besides being a series of algorithms aimed at satisfying national and individual needs, the political system is a concept-driven by humans who interact according to certain patterns of social behavior. Thus, when talking about liberalism, it is important to take into account that international cooperation implies independent contributions of the states in order to maintain peace and supply equality (Olson, 1971). However, on the level of separate individuals in power, especially those of the leading states, the idea of giving something for the sake of abstract notion of peace seems unfair, creating a foundation for conflict. Hence, taking everything into consideration, it might be concluded that whereas liberalism and cooperation are, by all means, beneficial for the future world community development, today’s political power is not ready to refrain from conflict for the sake of peace.
References
Olson, M. (1971). Increasing the incentives for international cooperation. International Organization, 25(40), 866-874.
Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics. International Organization, 46(2), 391-425.