Democratic Theory and International Relations

Abstract

It is possible to look at the liberal-democratic tradition in a number of different ways, and in general, an effort is made to link it with some form or other of freedom. For example, it was for long closely related and linked with laissez-faire capitalism, whereas others saw it intimately related to freedom of religion. Several forms of freedom have been seen as components of the liberal tradition, but they are merely components; they do not represent the totality or the “essence” of the system. The aspect under which I would like to consider liberalism this evening is as a system for the accomplishment of peaceful change or, to put in other terms, a system for conflict resolution. And the problem which will be central to our concerns this evening, and throughout the entire semester, turns on the relevance of liberalism as a system of conflict resolution for the problems of world politics. To assess this relevance, it is necessary to have some image of the means by which the liberal tradition has dealt with the problem of change, some image of the basic character of international politics, and an estimate of the possible bearing the experiences of that tradition might have on the problems of that area.