Nationalism
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self-determination is a means of establishing a peaceful and stable international order. Wilson believed that World War I had been caused by an ‘old order’, dominated by autocratic and militaristic empires. Democratic nation-states, on the other hand, would respect the national sovereignty of their neighbours and have no incentive to wage war or subjugate others. For a liberal, nationalism does not divide nations from one another, promoting distrust, rivalry and possibly war. Rather, it is a force that is capable of promoting both unity within each nation and brotherhood among all nations on the basis of mutual respect for national rights and characteristics. At heart, liberalism looks beyond the nation to the ideas of internationalism and cosmopolitanism.
KEY CONCEPT INTERNATIONALISM
between or among pre-existing nations, rather than for the removal or abandonment of national identities altogether. Internationalism thus differs from cosmopolitanism, the latter implying the displacement of national allegiances by global allegiances. ‘Weak’ forms of internationalism can be seen in doctrines such as feminism, racism and religious fundamentalism, which hold that national ties are secondary to other political bonds. ‘Strong’ forms of internationalism have usually drawn on the universalist ideas of either liberalism or socialism.
Internationalism is the theory or practice of politics based on transnational or global cooperation. It is rooted in universalist assumptions about human nature that put it at odds with political nationalism, the latter emphasizing the degree to which political identity is shaped by nationality. However, internationalism is compatible with nationalism in the sense that it calls for cooperation or solidarity
Liberal internationalism is grounded in a fear of an international ‘state of nature’. Liberals have long accepted that national self-determination is a mixed blessing. While it preserves self-government and forbids foreign control, it also creates a world of sovereign nation-states in which each nation has the freedom to pursue its own interests, possibly at the expense of other nations. Liberal nationalists have certainly accepted that constitutionalism and democracy reduce the tendency towards militarism and war, but when sovereign nations operate within conditions of ‘international anarchy’, self- restraint alone may not be sufficient to ensure what Kant (see p. 23) called ‘perpetual peace’. Liberals have generally proposed two means of preventing a recourse to conquest and plunder. The first is national interdependence, aimed at promoting mutual
understanding and cooperation. This is why liberals have traditionally supported the policy of free trade : economic interdependence means that the material costs of international conflict are so great that warfare becomes virtually unthinkable.
Free trade: A system of trading between states that is unrestricted by tariffs or other forms of protectionism.
KEY CONCEPT COSMOPOLITANISM
are based on a belief that every individual is of equal moral worth, most commonly linked to the doctrine of human rights (see p. 58). Political cosmopolitanism (sometimes called ‘legal’ or ‘institutional’ cosmopolitanism) is the belief that there should be global political institutions, and possibly a world government. However, most modern political cosmopolitans favour a system in which authority is divided between global, national and local levels.
Cosmopolitanism literally means a belief in a cosmopolis or ‘world state’. Moral cosmopolitanism is the belief that the world constitutes a single moral community, in that people have obligations (potentially) towards all other people in the world, regardless of nationality, religion, ethnicity and so on. All forms of moral cosmopolitanism
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