Theorizing International Relations: Liberalism

Are liberal democratic states liberal in their international relations?

• Core liberal belief that reason could deliver freedom and justice in international relations.
• According to Doyle – 2 elements to the Kantian legacy, (1) restraint among liberal states and (2) “international imprudence” in relations with non-liberal states.
• YES: Liberal states tend to be in relations of amity with other liberal states, i.e. they are friends with a high degree of convergence in economic and political matters.
• YES: Voices within the liberal tradition believe that a legal and institutional framework must be established that includes states with different cultures and traditions. Agrees with Bentham’s belief that if you “establish a common tribunal…the necessity for war no longer follows from a difference of opinion”.
  

Cuba

Texts used: Skidmore & Samuel Farber

Was the driving force of the Cuban Revolution from above or below?

• Base for social revolution & class struggle has all along been closely managed & controlled from the top.
• Urban pop. at the beginning accounted for majority of Castro membership & participated in most dangerous activities of the 26^th July Movement.
• Most rebels, like Fidel, were from the middle class, made up especially of university-educated professionals who faced bleak job prospects in Cuba’s stagnant economy. (Skidmore).
• Some observers claim that mass pressures from below played an important role in driving the Cuban Revolution. According to Farber (2006), this is not credible as there was little rural or urban turmoil in 1959-60.
• Working class was organized into TUs that were bureaucratic and corrupt, making it difficult for this class to play a significant role in the struggle against Batista.
• Organized working class suffered under double dictatorship; TU corrupt leadership & Batista. Without autonomous organizations, workers became atomized. As workers increasingly turned against the Batista dictatorship, they did so as individual citizens rather than of a collective working-class.