Between 2011 and 2016, western policymakers became interested in making a deal with Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. However, they have always been divided on whether bringing Iran into the international order would also reduce its tendency to use armed force to achieve its security objectives.
This is Part 2 of a 4-part essay series analysing this question through the lenses of different IR theories. This essay analyses the question through the lens of Liberalism.
Liberalist View of International Order
Several unorthodox theories of international relations gained popularity in the intellectual vacuum created by Realism’s decline in influence. Liberalism was probably the most prominent of these. Liberalism is a relatively uncodified theory of international relations with varying understandings. However, it is generally understood as having a more positive outlook on the international order, believing that its aspects of anarchy can be stabilised through international cooperation for mutual benefits between states. It does not consider all states as the same as realism essentially does. Instead, it puts significant emphasis on the internal politics of states. Namely, it contends that if states are more democratic, wars will be reduced, and if countries were more interconnected, wars would become unprofitable to the point of obsolescence. This understanding undoubtedly has extensive validity, especially when examining the failures of realism. International institutions and norms do exist and have had a real impact on the actions of states, as this paper argues.
Liberalism placed international institutions at the centre of its perception of the international order. Liberal scholar Robert Keohane defined international order as “created and maintained by states, primarily through the use of institutions, which structure cooperation by establishing norms and rules that reduce the uncertainty and transaction costs in international relations” (Keohane, 1984, p.49). John Ikenberry described the international order as an open, rule-based system in which states, particularly democratic ones, cooperate to manage conflict and advance collective interests, anchored in institutions like the United Nations and Bretton Woods. These definitions underline Liberalism’s focus on democracy and international institutions.
Hence, liberal scholars controversially support the idea that integration into the international order not only reduces the likelihood of states using armed force but also fundamentally changes state behaviour. They believe integration influences more than just the foreign policy tools available to a state. It alters the state’s aims and priorities. This perspective is rooted in the liberal emphasis on domestic political changes driven by international integration, which brings Liberal political forces to power within states.
There is some debate about whether a state needs to be democratic first before integration can effectively change its policies. Several liberal scholars argue that states must become democratic for integration to effectively reduce the likelihood of war, as democracies are seen as more inclined to pursue peaceful solutions in the international system (Morgan and Collins, 2022, p. 31). This idea of also prioritising democracy in a state to influence its foreign policy is sometimes referred to as Republican liberalism.
This connection between democracy and peace is central to liberalism’s claim that the domestic political structure, shaped by integration, plays a crucial role in determining a state’s foreign policy choices. This is why they stress that democratic governance is crucial for avoiding war in the global order.
However, Liberalism itself came under increasing scrutiny as major non-western powers failed to democratise or liberalise in any meaningful manner and did not give up their revisionist aims. The primary examples of these were China and Russia. Realist scholars criticised liberalism heavily for this oversight. Mearsheimer stated, “The liberal international order is doomed because it rests on flawed assumptions about human nature and the nature of international politics. States do not pursue liberal values in a world where survival is the paramount goal” (Mearsheimer, 2018, p.15). This essentially underlined the criticism of liberalism by realists regarding their view on the nature of the international order.
Though states did seem prepared to use international institutions when it benefits them, this did not provide much evidence that it would change their aims; instead, it simply changed the behaviour they decided to use to achieve those aims.
Liberalism and Iranian Foreign Policy
Ironically, Liberal and realist scholars have the same approach to dealing with Iran in the literature. Liberals support integrating states into the international order by binding them into institutions, as discussed above. Hence, in their view, binding Iran into global institutions and trade networks would make conflict undesirable for their leaders as diplomatic means would provide the state with far better prospects than continued military force.
Therefore, both realist and liberal scholars supported the Obama administration’s negotiating with Iran, leading to the nuclear deal in 2015. In 2011, in the lead-up to the negotiations, Ikenberry stated that Engagement through multilateral institutions offers the best chance of moderating Iran’s ambitions by binding it into a rules-based order (Ikenberry, 2011). Joseph Nye stated in the same year that soft power, through attraction rather than coercion, can shift Iran’s behaviour by shaping its preferences (Nye, 2011).
Indeed, the United States made a serious investment in this understanding. This deal saw the US make serious concessions to Iran by allowing them to enrich their own Uranian. However, it was done with the belief that this would better integrate Iran into the international order, hence reducing the security threats to Iran while providing them with a means to improve their country economically through sanction-free international trade, mediate their conflicts through global institutions, and have fewer direct threats to consider. However, this paper’s statistical analyses will reveal later that this did not produce the desired impact.
The only brand of liberalism that may offer a different approach to dealing with Iran would be Republican Liberalism, as that branch theoretically states that Iran should be more liberal and democratic before it can start behaving peaceably on the international scene. Michael Doyal underlined this view in the 1990s who believed that a democratic Iran would be more open to cooperating with the West and dropping its regional aims. Bruce Russet also contended that diplomacy was primarily good with Iran because it would encourage democratic change within the country. However, these scholars did not reject the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Consequently, they expected the integration of Iran into the international system to reduce its preference for violence without pre-existing democratic reforms.
To summarise, Liberalism believes multilateral international cooperation is key to reducing war and violence in the international order. It also believes that states with liberal and democratic values will significantly expedite this reality, and that diplomacy will push these states towards that path. Hence, it views diplomacy and cooperation with Iran, which would integrate it into the international system, as a significant factor in reducing Iran’s use of armed force.