Were the liberal thinkers of the interwar period wrong to believe that Essay

Were the liberal thinkers of the interwar period wrong to believe that peace can be secured finished supranational law and institutions - Essay ExampleWith the atrocities of World War I (WWI) still fresh in the memory of most politicians, and with piece anarchy a realistic proposition, the only viable interwar option uncommitted in the war vs. non-war dichotomy appeared to be the Balance of Power strategy championed by some of the old age great thinkers (Sylvest, 24). Strained international relations made balancing power in an equitable, mutually lovely manner a lofty, but urgent, goal. Realistically, an international institution with multiple stakeholders, representing all major world powers seemed to be the way forward considering the immense toll (human and economic) the war had taken (Sylvest, 28, Ranney, 4). From the outset, however, there was significant philosophical dissimilitude about the ultimate roles and goals of such an institution, both between and within governm ents. The British Labour Party well-kept an internationalist (not dissimilar to the concept of idealism in many ways) perspective, having fought the war along nationalist lines. Specifically, the society maintained that world progress, the ultimate target, could only be achieved by way of global democracy and world law. In this way, the troupe, and the internationalists as a group, argued that a) the conditions of international politics were malleable and that b) deliberate reform was necessary to act out classless conditions (Sylvest, 20). As with many burgeoning ideologies, some of the internationalist philosophies were divisive a liberal faction of the party held that the state could not impinge on the inalienable rights of individuals, and a socialist internationalist faction, in bolshy style, argued that working men have no state (Goldmann, 56).Although the internationalist perspective became popular and gained momentum, it did not amply represent either of the dominant v iews of the day idealism and realism. The realists maintained, (some would argue as a reaction to interwar idealism), that the conditions of international politics could not be changed, a nations main duty was to isolate and nurse itself, nation states were primary actors in international politics, that the international system reached a dynamic but amicable equilibrium via natural struggles for power (as opposed to a central governing body), and that nations must help themselves as opposed to relying on assistance from others (Schmidt, 435). Conversely, the retroactively labeled idealists of the time, bolstered and transformed by Woodrow Wilsons commitment to American Exceptionalism and belief in the power of democracy (embodied and communicated through his Fourteen points speech), promoted an ideological that aimed to transcend the left-right divide and exhibit peace through ongoing commitment to moral and ethical concerns even at the potential personify of negatively impact ing the nation state. To many, the idealists belief in democratic peace theory - the concept that similarly democratic nations do not fight each other, was especially appealing (Hoogenboom, 190). Though much space and tutelage has been devoted in textbooks to the dichotomization of the realist and idealist viewpoints of the day, and the idea of a peacekeeping international institution is a good deal synonymous with Woodrow Wilson, in truth, the origins of these ideologies and potential resolution strategies span back much further. Two centuries prior to WWI and Wilson, Kants (1972) Perpetual Peace posits that the natural position of governments towards counterparts is war which creates problems because conflicts between humans are unethical and irreconcilable with the rights of humanity. Kant argued that war could essentially be institutionalized and regulated in order to