Liberalism and World Politics
MICHAE W DOYLE
Building on a growing literature in international political science, the author reexamines the traditional liberal
claim that governments founded on a respect for individual liberty exercise "restraint" and "peaceful intentions"
in their foreign policy. He looks at three distinct theoretical traditions of liberalism, attributable to three
theorists: Schumpeter, a democratic capitalist whose explanation of liberal pacifism we often invoke;
Machiavelli, a classical republican whose glory is an imperialism we often practice; and Kant, a liberal
republican whose theory of internationalism best accounts for what we aspire to be. Despite the contradictions
of liberal pacifism and liberal imperialism, Professor Doyle finds, with Kant and other democratic republicans,
that liberalism does leave a coherent legacy on foreign affairs. Liberal states are different and indeed peaceful,
yet they are also prone at times to make war. Building upon Doyle's work and the theorists he cites, scholars in
recent years have conceptually developed and empirically tested some of the arguments presented in this article,
which is an excellent introduction to an extensive "democratic peace" literature.
I look at three distinct theoretical traditions of liberalism, attributable to three theorists: Schumpeter, a brilliant
explicator of ... liberal pacifism ... ; Machiavelli, a classical republican whose glory is an imperialism we often
practice; and Kant.
Despite the contradictions of liberal pacifism and liberal imperialism, I find, with Kant and other liberal
republicans, that liberalism does leave a coherent legacy on foreign affairs. Liberal states are different. They are
indeed peaceful, yet they are also prone to make war.... Liberal states have created a separate peace, as Kant
argued they would, and have also discovered liberal reasons for aggression, as he feared they might. I conclude
by arguing that the differences among liberal pacifism, liberal imperialism, and Kant's liberal internationalism
are not arbitrary but rooted in differing conceptions of the citizen and the state.
Liberal Pacifism
There is no canonical description of liberalism. What we tend to call liberal resembles a family portrait of
principles and institutions, recognizable by certain characteristics-for example, individual freedom, political
participation, private property, and equality of opportunitythat most liberal states share, although none has
perfected them all. Joseph Schumpeter clearly fits within this family when he considers the international effects
of capitalism and democracy.
Schumpeter's "Sociology of Imperialisms," published in 1919, made a coherent and sustained argument
concerning the pacifying (in the sense of nonaggressive) effects of liberal institutions and principles
(Schumpeter, 1955; see also Doyle, 1986, pp. 155-59). Unlike some of the earlier liberal theorists who focused
on a single feature such as trade or failed to examine critically the arguments they were advancing, Schumpeter
saw the interaction of capitalism and democracy as the foundation of liberal pacifism, and he tested his
arguments in a sociology of historical imperialisms.
He defines imperialism as "an objectless disposition on the part of a state to unlimited forcible expansion"
(Schumpeter, 1955, p. 6). Excluding imperialisms that were mere "catchwords" and those that were "objectful"
(e.g., defensive imperialism), he traces the roots of objectless imperialism to three sources, each an atavism.
Modern imperialism, according to Schumpeter, resulted from the combined impact of a "war machine," warlike
instincts, and export monopolism.
Once necessary, the war machine later developed a life of its own and took control of a state's foreign
policy: "Created by the wars that required it, the machine now created the wars it required" (Schumpeter, 1995,
p. 25). Thus, Schumpeter tells us that the army of ancient Egypt, created to drive the Hyksos out of Egypt, took
over the state and pursued militaristic imperialism. Like the later armies of the courts of absolutist Europe, it
fought wars for the sake of glory and booty, for the sake of warriors and monarchs-wars gratia warriors.
A warlike disposition, elsewhere called "instinctual elements of bloody primitivism," is the natural ideology
of a war machine. It also exists independently; the Persians, says Schumpeter (1955, pp. 25-32), were a warrior
nation from the outset.
Under modern capitalism, export monopolists, the third source of modern imperialism, push for imperialist
expansion as a way to
expand their closed markets. The absolute monarchies were the last clear-cut imperialisms. Nineteenth-century
imperialisms merely represent the vestiges of the imperialisms created by Louis XIV and Catherine the Great.
Thus, the export monopolists are an atavism of the absolute monarchies, for they depend completely on the
tariffs imposed by the monarchs and their militaristic successors for revenue (Schumpeter,1955, pp. 82-83).
Without tariffs, monopolies would be eliminated by foreign competition.
Modern (nineteenth century) imperialism, therefore, rests on an atavistic war machine, militaristic attitudes
left over from the days of monarchical wars, and export monopolism, which is nothing more than the economic
residue of monarchical finance. In the modern era, imperialists gratify their private interests. From the national
perspective, their imperialistic wars are objectless.
Schumpeter's theme now emerges. Capitalism and democracy are forces for peace. Indeed, they are
antithetical to imperialism. For Schumpeter, the further development of capitalism and democracy means that
imperialism will inevitably disappear. He maintains that capitalism produces an unwarlike disposition; its
populace is "democratized, individualized, rationalized" (Schumpeter,1955, p. 68). The people's energies are
daily absorbed in production. The disciplines of industry and the market train people in "economic rationalism";
the instability of industrial life necessitates calculation. Capitalism also "individualizes"; "subjective
opportunities" replace the "immutable factors" of traditional, hierarchical society. Rational individuals demand
democratic governance.
Democratic capitalism leads to peace. As evidence, Schumpeter claims that throughout the capitalist world
an opposition has arisen to "war, expansion, cabinet diplomacy"; that contemporary capitalism is associated
with peace parties; and that the industrial worker of capitalism is "vigorously anti-imperialist." In addi
tion, he points out that the capitalist world has developed means of preventing war, such as the Hague Court and
that the least feudal, most capitalist society-the United States-has demonstrated the least imperialistic tendencies
(Schumpeter, 1955, pp. 95-96). An example of the lack of imperialistic tendencies in the U.S., Schumpeter
thought, was our leaving over half of Mexico unconquered in the war of 1846-48.
Schumpeter's explanation for liberal pacifism is quite simple: Only war profiteers and military aristocrats
gain from wars. No democracy would pursue a minority interest and tolerate the high costs of imperialism.
When free trade prevails, "no class" gains from forcible expansion because
raw materials and food stuffs are as accessible to each nation as though they were in its own territory. Where
the cultural backwardness of a region makes normal economic intercourse dependent on colonization it does
not matter, assuming free trade, which of the "civilized" nations undertakes the task of colonization.
(Schumpeter, 1955, pp. 75-76)
Schumpeter's arguments are difficult to evaluate. In partial tests of quasi-Schumpeterian propositions,
Michael Haas (1974, pp. 464-65) discovered a cluster that associates democracy, development, and sustained
modernization with peaceful conditions. However, M. Small and J. D. Singer (1976) have discovered that there
is no clearly negative correlation between democracy and war in the period 1816-1965the period that would be
central to Schumpeter's argument.
Later in his career, in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Schumpeter (1950, pp. 127-28) acknowledged
that "almost purely bourgeois commonwealths were often aggressive when it seemed to pay-like the Athenian or
the Venetian commonwealths." Yet he stuck to his pacifistic guns, restating the view that capitalist democracy
"steadily tells ... against the use of military force and for peaceful arrangements,
even when the balance of pecuniary advantage is clearly on the side of war which, under modern circumstances,
is not in general very likely" (Schumpeter,1950, p. 128). A ... study by R. J. Rummel (1983) of "libertarianism"
and international violence is the closest test Schumpeterian pacifism has received. "Free" states (those enjoying
political and economic freedom) were shown to have considerably less conflict at or above the level of
economic sanctions than "nonfree" states. The free states, the partly free states (including the democratic
socialist countries such as Sweden), and the nonfree states accounted for 24%, 2690, and 61 %, respectively, of
the international violence during the period examined.
These effects are impressive but not conclusive for the Schumpeterian thesis. The data are limited, in this
test, to the period 1976 to 1980. It includes, for example, the Russo-Afghan War, the Vietnamese invasion of
Cambodia, China's invasion of Vietnam, and Tanzania's invasion of Uganda but just misses the U.S.,
quasi-covert intervention in Angola (1975) and our not so covert war against Nicaragua. More importantly, it
excludes the cold war period, with its numerous interventions, and the long history of colonial wars (the Boer
War, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Intervention, etc.) that marked the history of liberal, including
democratic capitalist, states.
The discrepancy between the warlike history of liberal states and Schumpeter's pacifistic expectations highlights
three extreme assumptions. First, his "materialistic monism" leaves little room for noneconomic objectives,
whether espoused by states or individuals. Neither glory, nor prestige, nor ideological justification, nor the pure
power of ruling shapes policy. These nonmaterial goals leave little room for positivesum gains, such as the
comparative advantages of trade. Second, and relatedly, the same is true for his states. The political life of
individuals seems to have been homogenized at the same time as the individuals were "rationalized,
individualized, and democratized." Citizens--capitalists and workers, rural and urban-seek material welfare.
Schumpeter seems to presume that ruling makes no difference. He also presumes that no one is prepared to take
those measures (such as stirring up foreign quarrels to preserve a domestic ruling coalition) that enhance one's
political power, despite detrimental effects on mass welfare. Third, like domestic politics, world politics are
homogenized. Materially monistic and democratically capitalist, all states evolve toward free trade and liberty
together. Countries differently constituted seem to disappear from Schumpeter's analysis. "Civilized" nations
govern "culturally backward" regions. These assumptions are not shared by Machiavelli's theory of liberalism.
Liberal Imperialism
Machiavelli argues, not only that republics are not pacifistic, but that they are the best form of state for imperial
expansion. Establishing a republic fit for imperial expansion is, moreover, the best way to guarantee the survival
of a state.
Machiavelli's republic is a classical mixed republic. It is not a democracy-which he thought would quickly
degenerate into a tyranny-but is characterized by social equality, popular liberty, and political participation
(Machiavelli, 1950, bk. 1, chap. 2, p. 112). The consuls serve as "kings," the senate as an aristocracy managing
the state, and the people in the assembly as the source of strength.
Liberty results from "disunion"-the competition and necessity for compromise required by the division of
powers among senate, consuls, and tribunes (the last representing the common people). Liberty also results from
the popular veto. The powerful few threaten the rest with tyranny Machiavelli says because they seek to
dominate. The mass demands not to be dominated, and their veto thus preserves the liberties of the state
(Machiavelli, 1950, bk. 1, chap. 5, p. 122). However, since the people and the rulers
have different social characters, the people need to be "managed" by the few to avoid having their recklessness
overturn or their fecklessness undermine the ability of the state to expand (Machiavelli, 1950, bk.1, chap. 53, pp.
249-50). Thus the senate and the consuls plan expansion, consult oracles, and employ religion to manage the
resources that the energy of the people supplies.
Strength, and then imperial expansion, results from the way liberty encourages increased population and
property, which grow when the citizens know their lives and goods are secure from arbitrary seizure. Free
citizens equip large armies and provide soldiers who fight for public glory and the common good because these
are, in fact, their own (Machiavelli, 1950, bk. 2, chap. 2, pp. 287-90). If you seek the honor of having your state
expand, Machiavelli advises, you should organize it as a free and popular republic like Rome, rather than as an
aristocratic republic like Sparta or Venice. Expansion thus calls for a free republic.
"Necessity"-political survival--calls for expansion. If a stable aristocratic republic is forced by foreign
conflict "to extend her territory, in such a case we shall see her foundations give way and herself quickly
brought to ruin"; if, on the other hand, domestic security prevails, "the continued tranquility would enervate her,
or provoke internal dissensions, which together, or either of them separately, will apt to prove her ruin"
(Machiavelli, 1950, bk. 1, chap. 6, p. 129). Machiavelli therefore believes it is necessary to take the constitution
of Rome, rather than that of Sparta or Venice, as our model.
Hence, this belief leads to liberal imperialism. We are lovers of glory, Machiavelli announces. We seek to
rule or, at least, to avoid being oppressed. In either case, we want more for ourselves and our states than just
material welfare (materialistic monism). Because other states with similar aims thereby threaten us, we prepare
ourselves for expansion. Because our fellow citizens threaten us if we do not allow them either to satisfy their
ambition or to release their political energies through imperial expansion, we expand.
There is considerable historical evidence for liberal imperialism. Machiavelli's (Polybius's) Rome and
Thucydides' Athens both were imperial republics in the Machiavellian sense (Thucydides, 1954, bk. 6). The
historical record of numerous U.S. interventions in the postwar period supports Machiavelli's argument, but the
current record of liberal pacifism, weak as it is, calls some of his insights into question. To the extent that the
modern populace actually controls (and thus unbalances) the mixed republic, its diffidence may outweigh elite
("senatorial" aggressiveness.
We can conclude either that (1) liberal pacifism has at least taken over with the further development of
capitalist democracy, as Schumpeter predicted it would or that (2) the mixed record of liberalism=pacifism and
imperialism-indicates that some liberal states are Schumpeterian democracies while others are Machiavellian
republics. Before we accept either. conclusion, however, we must consider a third apparent regularity of modern
world politics.
Liberal Internationalism
Modern liberalism carries with it two legacies. They do not affect liberal states separately, according to whether
they are pacifistic or imperialistic, but simultaneously.
The first of these legacies is the pacification of foreign relations among liberal states.' During the nineteenth
century, the United States and Great Britain engaged in nearly continual strife; however, after the Reform Act of
1832 defined actual representation as the formal source of the sovereignty of the British parliament, Britain and
the United States negotiated their disputes. They negotiated despite, for example, British grievances during the
Civil War against the North's blockade of the South, with which Britain had close economic ties. Despite severe
Anglo-French colonial rivalry, liberal France and liberal Britain formed an entente against illiberal Germany
before World War I. And from 1914 to 1915, Italy, the liberal member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and
Austria, chose not to fulfill its obligations under that treaty to support its allies. Instead, Italy joined in an
alliance with Britain and France, which prevented it from having to fight other liberal states and then declared
war on Germany and Austria. Despite generations of AngloAmerican tension and Britain's wartime restrictions
on American trade with Germany, the United States leaned toward Britain and France from 1914 to 1917 before
entering World War I on their side.
Beginning in the eighteenth century and slowly growing since then, a zone of peace, which Kant called the
"pacific federation" or "pacific union," has begun to be established among liberal societies. More than 40 liberal
states currently make up the union. Most are in Europe and North America, but they can be found on every
continent.
Here the predictions of liberal pacifists (and President Reagan) are borne out: liberal states do exercise
peaceful restraint, and a separate peace exists among them. This separate peace provides a solid foundation for
the United States' crucial alliances with the liberal powers, e.g., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and our
Japanese alliance. This foundation appears to be impervious to the quarrels with our allies that bedeviled the
Carter and Reagan administrations. It also offers the promise of a continuing peace among liberal states, and as
the number of liberal states increases, it announces the possibility of global peace this side of the grave or world
conquest.
Of course, the probability of the outbreak of war in any given year between any two given states is low. The
occurrence of a war between any two adjacent states, considered over a long period of time, would be more
probable. The apparent absence of war between liberal states, whether adjacent or not, for almost 200 years thus
may have significance. Similar claims cannot be made for feudal, fascist, communist, authoritarian, or
totalitarian forms of rule (Doyle, 1983a, pp. 222), nor for pluralistic or merely similar societies. More significant
perhaps is that when states are forced to decide on which side of an impending world war they will fight, liberal
states all wind up on the same side despite the complexity of the paths that take them there. These characteristics
do not prove that the peace among liberals is statistically significant nor that liberalism is the sole valid
explanation for the peace.' They do suggest that we consider the possibility that liberals have indeed established
a separate peace-but only among themselves.
Liberalism also carries with it a second legacy: international "imprudence" (Hume, 1963, pp. 346-17).
Peaceful restraint only seems to work in liberals' relations with other liberals. Liberal states have fought
numerous wars with non-liberal states.
Many of these wars have been defensive and thus prudent by necessity. Liberal states have been attacked
and threatened by nonliberal states that do not exercise any special restraint in their dealings with the liberal
states. Authoritarian rulers both stimulate and respond to an international political environment in which
conflicts of prestige, interest, and pure fear of what other states might do all lead states toward war. War and
conquest have thus characterized the careers of many authoritarian rulers and ruling parties, from Louis XIV and
Napoleon to Mussolini's fascists, Hitler's Nazis, and Stalin's communists.
Yet we cannot simply blame warfare on the authoritarians or totalitarians, as many of our more enthusiastic
politicians would have us do. Most wars arise out of calculations and miscalculations of interest,
misunderstandings, and mutual suspicions, such as those that characterized the origins of World War I.
However, aggression by the liberal state has also characterized a large number of wars. Both France and Britain
fought expansionist colonial wars throughout the nineteenth century. The United States fought a similar war
with Mexico from 1846 to 1848, waged a war of annihilation against the American Indians, and intervened
militarily against sovereign states many times before and after World War II. Liberal states invade weak
nonliberal states and display striking distrust in dealings with powerful nonliberal states (Doyle, 1983b).
Neither realist (statist) nor Marxist theory accounts well for these two legacies. While they can account for
aspects of certain periods of international stability, neither the logic of the balance of power nor the logic of
international hegemony explains the separate peace maintained for more than 150 years among states sharing
one particular form of governance-liberal principles and institutions. Balance-ofpower theory expects-indeed is
premised upon-flexible arrangements of geostrategic rivalry that include preventive war. Hegemonies wax and
wane, but the liberal peace holds. Marxist "ultra-imperialists" expect a form of peaceful rivalry among
capitalists, but only liberal capitalists maintain peace. Leninists expect liberal capitalists to be aggressive toward
nonliberal states, but they also (and especially) expect them to be imperialistic toward fellow liberal capitalists.
Kant's theory of liberal internationalism helps us understand these two legacies. The importance of
Immanuel Kant as a theorist of international ethics has been well appreciated, but Kant also has an important
analytical theory of international politics. Perpetual Peace, written in 1795 (Kant, 1970, pp. 93-130), helps us
understand the interactive nature of international relations. Kant tries to teach us methodologically that we can
study neither the systemic relations of states nor the varieties of state behavior in isolation from each other.
Substantively, he anticipates for use the ever-widening pacification of a liberal pacific union, explains
this pacification, and at the same time suggests why liberal states are not pacific in their relations with
nonliberal states. Kant argues that perpetual peace will be guaranteed by the everwidening acceptance of three
"definitive articles" of peace. When all nations have accepted the definitive articles in a metaphorical "treaty" of
perpetual peace he asks them to sign, perpetual peace will have been established.
The First Definitive Article requires the civil constitution of the state to be republican. By republican Kant
means a political society that has solved the problem of combining moral autonomy, individualism, and social
order. A private property and market-oriented economy partially addressed that dilemma in the private sphere.
The public, or political, sphere was more troubling. His answer was a republic that preserved juridical
freedom-the legal equality of citizens as subjects-on the basis of a representative government with a separation
of powers. Juridical freedom is preserved because the morally autonomous individual is by means of
representation a self-legislator making laws that apply to all citizens equally, including himself or herself.
Tyranny is avoided because the individual is subject to laws he or she does not also administer (Kant, PP, pp.
99-102).'
Liberal republics will progressively establish peace among themselves by means of the pacific federation, or
union (foedus pacificum), described in Kant's Second Definitive Article. The pacific union will establish peace
within a federation of free states and securely maintain the rights of each state. The world will not have achieved
the "perpetual peace" that provides the ultimate guarantor of republican freedom until "a late stage and after
many unsuccessful attempts" (Kant, UH, p. 47). At that time, all nations will have learned the lessons of peace
through right conceptions of the appropriate constitution, great and sad experience, and good will. Only then
will individuals enjoy perfect republican rights or the full guarantee of a global and just peace. In the meantime,
the "pacific
federation" of liberal republics-"an enduring and gradually expanding federation likely to prevent war"-brings
within it more and more republics-despite republican collapses, backsliding, and disastrous wars-creating an
everexpanding separate peace (Kant, PP, p. 105)' Kant emphasizes that
it can be shown that this idea of federalism, extending gradually to encompass all states and thus leading to
perpetual peace, is practicable and has objective reality. For if by good fortune one powerful and
enlightened nation can form a republic (which is by nature inclined to seek peace), this will provide a focal
point for federal association among other states. These will join up with the first one, thus securing the
freedom of each state in accordance with the idea of international right, and the whole will gradually spread
further and further by a series of alliances of this kind. (Kant, PP, p.104)
The pacific union is not a single peace treaty ending one war, a world state, nor a state of nations. Kant finds
the first insufficient. The second and third are impossible or potentially tyrannical. National sovereignty
precludes reliable subservience to a state of nations; a world state destroys the civic freedom on which the
development of human capacities rests (Kant, UH, p. 50). Although Kant obliquely refers to various classical
interstate confederations and modern diplomatic congresses, he develops no systematic organizational
embodiment of this treaty and presumably does not find institutionalization necessary. He appears to have in
mind a mutual non-aggression pact, perhaps a collective security agreement, and the cosmopolitan law set forth
in the Third Definitive Article.'
The Third Definitive Article establishes a cosmopolitan law to operate in conjunction with the pacific union.
The cosmopolitan law "shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality." In this Kant calls for the
recognition of the "right of a foreigner not to be treated with hostility when he arrives on someone else's
territory." This "does not extend beyond those conditions which make it possible for them [foreigners] to
attempt to enter into relations [commerce] with the native inhabitants" (Kant, PP, p. 106). Hospitality does not
require extending to foreigners either the right to citizenship or the right to settlement, unless the foreign visitors
would perish if they were expelled. Foreign conquest and plunder also find no justification under this right.
Hospitality does appear to include the right of access and the obligation of maintaining the opportunity for
citizens to exchange goods and ideas without imposing the obligation to trade (a voluntary act in all cases under
liberal constitutions).
Perpetual peace, for Kant, is an epistemology, a condition for ethical action, and, most importantly, an
explanation of how the "mechanical process of nature visibly exhibits the purposive plan of producing concord
among men, even against their will and indeed by means of their very discord" (Kant, PP, p. 108; UH, pp.
44-45). Understanding history requires an epistemological foundation, for without a teleology, such as the
promise of perpetual peace, the complexity of history would overwhelm human understanding (Kant, UH, pp.
51-53). Perpetual peace, however, is not merely a heuristic device with which to interpret history. It is
guaranteed, Kant explains in the "First Addition" to Perpetual Peace ("On the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace"),
to result from men fulfilling their ethical duty or, failing that, from a hidden plan.6 Peace is an ethical duty
because it is only under conditions of peace that all men can treat each other as ends, rather than means to an
end (Kant, UH, p. 50). In order for this duty to be practical, Kant needs, of course, to show that peace is in fact
possible. The widespread sentiment of approbation that he saw aroused by the early success of the French revolutionaries
showed him that we can indeed be moved by ethical sentiments with a cosmopolitan reach (Kant,
CF, pp. 181-82). This does not mean, however, that perpetual peace is certain ("prophesiable"). Even the
scientifically regular course of the planets could be changed by a wayward comet striking them out of orbit.
Human freedom requires that we allow for much greater reversals in the course of history. We must, in fact,
anticipate the possibility of backsliding and destructive wars-though these will serve to educate nations to the
importance of peace (Kant, UH, pp. 47-48).
In the end, however, our guarantee of perpetual peace does not rest on ethical conduct. As Kant emphasizes,
we now come to the essential question regarding the prospect of perpetual peace. What does nature do in
relation to the end which man's own reason prescribes to him as a duty, i.e., how does nature help to promote his
moral purpose? And how does nature guarantee that what man ought to do by the laws of his freedom (but does
not do) will in fact be done through nature's compulsion, without prejudice to the free agency of man? ... This
does not mean that nature imposes on us a duty to do it, for duties can only be imposed by practical reason. On
the contrary, nature does it herself, whether we are willing or not: facta volentem ducunt, nolentem tradunt. (PP,
p. 112)
The guarantee thus rests, Kant argues, not on the probable behavior of moral angels, but on that of "devils,
so long as they possess understanding" (PP, p.112). In explaining the sources of each of the three definitive
articles of the perpetual peace, Kant then tells us how we (as free and intelligent devils) could be motivated by
fear, force, and calculated advantage to undertake a course of action whose outcome we could reasonably
anticipate to be perpetual peace. Yet while it is possible to conceive of the Kantian road to peace in these terms,
Kant himself recognizes and argues that social evolution also makes the conditions of moral behavior less
onerous and hence more likely (CF, pp. 18789). In tracing the effects of both political and moral development,
he builds an account of
why liberal states do maintain peace among themselves and of how it will (by implication, has) come about that
the pacific union will expand. He also explains how these republics would engage in wars with nonrepublics and
therefore suffer the "sad experience" of wars that an ethical policy might have avoided.
The first source of the three definitive articles derives from a political evolution-from a constitutional law.
Nature (providence) has seen to it that human beings can live in all the regions where they have been driven to
settle by wars. (Kant, who once taught geography, reports on the Lapps, the Samoyeds, the Pescheras.) "Asocial
sociability" draws men together to fulfill needs for security and material welfare as it drives them into conflicts
over the distribution and control of social products (Kant, UH, pp. 44-45; PP, pp. 110-11). This violent natural
evolution tends towards the liberal peace because "asocial sociability" inevitably leads toward republican
governments, and republican governments are a source of the liberal peace.
Republican representation and separation of powers are produced because they are the means by which the
state is "organized well" to prepare for and meet foreign threats (by unity) and to tame the ambitions of selfish
and aggressive individuals (by authority derived from representation, by general laws, and by nondespotic
administration) (Kant, PP, pp. 112-13). States that are not organized in this fashion fail. Monarchs thus
encourage commerce and private property in order to increase national wealth. They cede rights of
representation to their subjects in order to strengthen their political support or to obtain willing grants of tax
revenue.
Kant shows how republics, once established, lead to peaceful relations. He argues that once the aggressive
interests of absolutist monarchies are tamed and the habit of respect for individual rights engrained by
republican government, wars would appear as the disaster to the people's welfare that he and the other lib
erals thought them to be. The fundamental reason is this:
If, as is inevitably the case under this constitution, the consent of the citizens is required to decide whether
or not war should be declared, it is very natural that they will have a great hesitation in embarking on so
dangerous an enterprise. For this would mean calling down on themselves all the miseries of war, such as
doing the fighting themselves, supplying the costs of the war from their own resources, painfully making
good the ensuing devastation, and, as the crowning evil, having to take upon themselves a burden of debts
which will embitter peace itself and which can never be paid off on account of the constant threat of new
wars. But under a constitution where the subject is not a citizen, and which is therefore not republican, it is
the simplest thing in the world to go to war. For the head of state is not a fellow citizen, but the owner of the
state, and war will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure
palaces and court festivals are concerned. He can thus decide on war, without any significant reason, as a
kind of amusement, and unconcernedly leave it to the diplomatic corps (who are always ready for such
purposes) to justify the war for the sake of propriety. (Kant, PP, p. 100)
Yet these domestic republican restraints do not end war. If they did, liberal states would not be warlike, which is
far from the case. They do introduce republican caution-Kant's "hesitation"-in place of monarchical caprice.
Liberal wars are only fought for popular, liberal purposes. The historical liberal legacy is laden with popular
wars fought to promote freedom, to protect private property, or to support liberal allies against nonliberal
enemies. Kant's position is ambiguous. He regards these wars as unjust and warns liberals of their susceptibility
to them (Kant, PP, p. 106). At the same time, Kant argues that each nation "can and ought to" demand that its
neighboring nations enter into the pacific union of liberal states (PP, p. 102). Thus to see how the pacific union
removes the occasion of wars among liberal states and not wars between liberal and nonliberal states, we need to
shift our attention from constitutional law to international law, Kant's second source.
Complementing the constitutional guarantee of caution, international law adds a second source for the
definitive articles: a guarantee of respect. The separation of nations that asocial sociability encourages is
reinforced by the development of separate languages and religions. These further guarantee a world of separate
states-an essential condition needed to avoid a "global, soul-less despotism." Yet, at the same time, they also
morally integrate liberal states: "as culture grows and men gradually move towards greater agreement over their
principles, they lead to mutual understanding and peace" (Kant, PP, p.114). As republics emerge (the first
source) and as culture progresses, an understanding of the legitimate rights of all citizens and of all republics
comes into play; and this, now that caution characterizes policy, sets up the moral foundations for the liberal
peace. Correspondingly, international law highlights the importance of Kantian publicity. Domestically,
publicity helps ensure that the officials of republics act according to the principles they profess to hold just and
according to the interests of the electors they claim to represent. Internationally, free speech and the effective
communication of accurate conceptions of the political life of foreign peoples is essential to establishing and
preserving the understanding on which the guarantee of respect depends. Domestically just republics, which rest
on consent, then presume foreign republics also to be consensual, just, and therefore deserving of
accommodation. The experience of cooperation helps engender further cooperative behavior when the
consequences of state policy are unclear but (potentially) mutually beneficial. At the same time, liberal states
assume that nonliberal states, which do not rest on free consent, are not just. Because nonliberal governments
are in
a state of aggression with their own people, their foreign relations become for liberal governments deeply
suspect. In short, fellow liberals benefit from a presumption of amity; nonliberals suffer from a presumption of
enmity. Both presumptions may be accurate; each, however, may also be self-confirming.
Lastly, cosmopolitan law adds material incentives to moral commitments. The cosmopolitan right to
hospitality permits the "spirit of commerce" sooner or later to take hold of every nation, thus impelling states to
promote peace and to try to avert war. Liberal economic theory holds that these cosmopolitan ties derive from a
cooperative international division of labor and free trade according to comparative advantage. Each economy is
said to be better off than it would have been under autarky; each thus acquires an incentive to avoid policies that
would lead the other to break these economic ties. Because keeping open markets rests upon the assumption that
the next set of transactions will also be determined by prices rather than coercion, a sense of mutual security is
vital to avoid security-motivated searches for economic autarky. Thus, avoiding a challenge to another liberal
state's security or even enhancing each others' security by means of alliance naturally follows economic
interdependence.
A further cosmopolitan source of liberal peace is the international market's removal of difficult decisions of
production and distribution from the direct sphere of state policy. A foreign state thus does not appear directly
responsible for these outcomes, and states can stand aside from, and to some degree above, these contentious
market rivalries and be ready to step in to resolve crises. The interdependence of commerce and the international
contacts of state officials help create crosscutting transnational ties that serve as lobbies for mutual
accommodation. According to modern liberal scholars, international financiers and transnational and
transgovernmental organizations create interests in favor of accommodation. Moreover, their variety has
ensured that no single conflict sours an entire relationship by setting off a spiral of reciprocated retaliation
(Brzezinski and Huntington, 1963, chap. 9; Keohane and Nye, 1977, chap. 7; Neustadt, 1970; Polanyi, 1944,
chaps. 1-2). Conversely, a sense of suspicion, such as that characterizing relations between liberal and nonliberal
governments, can lead to restrictions on the range of contacts between societies, and this can increase the
prospect that a single conflict will determine an entire relationship.
No single constitutional, international, or cosmopolitan source is alone sufficient, but together (and only
together) they plausibly connect the characteristics of liberal polities and economies with sustained liberal peace.
Alliances founded on mutual strategic interest among liberal and nonliberal states have been broken; economic
ties between liberal and nonliberal states have proven fragile; but the political bonds of liberal rights and
interests have proven a remarkably firm foundation for mutual nonaggression. A separate peace exists among
liberal states.
In their relations with nonliberal states, however, liberal states have not escaped from the insecurity caused
by anarchy in the world political system considered as a whole. Moreover, the very constitutional restraint,
international respect for individual rights, and shared commercial interests that establish grounds for peace
among liberal states establish grounds for additional conflict in relations between liberal and nonliberal
societies.
Conclusion
Kant's liberal internationalism, Machiavelli's liberal imperialism, and Schumpeter's liberal pacifism rest on
fundamentally different views of the nature of the human being, the state, and international relations.'
Schumpeter's humans are rationalized, individualized, and democratized. They are also homogenized, pursuing
material interests "monistically." Because their material interests lie in peaceful trade, they and the democratic
state that these fellow citizens
control are pacifistic. Machiavelli's citizens are splendidly diverse in their goals but fundamentally unequal in
them as well, seeking to rule or fearing being dominated. Extending the rule of the dominant elite or avoiding
the political collapse of their state, each calls for imperial expansion.
Kant's citizens, too, are diverse in their goals and individualized and rationalized, but most importantly, they
are capable of appreciating the moral equality of all individuals and of treating other individuals as ends rather
than as means. The Kantian state thus is governed publicly according to law, as a republic. Kant's is the state
that solves the problem of governing individualized equals, whether they are the "rational devils" he says we
often find ourselves to be or the ethical agents we can and should become. Republics tell us that
in order to organize a group of rational beings who together require universal laws for their survival, but of
whom each separate individual is secretly inclined to exempt himself from them, the constitution must be so
designed so that, although the citizens are opposed to one another in their private attitudes, these opposing
views may inhibit one another in such a way that the public conduct of the citizens will be the same as if
they did not have such evil attitudes. (Kant, PP, p. 113)
Unlike Machiavelli's republics, Kant's republics are capable of achieving peace among themselves because they
exercise democratic caution and are capable of appreciating the international rights of foreign republics. These
international rights of republics derive from the representation of foreign individuals who are our moral equals.
Unlike Schumpeter's capitalist democracies, Kant's republics-including our ownremain in a state of war with
nonrepublics. Liberal republics see themselves as threatened by aggression from nonrepublics that are not constrained
by representation. Even though wars often cost more than the economic return they generate, liberal
republics also are prepared to protect and promote-sometimes forciblydemocracy, private property, and the
rights of individuals overseas against nonrepublics, which, because they do not authentically represent the rights
of individuals, have no rights to noninterference. These wars may liberate oppressed individuals overseas; they
also can generate enormous suffering.
Preserving the legacy of the liberal peace without succumbing to the legacy of liberal imprudence is both a
moral and a strategic challenge. The bipolar stability of the international system, and the near certainty of
mutual devastation resulting from a nuclear war between the superpowers, have created a "crystal ball effect"
that has helped to constrain the tendency toward miscalculation present at the outbreak of so many wars in the
past (Carnesale, Doty, Hoffmann, Huntington, Nye, and Sagan, 1983, p. 44; Waltz, 1964). However, this
"nuclear peace" appears to be limited to the superpowers. It has not curbed military interventions in the Third
World. Moreover, it is subject to a desperate technological race designed to overcome its constraints and to
crises that have pushed even the super-powers to the brink of war. We must still reckon with the war fevers and
moods of appeasement that have almost alternately swept liberal democracies.
Yet restraining liberal imprudence, whether aggressive or passive, may not be possible without threatening,
liberal pacification. Improving the strategic acumen of our foreign policy calls for introducing steadier strategic
calculations of the national interest in the long run and more flexible responses to changes in the international
political environment. Constraining the indiscriminate meddling of our foreign interventions calls for a deeper
appreciation of the "particularism of history, culture, and membership" (Walzer,1983, p. 5), but both the
improvement in strategy and the constraint on intervention seem, in turn, to require an executive freed from the
restraints of a representative legislature in the management of foreign policy and a political culture indifferent to
the universal rights of
individuals. These conditions, in their turn, could break the chain of constitutional guarantees, the respect for
representative government, and the web of transnational contact that have sustained the pacific union of liberal
states.
Perpetual peace, Kant says, is the end point of the hard journey his republics will take. The promise of
perpetual peace, the violent lessons of war, and the experience of a partial peace are proof of the need for and
the possibility of world peace. They are also the grounds for moral citizens and statesmen to assume the duty of
striving for peace.