Liberal vs. Realist

We were asked in class today to give our take on the realist perspective versus the liberal perspective and one of our classmates raised the point that realism can be seen as the basic analysis of international relations. Liberal theory, she said, fails to explain times of war, pushing them aside as periods of deviance from rational thought.

I agree with her, as well as both theories, on differing levels. I think that liberal theory does incorporate various important influences that realism tends to dismiss as irrelevant, such as ethics. I also agree that when it comes down to a fundamental threat to survival, a state will forget moral obligation and pursue any sort of power that will take away that threat. No one theory will explain all situations and all actors, and so neither is entirely true, but neither is wrong. Both models present two extremes that do not realistically apply to any one situation -- they explain a black and white world -- but with these idealistic or fundamental concepts, we have a starting point with which to make sense of a world in shades of grey.

Another explanation for why neither theory is solely right is that rational thought is actually a subjective concept. For example, war as a means to an end would not be rational in the eyes of a pacifist, just as capitalism would not be a rational concept in the eyes of a socialist state. The political and social institutions within a state determine the course of rational thought, and therefore, the theory that will apply in explaining actions. States can act rationally, but who defines what is rational?