POLI 244 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Rent-Seeking, Collective Action
12 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Moravcsik lays out liberalism as a theory of international politics and discusses basic assumptions and how it differs from existing theories. For liberals, the configuration of state preferences matters most in world politics not, as realists argue, the configuration of capabilities and not, as institutionalists (that is functional regime theorists) maintain, the configuration of information and institutions. Liberal theory of ir rejects the utopian notion that an automatic harmony of interest exists among individuals and groups in society; scarcity and differentiation introduce an inevitable measure of competition. For liberal theory, since individuals are on the average risk-averse, they defend existing investments but remain more cautious about assuming cost and risk in pursuit of new gains. Ideational liberalism stresses the impact on state behavior of conflict and compatibility among collective social values or identities concerning the scope and nature of public goods provision.
