Moravcsik, Andrew. "Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics". International Organization, Vol.51, No.4 (1997): 513-553.

Moravcsik, Andrew. "Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics". International Organization, Vol.51, No.4 (1997): 513-553.

• This article claims that the Liberal school of international relations [IR] theory is based on core concepts that differentiate it from the schools of Realist and Institutionalist IR theory. In the Liberal tradition of IR theory, the relations between states are based on the domestic societal ideals, interests, and institutions which affect policy making; this runs counter to Realist claims that distribution of resources is the primary motivator and Institutionalist claims that international, not domestic, institutions and norms are the main factors influencing the international order (513).
• Liberal IR theory has also been called a "societal," "state-society," "social purpose," or "preference-based" theory.
• The Liberal school of IR theory has been largely dismissed as utopian and irrelevant following the establishment of the Institutionalist or 'Neoliberal' school of IR -- also called 'functional regime theory' (514-515).
• The core actors in the international arena are individuals and private groups, who are mainly rational, risk-adverse, and pursue different interests within structural constraints. Liberalism looks at under what conditions of inter-group relations, the state will behave in different ways (516-517).
• Turning Realist critiques on their heads, the author claims that the Realism assumption that interests within a state, resulting in rational and unitary state actors, is utopian (517).
• Deep disagreements with a country about ideas of organization will make conflict more likely, an abundance of resources will result in greater chances for cooperation, and deep inequalities in the distribution of power within society make conflict more likely internally and externally (517).
• State represent some subset of the population, on the basis of whose interests states define their preferences. In this paradigm, states are constantly in flux as governmental processes change the influence of different groups, and therefore the behavior and interests of the state. The composition of the state also affects the types of leadership brought to power and their biases (518-520).
• The composition and organization of the state also affects how that country conducts foreign policy. Most foreign policy systems are centralized, with the political establishment having near total control over foreign policy decision-making, but cases of dispersed foreign relations by different elements of the bureaucracy have radically different IR outcomes (519).
• State behavior in the international arena is determined based on the expression of state interests or preferences within the constraints of the international system, largely caused by the actions and interests of other states (520). For example, conflicting interests will result in a zero-sum game predicted by Realism, whereas compatible interests will result in the cooperation predicted by Institutionalism (521).
• This is the strength of the Liberal school. Whereas the outcomes of Realism and Institutionalism will only apply to certain scenarios, Liberalism applies to all situations because its prediction of state behavior vary wildly depending on domestic conditions (521, 543).
• Both the Realist and Institutionalist schools critique the Liberal claims by arguing that the anarchy of the international systems prevents states from pursuing their actual foreign policy preferences, therefore making preferences essentially unimportant to actual IR practices (522).
• This critique rests on the false assumption that Liberal IR theory only looks at domestic conditions to predict foreign policy outcomes. Instead, Liberalism uses domestic knowledge to predict state preferences, which are then used with knowledge about international conditions and constraints to determine foreign policy outcomes (522-523).
• Criticism from Dr. Kenneth Waltz that Liberalism focuses on preferences of individual states is partly correct, but it fails to mention that the interaction between the preferences of different states is immensely important, the study of which allow Liberalism to explain how power differentials affect international politics (523).
• Even if the primary critique was true and international conditions, particularly anarchy, always prevented states from pursuing their preferences, understanding how power works requires determining what the intentions -- or preferences -- of countries are, as expressed by Dr. Robert Dahl's statement that power only exists if A forces B to do something that B would not have done otherwise (543).
• "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" (515).
• The geopolitical viewpoints, economic regulations, and decision-making process of a country can be largely determined by its collective values, meaning that these values can have major impacts of that nation's preferences. Although the exact impact of these values depends on the international arena, how that state views other actors is also determinate on collective values (525).
• The collective idea of the scope of the nation is immensely important in determining the extend of citizenship and the domestic conception of present borders. Conflict between antagonistic notions of national scope can lead to war internally or externally, with the boundaries determined by what states consider relevant to their nation (526).
• The legitimacy of domestic institutions, and the source of that legitimacy, is important to domestic stability and conditions of governance, as well as international relations. The 'wrong' legitimizing ideology, such as Communism, can be viewed as a threat and raise the likelihood of conflict (527).
• The nature of socioeconomic distributions and regulation affects the institutions which hold power in a society, and therefore the type of groups which determine the preferences of the state (527-528).
• "Commercial liberalism stresses the impact on state behavior of gains and losses to individuals and groups in society from transnational economic interchange" (515).
• Unlikely commonly believed, the Liberal school of IR does not necessarily advocate free trade, and does not believe that economic incentives will always overrule the potential for conflict. Instead the area of thought argues that economic costs and benefits encourage domestic actors to pursue different policies, which may result in a change of state preferences if those actors are in power (528).
• For example, rising and diversified businesses will demand free trade because they will benefit from its increased opportunities, whereas monopolies or uncompetitive businesses will lobby the government to adopt protectionist policies, because free trade is against their economic interests (529).
• Since private actors, including businesses, still represent the character of a nation and behavior according to national economic policy, unequal economic situations or unfair trade practices can increase conflict between states (529).
• "Republican liberalism stresses the impact on state behavior of varying forms of domestic representation and the resulting incentives for social groups to engage in rent seeking" (515).
• The mode of domestic representative institutions determines which societal groups are privileged and thus which groups have the greatest amount of say in the foreign policy of the state. (530). The degree to which the controlling group, not the general population, reaps rewards and incurs cost of foreign policy actions determines the foreign policy of the state (531-532).
• Unlike the Realist or Institutionalist schools, Liberal IR theory incorporates constructivist concepts of socially-mediated relations. This means that Liberalism can explain why some nations are threatening and others are not, something which continues to trouble the other two schools (535).
• The author refutes the idea that the failure of the League of Nations represents a failure of Liberal IR theory, but instead that the way in which the League collapsed -- the overthrow of most liberal governments in Europe -- confirms the predictions of Liberal IR theory (545-546).