Session 6: Realist Liberalism

In his article, Herz provides an alternate view of understanding the security dilemma: Realist Liberalism, an amalgamation of Political Realism and Political Idealism. The former approach emphasizes on the urge for security and competition over power while taking their consequences into consideration. The latter paints a rather sunny picture of the world starting from a rationalistic assumption of harmony existing between the individual concern and the general good, where power will eventually be utilized for altruistic purposes, leading to the nullification of power struggle from political relations.

Realist Liberalism, therefore, combines the basic questions from the realist and liberal schools: “what is” (accept factual insights of political realism as the foundation) and “what ought to be” (aims to achieve the ideal attitude). As Herz points out this approach is the “theory and practice of the realizable ideal”. This theory attempts at propagating the notion of collective security by implementing a balance of power policy.

“In theory, everything works out. But then again, that’s in theory” and that remains the case with Realist Liberalism as well.  The lack of practical evidence of this theory and taking into account the power struggle in the status-quo among the various nations, it is difficult to analyze the viability of this approach in understanding the international relations. There seems to be a trend of fusing approaches to provide a holistic understanding of a particular field pointing to the limitations and lack of creativity that prevails among scholars to derive a new theory or maybe it is mere languor. Despite proclaiming the need for global peace, the security of a state does take precedence, be it to secure one’s border or to remain a reigning hegemon, states rationally contend for power in the international arena.