This week’s Student Spotlight is short piece on the role of liberalism in the word from Aila Sanober Ahmed for IP1015: International Relations Theories.
The main aim of the ideology of liberalism is to maintain equality and independence within how laws work and are governed. It believes one should attain maximum freedom in which they can pursue their own life goals. This essay will argue that liberalism is not a progressive force in the world.
The world is slowly outgrowing the values and norms of liberalism. It has been suggested that “we are also witnessing a crisis of liberalism: liberal norms are being eroded, institutions are under threat” (Forrester, 2019). The ideal beliefs of liberalism include free market, free trade, and globalisation, all of which have caused a lot of disruption to less economic countries. This can be seen through the IMF, an organisation that aims to provide loans to developing countries. However, to receive these loans, these countries must comply to and meet their demands and if they do not, they either do not receive any loans or may even end up in larger amounts of debt to wealthier countries. Due to the IMF holding such criteria, it can lead to diplomatic isolation of low-income countries or could even lead to war. These ideas of free market only prove to benefit developed countries as they can exploit cheap labour which increases their prosperity and ends up leaving developing countries in an even worse state.
This shows that the ideology of liberalism can only be viewed as profitable to the West as it forces deprived countries to seek for alternative ways to gain wealth. Western countries like America have seen a decline in their unipolar moment towards other countries like China, India, and Brazil enabling there to be more economic progress for such developing countries. For there to be progression, laws need to be governed to work in the interest of ordinary people and due to this idea of liberalism, developing countries have experienced an outgrowth in the views of some Western countries. For example, countries have experienced a diversion away from the values of America, the ‘American way of living’ and the ‘American dream’. Therefore, this suggests that while liberalism may be progressive and beneficial to the West, it is not progressive to those countries that are still developing. Such beliefs including free market and globalisation only end up creating new forms of exclusion and this political running of liberalism is just a way to cover up all the exploitations that occur due to capitalism.
Overall, for there to be progression, countries should come together. Laws should benefit all, not only some. However, liberalism only benefits the West and excludes developing countries, forcing them to seek alternative ways to develop.
Bibliography:
Katrina Forrester, 2019, The crisis of liberalism: why centrist politics can no longer explain the world
Timothy Dunne; Milja Kurki; Steve Smith, 2013, International relations theories: discipline and diversity, Oxford University Press, Oxford