Approaches To International Security: Kant, Smith, And Gartzke

Kant, Smith, and Gartzke

Immanuel Kant was a liberalist. He rejected the idea that peacetime was simply a period of time during which countries worked on how to best use violence to their advantage. Instead, he established the Kantian tripod or the three conditions required for peacetime. The three conditions were “republican constitutions,” “commercial spirit” of international trade, and an international institution for mitigations and negotiations to prevent conflict. In other words, states need to be democratic so that their populations have a say, there needs to be economic interdependence between states to incentivize conflict, and there needs to be some international institution states can go to for conflict resolution to prevent escalation to violence. According to John R. ONeal and Bruce Russett in The Kantian Peace, Kant also “believed that natural processes based on self-interest impelled individuals to act in ways that would eventually produce a lasting and just peace.” This is supported by his tripod, reminiscent of Adam Smith’s self-interest theory, and led to Gartzke’s economic freedom theory.

The first leg of Kant’s tripod is republican constitutions, or modern day democracies (with the exception of universal suffrage). This supports his belief that states acting in self interest will eventually produce a lasting and just peace, because democracies often value the spread and preservation of global democracy. Historically, democracies are less likely to go to war, because. The second leg of the tripod is commercial spirit. This also supports the self interest theory because a country would be ill-advised to invade a country on which it depends for imported goods. The third and final leg is international institutions which also supports Kant’s theory of self interest. Having an international institution will make it in a state’s self interest to preserve its reputation by not invading and instead by negotiating through the institution. This causes an act of self interest to produce peace.

When speaking of self interest, one must always think of Adam Smith. Adam Smith’s theory of self interest famously stated the following about individual actors in an economy: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” In this world, the individuals are already economically interdependent, because they rely on the butchers, brewers, and bakers for their sustenance. Individuals are also the perfect example of a democracy because they have universal suffrage – they control their own actions. And finally, there is an “international institution” that encourages negotiating over flat out brawling – norms, morals, and conscience. Comparing the individual in Adam Smith’s theory to the state in Kant’s theory, it’s difficult to decline Kant’s. Assuming that states act as rational individuals, it’s easy to see why acting in self-interest would lead to a lasting peace. A possible explanation for wartime under this theory is that states don’t actually practice universal suffrage – sometimes they are led into war by an irrational, or at least misrepresentative, leader.

Gartzke has a research-based theory that economic freedom is the most important factor in peacetime, moreso than international institutions or even democracy (although democracy is often correlated with economic freedom). He coins this as “Capitalist Peace” as opposed to Kant’s “Liberal Peace,” but they are both big parts of most commonly talked about “Democratic Peace”. Economic freedom is the ability of a state’s citizens to take economic actions. nations with freer capital markets are more dependent on international investors, because the investors are likely to withdraw if the country is engaged in a war or inter-state conflict. As a result, leaders of states give greater credibility to threats made by countries with higher levels of capital openness, causing the aforementioned countries to be more peaceful than others by avoiding the possibility of misrepresentation of information.