Institutions will, according to Liberal theory, act as a policing power and collectively bring states to punish, with war or economic sanctions, those states that donвЂ™t cooperate with the collective system. Such alliances will lead to strong institutions that work to prevent war between states, keeping competition to other political realms and removing the need for a state to secure its sovereignty through hegemony or balancing as per the Realist system. They emphasize that the real power for states comes of mutually held ideas like religion, language, economies, and political systems that will lead states to form alliances and become interdependent. Instead of focusing on the simple survival of states as they try to become a hegemon, Liberals believe that common ideas can lead states into interdependence and so remove allies as threats to sovereignty. Liberals, unlike Realists, take into account the individual attributes that states possess and allow for the idea of lasting alliances based on common beliefs and ideas and attribute more power to common institutions then to states. This would all lead to the ultimate goal of Liberal thought, which is a totally interdependent world. For Liberal theory, there is hope for world peace if states seek common ground, forming alliances and institutions for policing the world powers.

However, it views the players involved in different terms than Realists and offers a different solution to the problem of war. Liberal theory too, believes in the view that states are seeking military power to combat anarchy. Offensive Realists argue that a Hegemon works to remove opportunities for states to engage in war by providing one powerful state that can block the ambitions of weaker states but itself feels no need to gain more power through war. Ideally, for the safety of a Defensive Realist state, the balance of power would polarize on two equal sides, providing a world that has far fewer players to engage in conflict and an almost stalemate like situation that offers little opportunity to engage powerful states in war with weaker states. They argue that the system works to constantly balance power: states gain power through war and military intimidation in order to counter a threat, which causes them to be a threat in turn, so that other states have to balance against them as they struggle to become a hegemon. This, for Realists, is the ultimate goal because of the belief that states view all politics with an eye to gaining more power than their competition in order to secure their safety. Central to Realists, is the belief that power must be defined in military terms, and stronger military power will lead states to what Relists believe are in their ultimate interests, either a hegemon for Offensive Realists or to a balance of two powerful states for Defensive Realists. Because there is anarchy in the international world, Realists believe that greater power is the only way for states to secure their sovereignty, and this leads to the belief that states are the main players in international politics because the system discourages individuality in favor of these types of power struggles. Realist theory holds that events in the world follow one basic system a Hobbesian system where everyone must be viewed as a threat and the only way to survive is to gain more power than your rivals. However, while all three theories discussed in this paper accept that the world is in a state of anarchy, how they believe governments should, and do, deal with this problem differs in each theory. This presents problems and dangers for entities operating in the anarchic world and a need for a system that will guide the actions of these entities. There are individual states that have varying degrees of power and sovereignty in their own land, but clearly there is no single state that makes laws for the whole world. Anarchy, for theories that deal with international relations, refers to the world as a whole having no government.

International Relations employs three theories that political scientists use to explain and predict how world politics plays out.To define the theories of Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism we will explore how each theory views anarchy, power, state interests, and the cause of war.ДЄll theories agree that the world is in anarchy and because of this it is helpful to start with a definition of anarchy and what it implies. This is a paper I wrote for my Introduction to International relations class.

Constructivism politics definition