Liberalism & Realism

Liberalism

Liberalism was one of the two main nineteenth-century political thoughts and movements in Latin America. It reached a dominant position in the latter half of the century, a time some have called the “liberal reform period,” following earlier periods of conservative dominance. The transition was facilitated as the continent became more economically internationalized. Liberalism underscored accountable government, the private sector, and the rule of law. It focused on economic modernization, initially through agriculture, export promotion, the minimization of religious influence, and the protection of individual rights (Clergern, 55-61).

In practice, the other political movement, conservatism, which opposed the antilocal, antidomestic, anticommercial, elite, pro-urban bias of liberalism, actually adopted many of the same liberal practices, even though it theoretically emphasized order, tradition, and religious inspiration. By the same token, there were repressive, liberal dictatorships, a seeming oxymoron since liberalism was supposed to protect individual rights.

Liberalism dominated the nineteen postcolonial states of Latin America in the nineteenth century. Adherents believed in the rule of law for all and the separation of government powers. The combination was to prevent the undue concentration of authority in and over the government while stimulating economic development. Different country conditions and elite compromises to obtain power or achieve political stability rendered liberal practices different from the theories they espoused. As merchants were favored under liberalism, some states like Peru established illiberal, economic protectionism. Some states soon failed in their liberal projects; Haiti, the first independent Latin American state and the first one in the world with universal equality, established an autocratic monarchy that soon disintegrated into civil war, autocracy, and political instability. Postcolonial Paraguay was illiberal in every respect except in its diminution of Church power (Gudmundson, 96-105).

Liberalism was an imported idea, though not primarily from Spain; furthermore, liberalism transmuted into different forms throughout the Americas. As the leading philosophy of the postcolonial regimes, its proponents were as much inspired by the liberal ideals of the U.S. and French revolutions and against Spanish corporatist ideals. Despite the similar colonial institutions and liberal tenets, different choices and timing characterized the adaptations. Argentina began liberalism at the earliest stages of independence and undertook some of the most radical reversals after the end of liberalism in the twentieth century. Paraguay delayed its liberal project until after it was conquered. Anticlericalism was much stronger in Paraguay than in Argentina.

Idealism and Realism

The term idealism in international relations is an old one. Idealism emerged as a dominant force in thinking about the world largely as a reaction to the World War I. In that conflict's wake, it was assumed that war was senseless and hardly effective at obtaining national objectives. This thinking became a centerpiece during the so-called First Debate among international relations theorists between realists and idealists during the interwar period of 1919 to 1939. Idealism permeated many of the peace movements, the push and eventual construction of the League of Nations, as well as some of the political initiatives (such as the Kellogg-Briand pact) to use legal means to outlaw ...